Demonizing Others to Excuse Our Bad Behavior Toward Them

Detailing the aftermath of the ruin of the stock broker John Sedley in Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray informs the reader that John Osborne, who had "a hundred obligations" to Sedley as a result of his having helped him make his fortune, and whose son he had been happy to see marry Sedley's daughter, became so cruel to Sedley and his family amid his downfall (not least, in trying to force his son to break the engagement after the match became less advantageous, and then after failing, withhold all help and support to his daughter-in-law and his grandson). Explaining Sedley's conduct he quipped that "[t]o account for your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude . . . you are bound to prove the other party's crime"; "to show that the fallen man is a villain--otherwise" one is all too obviously "the persecutor"--as indeed the treacherous Osborne was.

In discussing this habit of making others seem like monsters to justify our own monstrous behavior I know no reason to think that Thackeray had in mind anything more than individual ill conduct--but what he says of individuals in relation to each other equally applies to groups, and above all how the privilege act toward those they exploit and oppress. Indeed, as David Graeber explained it, bullying is intended to make the job easier by driving the oppressed to lash out before an audience which will recoil in sanctimonious horror and, so persuaded of their inherent badness--rather than realize that people abused beyond endurance do lash out--and so sanction their continued oppression. And in fact, the demonized on close inspection often prove to be the exploited and oppressed and persecuted--especially when those who do the demonizing so clearly have power, without which their efforts at demonization would not be likely to meet with much success.