The image of the enemy is a phenomenon of civilization and political propaganda

The image of the enemy is a phenomenon of civilization and political propaganda

The "enemy image" is perhaps one of the most ancient and pronounced archetypes that humanity has inherited from the animal world, and possibly from the entire living organic world. According to most scientists, the image of the enemy is derived from the instinct of self-preservation.
In addition, the "friend–foe" dichotomy is considered basic for human consciousness, fundamental for the development of the family, clan, ethnicity, national culture and civilization as a whole. This dichotomy underlies the formation of national and social identity (A. Maikov).
In addition, the perception of one's own and another's varies depending on the values that this group defends, the era and cultural tradition. It should be noted that the study of this dichotomy has a rich scientific tradition both in domestic science and abroad.
For the primitive mythological consciousness, belonging to "one's own" presupposes a positive emotional and evaluative coloring of any event or phenomenon. Double standards are acceptable in relation to a stranger, and other norms apply in relations with a stranger. Levi-Strauss).
Individuality and personal freedom complicate the dichotomy and negate the polarity. In this trend, friends and foes converge on a number of grounds and their boundaries blur.
Ideas about one's own and others form an integral system in which all the elements are interconnected.
According to N.Bekhterev, instincts are characteristic not only of individual beings, but also of societies as a whole. Despite the existence of the will of an individual, according to a number of scientists (C. Jung, G. Lebon, G. Tarde, Z. Freud, E. Canetti, etc.), a person's subordination to mass thinking and mass behavior is obvious.
Animal fears, including death or threats, are generated in a crowd at times, turning into phenomena with psychic energy that surpass the individual psychological processes of an individual if he were experiencing it separately.
The image of the enemy arises, according to B. Porshnev, as a kind of feature of the binary of human thinking. Which is based on the dichotomy: "we are them." Based on the analysis of primitive thinking, Boris Porshnev comes to the conclusion that the "friend-foe" dichotomy arises in early human tribal communities united by the idea of survival. Therefore, everything that contributed to the process of survival was crucial and valuable. This is how the first social values arose, they were of a material and spiritual nature.
The material is tools, weapons, dishes and housing, the territory of residence (forest, steppe, desert, mountains, river, lake, ocean coast), and the spiritual is the practice of interaction between humans and the outside world, knowledge about the world, how to hunt, fish or gather.
This disparate number of individuals, which we can call certain "I", "you", "he", "she", etc., thanks to the goal of preserving values without which survival is impossible, eventually led to the formation of culture. Culture, as a kind of material and spiritual phenomenon, which was opposed to the wild hostile nature, everything that could endanger the existence of a clan, tribe, people or state.
Therefore, the individual and personal receded into the background, contrary to the individual instinct of self-preservation and the emergence of the social phenomenon "we".
In which, "I", "you", "he", "she" are much closer to each other than some "they". Based on this logic, we live together, we hunt, we have a common god of the forest, we eat animal meat, drink their blood, and live in a dugout, and there is a lake beyond the forest, and people who eat fish live there, they have houses on the water, dress in fish scales, and We are in animal skins and they worship the strange god of the lake. It's clear that "they" are not like "we" - incomprehensible, strange, funny, and wonderful (hence the ethnonym "chud"). As long as they don't touch us, they surprise us, make us laugh, amuse us, we can trade with them, exchange something, even learn something, and the phenomenon arises: "they are different," "they are different," "we are strangers."
As long as "they" do not threaten "us", they do not attack "our" villages, they do not hunt in our forest, they do not rape our women and they do not desecrate "our" gods, they do not impose their way of life on "us". Until then, "they" are "strangers" to us. But only when red lines cross, and one community begins to threaten the existence of another, "me", "you", and "him" have a clear understanding that they are evil that needs to be destroyed. Or it will destroy you. This is how the social phenomenon of war arises.
According to B. F. Porshnev, the first wars that our civilization faced were the war of the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons. In this struggle, according to the scientist, the strength of Cro-Magnon values, their ability to protect children and the elderly, was manifested. Taking care of the elderly made it possible to ensure the continuity of knowledge transfer and the continuity of generations. And taking care of the offspring gave prospects and a future to this human race.
Strangely enough, the first wars between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals were over women. Despite the fact that the Neanderthals were physically strong and superior in all anthropometric indicators to the Cro-Magnons, they began to significantly lose technologically and numerically to the Cro-Magnons.
