The OP is long-winded, extremely convoluted, and completely unscientific.
It is best described as an opinion piece based upon qualitative insights drawn from a tiny number of unrepresentative samples.
Nonetheless, I found it a worthwhile read. Its conclusions, in particular, struck a chord with me:
> ... antidemocratic, racist, and antisemitic sentiments did not vanish when Germany was defeated in 1945 nor when it was refounded as a democratic state in 1949. Instead, they drifted, and acquired new representations they could attach themselves to. In the self-image of passivity and privacy, the analyzed group ... could cling to old antidemocratic, antisemitic, and racist stereotypes without violating the new discursive rules of the Bonn republic. It may have been that this private self-image was eventually conducive for the stabilization of democracy in West Germany. But the question remains as to what it did to its foundations.
Obviously extremist attitudes don't disappear overnight when a regime promoting them disappears. Still, I would prefer to see a comparison to other parts of the world. Were antidemocratic, racist and antisemitic attitudes more common in postwar West Germany compared to other countries?
What is particularly lacking in research is perspectives from countries beyond Western world. Humankind's history is full of racism and xenophobia everywhere, but most research has a Western perspective.
Every study would be better if it were meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. But those cost a lot, and scientists make do with the resources at hand. But I think this study has value in its own right. I doubt this study was the only one looking at these sentiments during that time period; this is just the one that got posted today.
I find that an odd take, as if the quasi-formal rejection of an objective truth was a disease that spread and flourished in the united state populace. I find them painfully difficult to read too, but isn't it possible that they called it?
> This Frankfurt group (Adorno is mentioned here) brought us the whole postmodernism
What postmodernism? Frankfurst school is neo-marxist, how can neo-marxists be postmodernists? They were very critical of each other. In fact, while the Frankfurt school, like most Hegelians, see contradiction and negation as an agent of change, Postmodernists (the two who wrote on that, so Foucault and
It is best described as an opinion piece based upon qualitative insights drawn from a tiny number of unrepresentative samples.
Nonetheless, I found it a worthwhile read. Its conclusions, in particular, struck a chord with me:
> ... antidemocratic, racist, and antisemitic sentiments did not vanish when Germany was defeated in 1945 nor when it was refounded as a democratic state in 1949. Instead, they drifted, and acquired new representations they could attach themselves to. In the self-image of passivity and privacy, the analyzed group ... could cling to old antidemocratic, antisemitic, and racist stereotypes without violating the new discursive rules of the Bonn republic. It may have been that this private self-image was eventually conducive for the stabilization of democracy in West Germany. But the question remains as to what it did to its foundations.
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