IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v6y2016i2p2158244016643565.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Defending Alignment

Author

Listed:
  • Stephan Schwarz

Abstract

After the rise to power of the German National Socialist Party (January 30, 1933), German academia soon realized that a requirement for “muddling through†was to avoid the stigma of being regarded as “politically unreliable,†thus to appear aligned and loyal to the state policies. The focus is here on the physics community. A rhetoric of alignment developed with the objective to justify collaboration as a rational and morally justified strategy. In the early post-war years, the rhetoric was reoriented to deny any involvement (other than as resistance) systematically using a conceptual framework foreshadowing the principles of Cognitive Dissonance Reduction (CDR) and the related framework of Rhetorical (Informal) Fallacies. This affinity is here studied with reference to statements from the period.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephan Schwarz, 2016. "Defending Alignment," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(2), pages 21582440166, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:6:y:2016:i:2:p:2158244016643565
    DOI: 10.1177/2158244016643565
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244016643565
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2158244016643565?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:6:y:2016:i:2:p:2158244016643565. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.