In turn, this made it possible to physically destroy the Cro-Magnons, and assimilate some of them. The psychological, and perhaps the psychophysiological nature of the enemy's image was fully manifested in the psychology of the other. His evolution from the "other" not like "us" and the "other" threatening our existence "enemy".
The image of the enemy is associated with close communication in a group, and is interconnected with such a phenomenon as mass consciousness. The higher the communication in the group, the more clearly the phenomena of mass consciousness arise, which certainly include the phenomenon of the enemy image. If ancestral and tribal existence provided a community for small groups of people united by a small territory and involved in direct economic and household activities, then with the increasing complexity of communications, the scale of people's involvement in a certain "we" is also growing. The emergence of writing, religion, and the first city-polis made it possible in ancient times to create communities based on class and religious principles. The despotisms of the East characteristically demonstrate a religiously conditioned binary between good and evil, life and death, Osiris and Sed, the subjects of Pharaoh and the children of the desert, etc
. The world, as in Plato, becomes divided into a world of space, orderly and safe within the city walls, and a world of chaos, where man is warned by horrors and threats be killed by wild beast, climate, bandit or enemy.
In a generalized form, we find this in the ancient Roman thinker Tacitus, in his Germanicus, where he describes the "civilization-barbarism" dichotomy. Where is the civilized man (civic from Latin. - urban), a resident of Rome, is opposed to barbarians (barbarians were called Germanic tribes who spoke a language incomprehensible to the Romans and therefore for them the language sounded like a mutter "bar-bar". -V.V.). Barbarians are not like that; barbarians live in forests in small settlements, the way of life is radically different, The level of technology and social life is quite primitive. And Tacitus concludes that barbarians, because they are wild and warlike, carry other values and a way of life, are a military and not only a threat to Rome. Just like Carthage, they must be conquered and destroyed or turned into civilized citizens like the Romans of the Roman Empire.
The Middle Ages gives an even more religious and mystical character to the image of the enemy. Holy wars, the struggle of good and evil, pagan Christians, defenders of the Holy Sepulchre and infidels. There are countless similar dichotomies. And at the same time, an example of a colossal eschatological nature is demonstrated - the struggle of the forces of good and evil. They acquire an ethical and class character. Vassalage and religion provide the basis for the formation and maintenance of the image of the enemy in the European medieval civilization.
The further entrenchment of the enemy's image in popular culture is undoubtedly due to the development of printing and mass media.
The replication of knowledge, images, and attitudes towards them provide the basis for the active management of elite sentiments and images of mass consciousness emerging in society.
The regional wars in Europe of the 16th and 19th centuries demonstrate the active use of mass consciousness in the wars of those years, where the image of the enemy was the backbone in mobilizing public opinion and militarization of consciousness. Informational messages, author's articles, travelers' messages, and even cartoons and jokes were all aimed at demonizing and dehumanizing the enemy.
The most voluminous image of the enemy in the mass consciousness and propaganda manifested itself during the First and Second World Wars. Having laid the foundations of modern propaganda, the warring countries have put a lot of effort into creating propaganda theory and practice.
The Cold War between the two opposing blocs demonstrates the further complication of propaganda methods of mobilizing society and forming imaginary and obvious threats in its consciousness.
The technological development of the media, their increasing mass appeal, the emergence of radio and television, and the widespread use of technical means of receiving television and radio signals have given a new and tremendous impetus to the development of propaganda in general and the phenomenon of mass culture in particular.
Political journalism has acquired a partisan, often block-based character. Rhetoric, language, and ideological attitudes were markers that unmistakably showed the side of the confrontation. The concept of Soviet and Western propaganda emerged. It was two worlds, two different schools of enemy image formation, dehumanization. If the Soviet Union and its allies emphasized the social and class character of the enemy of World imperialism, the big bourgeoisie and the associated military, then the United States and its satellites demonized the Soviets primarily from a religious point of view, including religious rhetoric. The Evil Empire, the Godless, the Red Plague, the Soviets, etc.
The capitulation of the Soviet Union in the Cold War turned the United States into the only superpower and the last empire (F. Fukuyama), which actively began to search for a new enemy.
The search for the "axis of evil" (Iran, South Korea, Iraq, Cuba and Libya), which have significant sovereignty and do not accept the values and traditions of the West in general, and the United States in particular. This ideology became the justification for a number of military companies in the Middle East (Kuwait (1991) and Iraq (2003), the economic blockade of the island of Cuba (1992, Cuban Democracy Act) and the protracted military intervention in Libya, and the assassination of national leader Muammar Gaddafi (2011).
