There are two main points of reference to Frankfurt School's authoritarianism research. On the one hand, scholars who, following Fromm (1932), seek to identify a contemporary social character under conditions of post-Fordist capitalism emphasize that the authoritarian character has been replaced by a flexible, entrepreneurial self. On the other hand, research on authoritarianism still relies on adaptations of the F-scale developed by Adorno et al. (1950) (e.g., Altemeyer, 1981; Beierlein et al., 2014; Oesterreich, 1998; Decker et al., 2022). At the same time, certain new forms of authoritarianism are being identified (Amlinger & Nachtwey, 2025). In this paper, we aim to bridge this tension by introducing a measurement tool for a contemporary “affirmative social character” adapted to flexible capitalism, and to explore the relationship between this social character and authoritarian tendencies. Based on a German sample (N = 1,196), we develop the 28-item Aff-Scale to measure the adaptive authoritarian tendencies aligned with the demands of 21st-century meritocracy. The scale captures five dimensions: affirmation, self-optimization, flexibility & mobility, solutionism, and libertarianism. Validation measures included traditional authoritarianism (KSA-3; Beierlein et al., 2014), right-wing extremism (FR-LF; Heller et al., 2020), and sociodemographic variables. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the multidimensionality (CFI = 0.927; RMSEA = 0.048) but showed a need for further validation. Internal consistency was good (Cronbach's α = .83; ω = .64) and the expected correlations with RWA and educational-, social status and age were significant. Despite its limitations, the Aff-scale is a useful tool for examining a 21st century social character and contributes to a better understanding of modernized forms of authoritarianism.