Shame, Anti-Semitism, and Hitler's Rise to Power in Germany

• In Event: 4322 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 06. What History Can, and Can't, Teach Us

Abstract

Because modernity rationalizes the self, emotions have traditionally been undeveloped at best and at worst marginalized in mainstream social theory. Indeed, emotions as causes of war in modern societies has not been well received, particularly among historians and political scientists, who assume war primarily stems from material world and/or in thoughts and beliefs. This essay outlines a theory of the social-emotional world beginning with that implied in the work of W.E.B. Du Bois and C. H. Cooley, whose concepts of “double consciousness” and the “looking-glass self,” respectively, can be used to elucidate the sociological importance of emotions, particularly shame as a cause of war. This analysis is also an extension of and further elaboration on ideas discussed in Thomas Scheff’s Bloody Revenge: Emotions, Nationalism, and War (1994). In particular, it engages the pivotal role that Scheff argues shame plays in generating war and violence. To do so, we provide further analyses of the relationship between these emotions, anti-Semitism, and Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. Specifically, we analyze the ways in which Hitler and the Nazi regime attached blame for three key sources of national and personal shame (military losses, cultural decline, and supposed racial defilement) to Jewish Germans as a means of rigidifying German and Jewish identity categories. In mobilizing national shame in this way, Hitler was able to justify systematic legal action and, ultimately, systematic violence. Thus, we contribute to discussions of collective violence, movements, and emotions, as well as the relationship between them.

Authors

• G. Reginald Daniel, University of California-Santa Barbara

• Joseph Sterphone, University of California-Santa Barbara