The F (Fascism) Scale (Horkheimer, The Authoritarian Personality)

Horkheimer produced a long study after WWII, in which he combined Marxian theory with Freud to find ways to describe and measure antidemocratic, authoritarian tendencies. He called this the F Scale. There were 9 psychological variables:

  1. Conventionalism (rigid adherence to middle class values)
  2. Authoritarian Submission (uncritical attitude toward idealized moral authorities)
  3. Authoritarian Aggression (suspicion and condemnation of people who violate conventional values)
  4. Anti-Intraception (opposition to the subjective and imaginative)
  5. Superstition and Stereotype (mystical belief in fatalism and the tendency to think in rigid categories)
  6. Power and Toughness (preoccupation with dominance-submission)

  7. Destruction and Cynicism (generalized hostility, vilification of the human)

  8. Projectivity (projection outward of unconscious impulses and paranoid beliefs)

  9. Sex (exaggerated concern with sexual practices or conduct)

This was very much a psychological critique. Horkheimer saw this as a developmental issue. Children who were raised under rigid discipline were likely to feel helpless and inferior, and project their hostility onto outside groups. Horkheimer thought that re-education was necessary.


Note that this psychological account is a kind of rationalization, and likely brings some comfort to people who are able to use it on those they disagree with.


By the way, note the irony in the use of the F-scale - it seems to incorporate the kind of positivism that elsewhere critical theory wants to disavow.