Literature Review - A Look at Current Books and Articles of Interest to Diversity and Vitality Practitioners

Each quarterly issue of Diversity Praxis will summarize and/or reflect upon at least one seminal or recent contribution to Organizational Diversity and Vitality.

Anatomy of Prejudices
by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl
Harvard University Press, 1996
$35.00 Cloth 632 pp

SYNOPSIS:
Review by Richard Vicenzi
Global Diversity Institute

The Anatomy of Prejudices was named the "Best Book in Psychology for 1996" by the American Association of Publishers. The author, Elisabeth Young-Breuhl, is a Professor at Haverford College and a psychotherapist at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, and has written well-regarded biographies of Hannah Arendt (under whom she did doctoral studies) and Anna Freud. She has also written a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of Sigmund Freud's thinking on women. The Anatomy of Prejudices is a dense and ambitious work of well over 500 pages. This review deals with the first half of the book. The second half will be discussed in our next edition.

The first section of this book is essentially a history of and critique of the study of prejudice since the early 1950s. When the noted psychologist Gordon Allport published The Nature of Prejudice in 1954, social science was in its infancy. Allport's book was a survey of research on prejudice to that time, and it became one of the more influential touchstones in the social-scientific study of prejudice thereafter. In the preface to his book, Allport extolled the ability of science to " 'seek out the root of prejudice and find concrete means for implementing men's affiliative values.' Since the end of the Second World War, universities in many lands have given new prominence to this approach under various academic names: social science, human development, social psychology, human relations, social relations... Within the past decade or two there has been more solid and enlightening study in this area than in all previous centuries combined."

As Young-Bruehl notes, since the publication of The Nature of Prejudice there has been no review, overview, or synthesis of the kind that Allport provided. The sheer volume of published work on the subject of prejudices since 1954 precludes the effort. Not only have the social sciences themselves grown into vast enterprises, the literature produced by those subjected to prejudice, working often in non-social scientific or historical genres, has exploded. As the study of prejudice expanded from its focus on anti-semitism in the fifties, into racism in the sixties, later into feminism and then homosexuality, and more recently into ageism and prejudice against physically or mentally challenged, the contributions from outside the science have successfully demanded a more sophisticated theoretical approach to the science. This more sophisticated and inclusive approach has exposed the embedded prejudices within classic studies of prejudice that are now deeply and thoroughly understood as part of the problem of prejudice, not part of its solution. The defining moment of this transition was the elimination of homosexuality from the list of diseases in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Depathologizing homosexuality brought more clarity to the role of pathology in racist and sexist prejudice as well.

The central thesis of Young-Bruehl's book is the examination of a more definable obstacle to synthesis of the Study of Prejudice than the volume of work and the creation of distinct spheres of study. Young-Bruehl argues that the central assumption of Allport's The Nature of Prejudice, and its subsequent unchallenged acceptance within the sciences of psychology and sociology, is fatally flawed. This assumption is that prejudice, although it comes in different forms, can be reduced to one form, with one nature, a "generalized attitude." A person who is prejudiced against one out-group is likely to feel similarly about any out-group. The acceptance of this stance as dogma gave rise to the use of "ethnocentrism" as the universal behind all variations of prejudice: a pervasive tendency to divide the world into in-groups and out-groups as well as a generally hostile frame of mind toward out groups. Young-Bruehl concludes, "...this single claim, this "certainty" about the generalized attitude of prejudice, both made possible Allport's synthetic endeavor and helped him doom all subsequent social scientific studies in prejudice to superficialities about the very different prejudices -- like antisemitism, racism and sexism." This broad idea, Young-Bruehl contends, buttresses two related ideas: first, that what is important is prejudice's essence or nature, not how it may manifest over time or in different contexts; and second, that out-groups are virtually interchangeable scapegoats onto which in-group members project feelings that must be put somewhere.

Young-Bruehl sets out to establish a new framework in which to think about prejudice(s) by presenting a genealogy of Studies of Prejudice. She states in her introduction: "In the vast library on prejudice and prejudices one finds little reflection on how we theorize about prejudice, or on the conceptual and historical frames in which we think about prejudice(s) and the cause of prejudice(s).... (H)abits of thinking about prejudice -- and not thinking theoretically or in terms of critical theory -- have developed since the end of World War II, and these habits have been reinforced as one type of prejudice after another has come to center intellectual stage, especially in America, where, as Allport noted, 'the checkerboard of prejudice is... perhaps the most intricate of all.' Broadly,... certain ways of thinking have become axiomatic and others have been excluded." She intends to "reveal in detail the types of theoretical problems and obstacles... as well as to raise questions about what connections may exist between theoretical prejudices in the study of prejudice and prejudices themselves."

The major breakthrough of this book is Young-Bruehl's creation of a typology of prejudices that questions the assumption that all prejudices are basically the same. In the first section of the book, subtitled "A Critique of Pure Overgeneralization," she identifies the ideological and aspirational limitations of ethnocentrism as a form of prejudice, in spite of its universality. She contrasts ethnocentrism with what she sees as ideologically unlimited, potentially totalitarian prejudices that appear and grow in specific contexts, and are aimed not at ethnoi (a tribe, ethnic group or nation), but at marks of difference, particular qualities that can be found in and across many groups. She names these prejudices, exemplified by antisemitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, "ideologies of desire." She sets out the critical-theoretical agenda and reviews work done in social psychology, sociology, and other social sciences in each of these various prejudices.

