Why We Demonize Others: And why the pandemic makes it worse

To demonize a person or collection of people is to think of them as evil. Putting others in that category seems to justify negative attitudes and destructive actions toward them.

Interestingly, demonizing assumes a moral universe within which good and evil not only exist, but vie with one another. According to the dictates of such a universe, evil must be condemned, overcome, and even punished. Many people fancy themselves arbiters of the whole process.

Yet few realize that they operate with these grandiose presuppositions when they denounce others for their opposing beliefs and behaviors. Even fewer could name a source for the moral imperative that allegedly authorizes them to police others.

The universal dichotomy

Every system of belief includes the notion that good stands in opposition to evil. Each offers a unique blueprint as to how good will/should overcome evil, or at least counter-balance and neutralize it. However poorly understood, this basic moral framework undergirds much of human thought and action.

It forms the basis for all religious and philosophical systems, embedded within respective cultures from which it spawns a wide variety of divergent worldviews and behaviors. In the Western world, our Judeo-Christian heritage melds with Greco-Roman philosophical and political thought to form a uniquely hybrid system of ethics.

That schema informs our thinking and guides our behavior on both an individual and a societal level. When we appeal to fairness, justice, and rights, the underlying ethics are firmly rooted in this conglomeration of values our forbearers bequeathed us. Such culturally sanctioned values seem perfectly normal to us; the way things are meant to be.

So whenever a Republican politician stands on the floor of the Congress and decries a Democratic rival (or vise versa), he or she draws upon this complex system of moral and ethical standards. Of course, they choose selective aspects of it in order to better support their personal (or constituent) goals and interests — succumbing to a form of situational ethics.

Self-interest and limited good

Self-interest is always involved when demonizing others. It is basic to our interpretation of the system of beliefs we use to justify a condemning attitude or behavior. In other words, we demonize, condemn and even punish others to get our way — to create an advantage for ourselves, our families, our ethnic group, or our nation.

This necessarily entails keeping others from attaining their self-serving goals. Demonizing provides an (illegitimate) license for self-promotion. We selectively appeal to a common if vaguely understood system of ethics to justify shoving others into denigrating categories meant to help us achieve our self-aggrandizing goals.

Understanding this unflattering process leads us to another assumption of note. It is based upon a well-known concept in anthropology referred to as the “Image of Limited Good.” According to it, there is only so much good to go around. If we don’t secure our portion before others get theirs, the supply will run out. From peasants to kings, many people regularly think this way.

It is an unconscious conviction that permeates all the competitive endeavors we Westerners regularly engage in: children sparing over parental love and attention, companies vying for consumers, sports teams competing for top recruits, and nations fighting over natural resources. The assumption of limited good goes hand-in-glove with humankind’s near-ubiquitous orientation toward self-interest.

Projection

Back to demonizing, which inevitably involves projection. We tend to hate in others the very things we dislike in ourselves, particularly our selfish behaviors (when we are aware of them). Those who belittle others often do so out of their own sense of inadequacy. Bullies invariably lack self-esteem, many having been bullied and humiliated in life.

Jesus elucidated the futility of projection when he asked, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye” (Matthew 7:3, NIV)?

The answer accords with the Judeo-Christian belief in “original sin.” According to that tenant of faith, we harbor within our genes an unavoidable bent toward evil — something which every honest soul will readily admit.

That humbling acknowledgment includes an awareness of not only our faults and failures, but our inability to free ourselves from them. Things only worsen when we fail to offer others the lenience we afford ourselves, despite knowing full well the extent of our own inclinations toward evil. In so doing, we reap judgment on ourselves through a divinely implanted conscience that rings like a fire alarm whenever hypocrisy is present.

To condemn others for the very things we do and overlook in ourselves creates serious inner conflict (Luke 6:37, NIV). Yet the longer we ignore the voice of our God-imbued conscience, the fainter it will become — to the point that we hear it no more, though the inner conflict rages on. Thus are the Stalins and Pol Pots born in our midst.

In the end, demonizing makes us more miserable than those we accuse and attack. We become the very demons we oppose, traveling down a path of spiritual bankruptcy. It eventually leads to depravity and mindless violence toward others who we might count as friends should we have the opportunity to know them personally.

The Pandemic

Into this moral fray sweeps the pandemic — a severe stressor for individuals, communities, and nations. Stressors always bring out what’s inside — the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. I used to witness this in my adult basketball games. In the heat of all-out competition, some players grew more generous and gracious while others resorted to cursing and fist-a-cuffs.

In the heat of the battle, the soul is revealed.

The strain the virus has put on personal finances and mental health has amplified both the good and evil within human hearts. Just as the sacrificial giving of front line workers inspires us, so the hatred, violence, and chaos espoused by others greatly disappoints and distresses.

All of the senseless pandemonium in Portland exhibits a predictable pattern of demonization. Initially peaceful protestors were labeled “thugs” by the president; then legitimate protests degraded into vicious attacks on law enforcement. Needless injuries mounted and property was vandalized and destroyed for shamelessly self-serving agendas. All because the various factions saw evil in their counterparts.

The issue that initially prompted the social unrest — racism — subsequently went unaddressed in the chaos of confrontation. Seething, murderous anger took over, and evil had its way.

Stress is a megaphone that broadcasts the contents of the heart.

Choice

Perhaps it is providential that Congressman John Lewis’ death occurred in the midst of our nation’s ongoing turmoil. For half a century he advocated non-violent civil rights reform, all the while refusing to demonize those who opposed him and his righteous call for justice. Referencing his friend, he said,

“The message of Dr. King would be not to give up, not to give in, never become bitter or hostile, never hate…for hate is too heavy a burden to bear.”

Dr. King’s and Representative Lewis’ examples offer us a way out of the enraged impasse in cities like Portland. The same holds true for the raging conflicts within our own hearts. It is simply this: We have the power to choose a better path forward by how we treat one another.

It is up to us to pursue what is good and deliberately refuse every kind of evil. The gift of free will means that we have the ability to determine our posture toward others and the direction of our collective life together. The way we choose to see others is a right no one can ever take from us.

Because we can choose to demonize others, we can also choose to humanize them.

Rather than misuse our choice to justify hatred and violence toward those with differing views and agendas, we can use it to respectfully engage them and together seek a common way forward. Because each of us is made in the image of a loving God, we honor Him through respecting one another.

Like John Lewis, we possess the power to refuse to demonize those we oppose (or those who oppose us). That refusal is a choice to do what is right even when evil parades around us as justice. Like the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, evil loves to masquerade as good. Refusing evil often means rejecting what appears to be good on the surface but is quite the opposite.

No matter the reason or goal, nothing justifies evil. That message has always been at the heart of the civil rights movement and, hopefully, will continue to be so long as that vital movement is needed.

Jesus bid his followers to “turn the other cheek.”(Matthew 5:39, KJV) as part of the moral high ground he offers — fully respecting our right to choose to do otherwise. Yet if, like Him, we choose to be good over being right, we will be right every time.

Circling back to the question initially posed in the title, we demonize others under the factious belief that by doing so we can attain some self-defined higher goal. That goal supposedly justifies the demonizing and defeat of whomever we determine is standing in the way of achieving it.

But self-centered goals are always suspect; and even with the best of them, the ends never justifies the means.

The moral universe in which we live simply doesn’t work that way. Demonizing runs counter to its basic life-affirming precepts. As Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Each choice to do good and refuse evil — to love and respect rather than hate and demonize — moves humankind further along the shining arc of justice we all claim to desire. The proof to that claim is how we make that choice each and every day.