The Psychopolitics of Hatred: Commentary on Ervin Staub's Article

Abstract

To understand the psychological basis for "ethnic cleansing" and man's inhumanity to man, it is critical to understand the powerful relationship of malignant leaders and vulnerable followers. At times of political and economic transition, hate-mongering demagogues, serving as malignant group therapists to their wounded nations, can pro- vide sense-making explanations for their beleaguered followers, exporting the source of their difficulties to an external target, justifying hatred and mass violence. The loss of enemies in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet empire led to an intensification of ethnic-nationalist hatred as old enemies were revived and new enemies were created, providing a fertile climate for genocidal destruction.