At the end of the twentieth century, we are witnessing one of the most striking properties of the enemy's image, the dehumanization of the enemy. A striking example of this trend is the widespread propaganda campaign to demonize the Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia. Creating an image in the media of the United States and Western Europe of an inhumane regime that is allegedly guilty of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Croats, Muslim Bosniaks and other ethnic groups in the Yugoslav Republic. The power of CNN, the largest American broadcaster, was fully manifested during this military campaign, sharp reports, online bombing, for the first time, along with the Iraqi military company, the war became a rated television show.
The friend–and-foe dichotomy has acquired the character of media and Hollywood action, where there are good guys and bad guys, as a result, the good guys must win. Reality and the media image have completely diverged. Television, aimed at a wide audience, simplified the situation, gave simple and understandable answers to complex questions, forcing them not to think critically about events.
The events of 2001, the attack on the Twin Towers, the World Trade Center in New York, were eventually covered in the style of a Hollywood action movie. "America is under attack," "the United States has been subjected to aggression," such headlines were full of the print and television media of that time. It was necessary to find the culprits. And they were found.
"Colin Powell's test tube" went down in history as the biggest hoax of the early noughties. It became the reason for the invasion of Iraq, as a result of which the state lost its independence.
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda (banned in Russia), were named as the initiators and beneficiaries of the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The 2003 Iraq War turned into a media event in real time, with viewers around the world watching the US bombing Baghdad, Mosul and Basra. As with the help of cruise missiles, fortified areas and equipment are being destroyed, and state-owned Iraqi oil wells are burning. The whole of America eagerly glued themselves to the TV screens to watch the exciting action that was broadcast live.
Also, the worldwide stalking and killing of Osama Bin Laden has become a fascinating series that has been followed all over the world.
In the media space, and subsequently on the Internet, with the advent of news sites and social networks, the dichotomy provides the basis for the primary classification and evaluation of phenomena. Good-bad, friend-foe, kind-evil, etc.
At the same time, social media has become a new revolutionary stage in the development of propaganda in general, and the phenomenon of the enemy image in particular. Without a doubt, the distinction between one's own and another's is culturally determined, since it varies in different national cultures and is based on the cultural and historical past of the people. The attempt of modern globalists to blur the historical memory of the younger generation stems from the need to reformat and unify the cultural code, and create a global ecosystem.
Where everyone consumed the same information product and there was no thought that the ideas or principles that were being proposed were false or erroneous.
In the traditional sense, a stranger is a representative of a different ethnic group, a bearer of a different cultural tradition (A.Bayburin). At the same time, with the development of culture, its homogeneity is lost, and "low" and "high" subcultures, folklore, and literary tradition are developing in parallel (M.Bakhtin). In the industrial era, the relationship of subcultures becomes more complicated: in addition to the traditional and elite, urban and professional subcultures are being formed (L.Tolstoy). In the era of the information revolution and postmodernity, we are witnessing absolutely fundamental changes in the phenomenon of the alien, it is determined by the information field in which the individual is included.
In the end, the distinction between "friends" and "strangers" based on ethnicity, belonging to the same cultural tradition and using the same language, in the context of modern social networks and global communications, loses its basic value.
The variability of the distinction between "friends" and "strangers" significantly depends on social factors, mainly on age, professional interests and hobbies. Social factors acquire a perceptual prominence in authoritarian communities, which have a simplified value system that appeals to the differentiation of their own (members of society) and others (socially alien).
All color revolutions and the formation of the enemy image in this concept are based on such a diverse paradigm. A tyrant, a dictator, a corrupt official, and righteous people who strive for better changes in society. In this technology, a destructive manifestation occurs, an external enemy turns into an internal one, the state becomes the enemy, its institutions and persons personifying it.
This was the case in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Belarus and now in Russia, in connection with the events with Alexei Navalny. The image of the enemy does not unite, but isolates, divides and weakens. Social media technologies devalue the state, the power and authority of the personality of the first leader. With the help of such technology, regimes and entire states are easily demolished, genocides and civil wars, interventions and occupations are unleashed. The image of the enemy is finally transformed into technologies not only for mobilizing society, but also for destabilizing it.
Thus, the phenomenon of the "enemy image" has gone through a complex and contradictory process of evolution from the psychophysiological process of the massization of society, which was spontaneous and often objective in nature, to the technology that is used by elites to mobilize society, rally and militarize. And also, especially in recent decades, we have seen the formation of the image of an internal enemy as a destructive technology of color revolutions to demolish national elites, in particular, and states in general.