Dressur Oder Erziehung, Schlagerituale Und Ihre Gesellschaftliche Funktion. (Breaking-In or Education, Beating Rituals and their Social Function.): By Klaus Horn. (Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, Schriften zur Psychologie und Soziologie, 1967. Pp. 127.)

This booklet, which otherwise is not more than a sharp critical review of some Neo-Nazi ethno-sociological essays (mainly by one W. Hävernick), could have had a greater scientific appeal if instead of just censoring the practice of corporal punishment in education (which it does alongside Freudian tracks, praising Aichhorn's pioneer work in Vienna in the twenties) it had given the interpretation of beating as a ritual and had also centred on the schizophrenic origin of authoritarian educational theory instead of only mentioning it.

The book's most valuable chapter is about the "murderer behind the desk", who is able to hide his cruelty behind anonymity, an attitude which the author connects also with obsessive thinking: taboos, rituals, isolation, and aggression. The more complex the regulations in society, the more paralysing they become and the less relief they can provide. Narcissism, inner emptiness, and lack of pity characterize persons who are obsessed with it and whom, with Adorno, the author calls the "manipulative type". They are pseudo-rational, can deal with things only under a technological or an organizational aspect. These people are infantile even if otherwise they may be highly specialized experts. They cathect only "forms of effectuation", but cannot cathect human beings with