The concept of fascism in Adorno

• Grant number: 17/05984-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2018
• End date: January 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Fundamentals of Education
• Principal Investigator: Sinésio Ferraz Bueno
• Grantee: Samuel Estevão Vieira da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In his texts dating back to the 1950s, specifically devoted to the study of authoritarian personality and fascism, Adorno engaged himself to understand the procedures mobilized by group leaders in the sense of systematically reinforce stereotyped images of depreciation of ethnic, racial, and immigrant minorities in general. Starting from the assumption that the roots of the problem are to be sought in the agents of prejudice rather than the victims, in the text "Freudian theory and the pattern of fascist propaganda", Adorno employed concepts originating in Freud to explain the reasons for the efficiency of the fascist leader's rhetoric to convince and seduce crowds. The objectives of this Research Project are the analysis of the Freudian categories employed by Adorno for the conceptual elaboration and for the critique of fascism, as well as the understanding of the irrational character of adherence to forms of thought and behavior attuned to fascism. (AU)