Designated enemy groups expand over time beyond their original definition

Evidence

Two consequences flow from these mental adjustments. Both these consequences go some way toward answering the question: In what ways should we conceptualize the alterations in the evil-doing individual? First, contained within these adjustments is a definition of the target groups toward whom harmdoing is deemed appropriate. In some ways this limits the operation of the forces that have been created. It is appropriate to execute the defined groups, but certainly not the groups on whose behalf one strives. One kills lesser races on behalf of the higher races, or one kills Communists to preserve the purity of Argentinean life. Of course, the target groups tend to grow larger. From our own history, not only “Communists” but also “fellow travelers” were seen as a threat to the “American way of life.” And soon, “unknowing fellow travelers” or “Communist dupes” also needed to be ferreted out. To cite a particularly horrible example, some of the Argentinean military were unable to conceive children, and so the practice grew of identifying young women who had just had a child as “Communists” so they could be killed. The children were then given to the military families. The groups that this sort of evildoer feels justified in attacking are contained, but only partially. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3966

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concretely illustrates how harmdoing mental adjustments define and then expand target-group boundaries.
• ADDENDUM: The Argentine officers killing new mothers to steal children is a raw instance of sacrificial logic turned toward a designated out-group — a macabre extension of the ‘On Sacrifice’ theme where a group’s reproduction is violently expropriated.
• XREF: connects to: The new immigration became a target largely because prior enemy categories failed — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 518; Groups reattached war-cultivated solidarity to new enemies after the old one vanished — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1324; The terrorist racial category expanded decade by decade to cover new groups (+2 more)