(Non)Identity after Auschwitz

This article applies the thought of Theodor W. Adorno to The Believer, a film written and directed by Henry Bean and released by Seven Arts Pictures in 2001, starring Ryan Gosling as Danny Balint, a “Jewish Neo-Nazi”. Through this philosophical hermeneutic, it is suggested that Adorno’s philosophy would be a promising foundation upon which to study the genuine, extra-fictitious phenomenon of ethno-religiously raised Jews coming to subscribe to Neo-Nazi ideology; such a foundation is urgently needed, as the literature review conducted for this article indicates little to no investigation into this phenomenon beyond tabloid and polemic. The article proceeds by outlining a “negative hermeneutics” derived from the Adornoian dialectic, utilizing this methodology for a treatment of Bean’s screenplay. What is ultimately suggested is that the modern Jewish Neo-Nazi is an aftershock of the Holocaust, a post-traumatic contradiction which emerges inevitably from incredible suffering and cruelty. To understand and properly interrogate the emergence of such a persona is to allow their paradoxes to exist in perpetuity, forgoing “reconciliation” in favour of irresolvable tension and contradiction.