Transformational Marxism became "psychologized." It's theories and ideology about causes of Fascism became a psychologized theory taking off from Anti-Semitism.
The Frankfurt School Transformational Marxists first used the theories of Freud for their psychological theory which was a part of what they called "Critical Theory." They did not call their ideology Marxist. Later, after many of the Frankfurt School Marxists were driven out of Germany by the Nazis to the United States, where some of our major universities welcomed them with open arms, they began to make use of American social and personality psychology.
Theodore W. Adorno, one of the Frankfurt School Transfrmational Marxists, was given a position at Berkeley, an elite university, where he further developed the Frankfurt School's ideology on the psychological origins of what they called "The Authoritarian Personality." The Authoritarian Personality was, they taught, what caused Fascism. And in the eyes of the Frankfurt School Marxists Christianity and the family were the causes of the Authoritarian Personality, and must be abolished.
So,what Adorno and his group at Berkeley were doing was using a methodology which was not very rigorous in an attempt to sell an ideology, which though it was not Bolshevism, it was Marxist. Marx as an athiest was a member of the Young Hegelians Movement. This is where Marx got his interest in the Hegelian dialectic, which was a modern German philosophical takeoff from the dialectic of Greek philosophy before the time of Christ.
Marx was influenced strongly by the Jacobins of the French Revolution, who were the guys who sent so many to the Guillotine. "In 1793, during the French Revolution the Jacobin leaders began the Reign of Terror. Under Robespierre, who took over the Revolution. The Jacobins used the Terror of the guillotine not only against counterrevolutionaries, but also against former Jacobins, and Jacobins themselves, Finally, Robespierre was overthrown in 1794, but not too long later the spirit of the Jacobins lived on in Marxism.
At Berkeley Theodore W. Adorno and his group developed a least two paper and pencil questionnaires which they claimed measure the extent to which a person has an Authoritarian Personality, and the extent to which he or she believed in Fascism. The Questionnaire thought to measure Authoritarian Personality was called the F Scale.
"The California F-scale is a 1947 personality test, designed by Theodor W. Adorno and others to measure the authoritarian personality. The "F" stands for "fascist". The F-scale measures responses on several different components of authoritarianism, such as conventionalism, authoritarian aggression, anti-intraception, superstition and stereotypy, power and "toughness," destructiveness and cynicism."
The Adorno group E Scale, their second paper and pencil questionnaire, was claimed to measure prejudice toward Jews, Blacks, other minorities, and a belief in the values of patriotism.
Remember that the Frankfurt School Transformational Marxists, who developed what they presented as social-personality theory, were originally interested in Anti-Semitism.
See:
http://newpol.org/content/frankfurt-school-and-jews
"Fortunately, Horkheimer and Adorno’s approach began to change in 1939-1940, when they began to develop a vast research project on anti-Semitism, ultimately sponsored by the American Jewish Committee."
"Adorno and Horkheimer organized, as mentioned above, a vast research project on anti-Semitism, which resulted in several books published as a series, “Studies in Prejudice.” The best known is The Authoritarian Personality (1948), written, in part, by Adorno, which showed that anti-Semitism is intimately associated with certain character structures, such as blind submission to authority, violent aggressive attitude toward the “other,” and rigid stereotypical thinking. Leo Löwenthal and Norbert Guterman wrote the second book of the series, Prophets of Deceit (1949), dealing with American anti-Semitic agitators such as Father Coughlin, Gerald L. K. Smith, and a few others. Curiously enough, there is hardly a mention, in this context, of the most influential—by far!—American anti-Semite, namely Henry Ford, author of The International Jew (1921), who not only had a big impact in the United States, but whose book became a favorite of a German fascist named Adolf Schickelgruber. "
Note that the "theory" which Adorno and Horkheimer created around their interest in anti-semiticism looks a lot like a theory within American Personality and Social Psychology. In fact, in the fifties, this theory was accepted by many people then working in American Personality and Social Psychology. At that time one of the most referenced topics in the Social and Personality Psychology peer review journals was the F Scale, which Adorno and his associates used in heir paper and pencil questionnaire study of anti-semiticism and the Authoritarian Personality."
Milton Rokeach's theory and the research by him and others using his Dogmatism Scale showed the problems with Adorno's F Scale, that it is biased toward an opposition to Fascism from the political Left. The F Scale and work of Adorno on the Authoritarian Personality is more Marxist propaganda than social science.
In the fifties, sixties and seventies many American Personality and Social psychologists worked on studies using the Adorno Group's F and E Scale Questionnaires who were not Marxists, at least not at that time.
This is partly why the social and personality psychologists who had experience with the research in the fifties and sixties on the Theodore W. Adorno Paper and Pencil Questionnaire called the F-Scale have an advantage in the understanding of the origins of a big part of the ideology of the present day Democratic Party. In addition, reading Dean Gotcher and his teachings on the dialectical mind, from Marxism, helps that understanding.
It might seem that at least some current day social, personality and clinical psychologists in the universities would become interested in and study the mental illness of the present day Democratic Party and the American Political Left. But I am not aware of any who have done so. The Political Left, to the extent that it advocates a totalitarian ideology which leads to an opposition to the Christian Gospel, Christian Morality, our Bill of Rights, and instead advocates the establishment of a totalitarian government, is also a good place to find and study the Psychopath Personality Disorder.
The psychologists in the universities may be promoting the ideology of the Left rather than examining it closely with a cold fishy eye.
