Committing early harm spirals perpetrators into escalating violence via rationalization.

Evidence

The persecution of scapegoats launches perpetrators along a “continuum of destruction” in which initial, less severe actions spiral into increasingly violent behavior (Staub, 1989). Harming another creates psychological pressures to rationalize one’s behavior, resulting in further derogation of victims (Lerner & Miller, 1978) and increased commitment to scapegoat ideologies that portray targets as powerful, implacable enemies who deserve what they get (hence the double-tipped arrows in figure 15.1). A vicious loop between ideological commitment, hostility, and violence, can devolve into mass murder, which is justified by the movement as moral and necessary, a matter of self-defense against an inherently malevolent “enemy.” — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1607

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Staub’s ‘continuum of destruction’ mechanism precisely.
• XREF: Reverses the Just World literature logic in the vault’s sacrifice thread—here harm causes derogation of victims rather than derogation preceding harm. — connects to: People who harm others escalate the severity of harm they inflict — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 127; Practiced violence systematically widens to ever-larger victim circles. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 132
• QUESTION: The self-defense framing matches dehumanization-as-self-defense claims in the sacrifice material—is moral self-defense framing a necessary precondition for mass atrocity?
• SEED: Essay angle: how harming-because-you-derogate flips into derogating-because-you-harm, and what that says about moral panic spirals.