A Lacanian Interpretation of the Authoritarian Personality

<p>This chapter re-interprets the classical theory of the authoritarian personality, which held that it was the consequence of a “sado-masochistic character structure,” in terms of the Lacanian theory of perversion. From the Lacanian perspective, what is meant by perversion is a twisting of the relation between authority and fantasy, not necessarily a deviant kind of sexuality. This approach makes possible an analysis of the ideological unconscious in terms of repressed political desire, something that improves on the strictly Oedipal template of Adorno’s classical position. The chapter begins by looking at Passolini’s Salo, a film that dramatizes Adorno’s Freudian theory that the authoritarian personality is grounded in violent sexuality. Serious problems with this interpretation are discussed before turning to the alternative, which is that the authoritarian personality is grounded in an eroticization of violence that has to do with a permissive superego. Slavoj Zizek’s concept of “totalitarian subjectivity” clarifies how to make use of this insight for political analysis, as illustrated by his discussion of Hitler, Stalin and Christian fundamentalism. Zizek’s discussion of the logic of fetishism as applied to political perversity is then used to describe the fundamental fantasy of the authoritarian personality today, which concerns the “predatory neighbour”.</p>