Re: Is white racism nec. all bad?
Lane Singer (lsd@ix.netcom.com)
3 May 1995 08:03:19 GMT
In <3o4nal$fvq@blarg1.blarg.com> warrl@blarg.com (Donald Edwards)
writes:
>By the way -- somebody a while back, I forget who, defined the
>term "demonize" as "to make into a demon". I don't accept this
>definition. Particularly since the same person claimed that
>Hitler demonized the Jews.
I think you have a bit of difficulty with the English language.
You could try looking the word up in a dictionary. Let's see:
Yep - demonize: to convert into a demon. That was the definition
I gave, and that's what the dictionary has it as. They don't mean
"To perform some magic that changes the person into a demon."
They mean, to represent the person as a demon.
>If Hitler made the Jews into demons, then the Jews were demons.
>I believe it's safe to say that demons are by definition so
>antithetical to human well-being that a shoot-on-sight policy
>is justified. That is, *after* you verify that it is indeed
>a demon you see.
>
>But Hitler did *not* make the Jews into demons. He merely
>presented them as demons.
Precisely. He "demonized" them. He presented them as demons
in order to scapegoat them. You have heard of propaganda, I
trust. Demonization is often the goal of propaganda, and you
are aware, I hope, that the Nazis were better adept at propaganda
than any group before, during or since.
> The fact remained that the overwhelming
>majority of them (just like the overwhelming majority of people
>in general) were *not* demons.
What types of acts would a demon engage in? Certainly no demon,
no hell of our imaginings, could compare in evil to even the smallest
and least hellish of the concentration camps operated by the Nazis.
There is no need to "demonize" Hitler, because no conversion is
necessary to present him as a demon. He was demonic, in reality,
and in his own right.
--
Singer
|