Demonizing the enemy


Demonizing the enemy, Demonization of the enemy or Dehumanization of the enemy is a propaganda technique which promotes an idea about the enemy being a threatening, evil aggressor with only destructive objectives. Demonization is the oldest propaganda technique aimed to inspire hatred toward the enemy necessary to hurt them more easily, to preserve and mobilize allies and demoralize the enemy.

Basic criteria

Because of the frequent misuse of the term demonization, it is deprived of its potential to be analyzed. That is why Jules Boykoff defined four criteria of enemy demonization:
  1. Both media and state employ frames to portray inherent nature of so-called enemy mostly in moral terms.
  2. The character of the opponent is depicted in a Manichean way, as good against evil.
  3. The state is the origin of such demonological portraying.
  4. There is no significant counterclaim from the state.

    History

The demonization of the enemy has been routinely conducted throughout the history. Thucydides recorded examples of enemy demonization in Ancient Greece.
Phillip Knightley believed that demonization of the enemy became a predictable pattern followed by Western media, the final stage being atrocities.
During the Second World War, propaganda documentaries that contained enemy demonization and flag-waving patriotism were prepared by the US State Department and other state institutions of the United States and distributed, after being approved.

Personification and demonization

Demonization of the enemy can be much easier to conduct if the enemy is personalized in one man, such as Kaiser Wilhelm II was demonized by the Russian popular media in World War I.

Consequences

The strategy of demonization of the enemy unavoidably leads to a vicious cycle of atrocities, which was elaborated by many authors including Carl von Clausewitz. Demonization of the enemy makes diplomatic solution impossible and inevitably leads into the war or worsening of relations. Depicting the enemy as particularly evil inspire feelings that make killings more easy.
The portrayal of one's enemy as demonic has often led to the treatment of the whole population or political apparatus associated with the enemy group or leader as equally demonic. This also often results in a tendency to reduce an enemy's more complex motives to simple promotion of pure evil.
The Chinese revolutionary theorist Mao Zedong held that the demonization of oneself by the enemy was a good thing. He said, "It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work."