>> The construction of an enemy
has a powerful role in moral discourse.
When I was way back
when in graduate school,
one of my classes was
psychology of violence.
And we read a book called The Roots,
"The Roots of Evil" by Ervin Staub
who's a Social Psychologist.
And he was studying genocide movements.
And you write the classic question now
how could this have happened?
How could Hitler have happened?
He looks at five genocide movements
and then kind of the precursors
and what, there's a
number of commonalities
but one of the strong commonalities
was a group has to identify an enemy,
in order to bolster its
own sense of rightness
and its own sense of identity.
And we see this played
out quite a bit, right.
And so it's not just
that it may not even be an actual enemy.
>> Somebody who's harmed her wrong.
>> There's always a sense that
an enemy gets constructed.
>> Yeah.
>> That might not bear any
reality to that group, actually.
So, you know, the classic case
that we see was the Holocaust
and the construction of
Jewish populations as a particular way.
And therefore, the rightness
of a group is demonstrated,
approved whatever language you want to use
in light of the enemy.
And I think we see that dynamic a lot.
So I do think you're making
an important connection,
because it really comes to a point,
what justifies harm against an enemy,
and we can have all sorts
of justifications right?
And I think Staub is really onto something
when one's own sense of
identity is threatened.
You know, Reinhold Niebuhr
who was a social ethicist
you know, back in the 40s,
and 50s has had this really
interesting language of group pride then.
When a groups identity
feels threatened you know,
an enemy, if one does not
exist has to be constructed
and all sorts of things
can be justified then.
