The current spate of terrorist acts forces us once again to confront our inner demons and pumps up the brain chemistry that fuels anger, fear and desires for retaliation. It also triggers our minds to summon the ancient tribal skills that help build mental barriers between others and ourselves.
To reinforce those inner devils, we have a few fallback positions. One is demonizing. There are few art forms more finely honed and effective than the art of demonizing individuals, institutions and ideas. The human mind seems particularly adept at trashing those we dislike and fear. It is beyond civil discourse and satire. And within the political process, it is dangerously ratcheted up by the infusion of vast amounts of money.
One of the spin-offs of demonizing is the further erosion of the political “center” so important to a healthy democracy, a center already widened by political posturing and demonizing. The Irish poet William Butler Yeats in the early 20th century expressed his concern: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.”
The center is a place where individuals and political leaders can come together and rationally discuss their differences, arriving finally at workable compromises. Now, of course, the word “compromise” itself is held up for ridicule.
Demonizing is not a new phenomenon. We learn early. I recall as a small child, a Sunday school teacher instructing us to cross the street rather than walk near our town’s small Catholic church. She told us, “The church is filled on Sunday mornings with idol worshippers.” She had a few other observations about that small, beautiful church.
I was learning well. During the frightening years of World War II, my incessant doodling depicted the evil faces of the Japanese enemy. I turned them into narrow-eyed heathens. I saw all Japanese people through the lenses of my warped doodles. And righteousness flowed through me as I demonized them. Thankfully, my parents did not save that artwork along with other pieces of childhood memorabilia.
Actions of classmates and adults in my small Indiana hometown reinforced the correctness of my sketches. I’m embarrassed to report that we called them “Japs.” It was a convenient word for us novice haters. We also had “Krauts” and I had a few doodles for them as well. Obviously, there is a muse for us demonizers. I was my own diminutive propaganda machine.
It doesn’t change. At an event in Durango a few years back, a poet-musician addressed the subject of ranch workers from Mexico, whom he laughingly called “wetbacks.” He conceded they were “pretty good workers.” He meant well but missed the mark.
We even demonize those who try to keep us from demonizing each other. We suggest they are guilty of “political correctness;” and we smile disdainfully. Politeness apparently is not appropriate these days.
The British writer Alain de Botton, in his book Consolations of Philosophy refers to a passage from a journal written in 1552 that recorded Spanish atrocities against ancient Indian cultures. To rationalize the murdering of South America’s indigenous peoples, they first had to characterize them as less than human, reducing them to the category of “savage.” Horrific acts were catalogued meticulously in the journal, kept by a monk accompanying the conquistadores.
Another frightfully well-documented example, of course, was the dehumanizing of Jews in Germany, leading up to World War II. And, of course, there was the demonization of Native American indigenous people in North America.
Friends suggest that negative feelings about others often are based on fear. They cite xenophobia and political pandering as underlying the ongoing immigration policy challenges. There must be something more. We don’t “fear” environmentalists exactly when we call them “tree huggers.” Or perhaps we do. Perhaps we fear that their actions are impeding our “God given right” to extract resources from the Earth without considering future generations, without regard to a healthy planet, without regard to our spiritual well-being. We seem to be uniquely capable of ignoring scriptures of our world’s major religions, which universally call us to be good stewards of the Earth and its resources.
Demonizing lends itself to the political process, especially in election years. And none of us is immune, whatever political rock we slumber below. If we don’t like the news from the Middle East, it’s the “liberal media.” And I’m guessing when a more liberal political philosophy becomes ascendant on our political see-saw, there will be a tendency on the part of some to demonize legitimate conservative points-of-view.
In the Western World, Islam has become a prime target, and terrorists use our anti-Islam rhetoric to achieve their objectives. They further the goals of their narrative with incidents of terror and the fear of unknown terror to come.
Terrorists must explain and twist their scriptures in such a way that convinces radicalized followers to carry out their horrific commands. During the Crusades, the Christian world followed similar practices. Ignore the fact that Islam shares the same Abrahamic roots and values of the faith held by the vast majority of us. If I were a child, I might be doodling scary, heavy-browed men in flowing white clothes and scarves wrapped around dark, forbidding faces.
Some continue to link terrorism to Islam rather than to fanaticism. Timothy McVeigh may have been a “Christian” terrorist, but it didn’t occur to us to call him that. And there have been numerous other terrorist attacks by those within the Christian tradition: the Aurora theater, Sandy Hook. Hitler was steeped in the Western Christian tradition; he was a leader who killed millions of his own people.
There is a feel-good side to the practice of demonizing others. We feel elevated. The “put down” gives us the false sense of being on the higher ground. Do we laugh at those in our school classes who are less like us? Or roll our eyes in the workplace when a fellow worker is sharply criticized and left in a vulnerable position? How often do we demonize the poor for not having a good work ethic? “Tell them to just get a job.” And applaud those politicians who refuse to consider raising the minimum wage, while they dangle the long-discredited trope of “trickle down economics.”
One of my favorite political cartoons depicts a dignified Native America chief on a hillside, overlooking the Mayflower as it approaches the shores of North America. He is holding a sign: “Immigrants, go home.”
There have been extremists and radicals throughout history. Hopefully, we are slowly approaching a point in the civilizing process that ultimately will draw us to a more moderate place, where reasonable ideas can be exchanged and worked out for our common good.
In reflecting on the “center” as a place where democracy flourishes, here again is Yeats:
“Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mirrored a Buddhist teaching, when he said, “Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that.”
Ralph Blanchard is a retired naval officer who moved to Durango with his wife, Jan, after 25 years of active duty and 20 years of working with the Pentagon and nonprofit organizations related to support systems for military families. Reach him at blanchard@mydurango.net.
