A Personalidade Autoritária: uma Análise à Luz de Adorno

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze the conception of the category of “authoritarian personality” formulated by the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), examining how this character structure is indissolubly tied to the dominant cultural climate of society. Through Adorno’s thought, the research seeks to foster debates that allow for a reconsideration of contemporary dilemmas and the manifestations of authoritarianism in the digital age. To achieve this aim, the study is guided by specific objectives and grounded in two central works of the Frankfurt School. First, it examines the studies on the formation of the authoritarian personality presented in The Authoritarian Personality (1975), of which Adorno is a co-author. This work, based on an integrated approach involving philosophy, sociology, and psychology, is crucial for understanding the genesis and psychosocial characteristics of the authoritarian individual, as well as the relevance of the social, psychic, and structural environment in this process. Second, the study draws on the essay The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception (1947), written in collaboration with Max Horkheimer. This text provides the contextual foundation to demonstrate how the cultural climate—mediated by the standardization of culture—functions as both a reflection and reinforcement of the anomalies of the capitalist system within society, creating a favorable context for the consolidation of the authoritarian personality. The research then turns to the contemporary landscape, seeking to show how the authoritarian personality has increasingly manifested itself through social media, a new cultural environment in which it proliferates and directly threatens democracy and minority groups. Finally, the study aims to present possible ways of confronting this issue by employing the rigor of critical thought and the methodology of philosophical dialectics to overcome contradictions and promote the autonomy of the subject.