“Why Do People Accept Ideologies that Contradict their Conscious Interests?”
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: For a short time in the mid-1930s, Prague turned into the hub of discussions about the role of psychology in history. Far from being a mere methodological debate, the question why masses act against their conscious interests was seen as a central point of this endeavor. The issue intrigued not only the left-leaning Czechoslovak historians who formed the Historická skupina (the Historical Group) and were influenced by similar attempts in Germany, namely by the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt am Main, but also psychoanalysts in exile, like Otto Fenichel, who conducted inquiries in a similar vein, all the more as the menace of German fascism grew stronger. The paper sketches the contacts between different groups and presents the main results of their deliberations.
Source: Central European Cultures
Author: Florian Ruttner
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4402805299