In Section Two, "Starting Again: Prejudices -- In the Plural", Young-Bruehl defines her typology differentiated by the needs and desires that different prejudices fulfill. This section is heavily entrenched in psychological theory, and demanding on the reader who is not well-read in the field. She provides detailed descriptions of three distinct characterologically based prejudice types, which psychologically and socially form the basis for a given society to reflect or reject given prejudices. She postulates that the last century has been a time when "us versus them" has been converted into ideology in distinctive, unprecedented ways, and that ideologies of desire often manifest as a backlash to a movement toward equality for a given group. Frequently the resonance enjoyed by the resistance of those victimized by a given prejudice forces the prejudice to change how it is manifested, or who it is targeted against. This may result in the discriminatory practices defining the prejudice to be eliminated or reduced. The needs that these prejudices serve, however, cannot be dissipated. They remain and stay very much the same.

In Section Three, "Current Ideologies: The Victims Speak," Young-Bruehl specifically addresses the prejudices of antisemitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, both in current forms within their broad prejudicial types and as societal processes. She draws upon literature by the victims of the different prejudices, as opposed to the scientific literature she addresses more thoroughly in part one.

A central premise of The Anatomy of Prejudices is Young-Bruehl's distnction between ethnocentism and ideologies of desire. Young-Bruehl defines an ideology of desire as an 'orecticism' -- from the Greek word orektikos - pertaining to the desires. It is a world view that articulates itself as an ideology shaped by a desire, imagined to be true of a group that has always existed and is dependent upon no other for its existence, an imaginary group that the orecticist brings into being by wishing it so. Orecticisms magnify differences, turning physical and cultural variations that do not inherently constitute differences in social organization, mores, or culture into essential differences that are inherently exclusive. This is in contrast to ethnocentrism, which recognizes and promotes existing group identifications in an inclusive definition of values and behaviors. Ethnocentrism seeks to preserve the group, while orecticism tends to project hatred which is then felt by the orecticist to be coming from the outside, from the group that has received the projected hatred.

Young-Bruehl contrasts the thought processes of ethnocentists and orecticists in an provocative way. Ethnocentrists are likely to stereotype, to focus on cognitive content and affective valence to define their prejudice. This literal meaning of prejudice, deriving from the Latin praejudicum, a judgment formed in advance of a trial, "... which is -- by my scheme -- accurate only for ethnocentrism, fails to grasp that stereotyping is a form of relaxation. Relaxing through meditation means emptying the mind, whereas relaxing through stereotypical thinking requires filling the mind to such capacity that a novelty cannot penetrate." Orecticists, on the other hand, focus on psuedoscientifcally generalizing anatomical or biological differences as deficient or inferior, and work hard at getting their world to conform to their desires and vision, incorporating both fact and fantasy in the process of attempting to embody those beliefs into law.

Young-Bruehl's typologies incorporate Sigmund Freud's "Libidinal Types" as well as Anna Freud's theory of developmental lines, incorporating a range of contributions from Melanie Klein to Jacques Lacan. Very briefly and ignoring the nuance of the spectrum of manifestation, her typologies are:

• Obsessionals - those who devote themselves to tasks with constant activity, wholly embrace and identify with that activity, and seek attention for that dedication to activity. They are explicitly self regulating and self-critical. They are focused on the mind and on order. They seek security in routine, efficiency and predictability. Their prejudices allow them to displace guilty feelings onto others, and blame those "Others" for sabotage and as the source of their unhappiness. They are able to separate experience from emotion or reaction. They tend to divide the world into good and evil, pure and impure. Their objective is the elimination of those who are undesirable in those terms.
• Hystericals - restless, eager for relationships, often seductive, and concerned about appearances. They focus on the physical (including their own bodies) and on impressions. They tend to be unaware of the impact of their own behavior. They see the world hierarchically and as centered on "family," and fear challenges to that hierarchy or to the family's systems and values (including its prejudices). Their prejudices focus on those seen as "lower" and in maintaining the proper hierarchical relationships. Their attention to impression makes them susceptible to cultural influences and to the expectations of their "audience." Their objective is to share in life's satisfactions, and their prejudicial behavior toward the "Other" gravitates toward deprivation, particularly of erotic pleasures and phallic power, and toward humiliation to keep "the Other" in their place.
• Narcissists - the most complex and least clinically defined typology. Narcissists are ambitious and achievement oriented, either by personal achievement and attainment of power, or by submitting to another's power or joining (or imagining) a group seen to have power, or by living in the reflected glory of another. They see themselves as superior beings, a perception reinforced in their own eyes by their ability to postpone gratification in pursuit of their ambitions. Narcissistic tendencies are exploitive and manipulative. They make use of those they love for maintenance of their own self-esteem, just as they target those they hate for the maintenance of their own self-esteem. To the extreme narcissist, specific types of prejudice may be irrelevant. Differences of race, ethnicity, sex or class may be less important than physical differences of beauty or fitness, body type, or age or less important than mental differences of intelligence, position, taste, or culture. What matters is whether that individual (either mind or body) is useful or absorbable as part of the narcissist's sense of self. Objects of prejudice are pushed beyond the boundaries of difference to the extent that they are so different as to become nothing. Rather than the displacement of obsessionals or the projection of hystericals, narcissists employ disavowal, denial, and denigration. Their objective is to establish monoculturalism: "There are no others, only us."

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