Eliminationist rhetoric links contamination metaphors to fantasies of germicidal removal

Evidence

In their analysis of anti-Semitism, Adorno et al . (1982 [ 1950 ]) make reference to the power and ideological consequences of eliminationist imagery. For example, there is mention of ‘the metaphor of the rotten apple in the barrel [that] conjures up the imagery of “evil germs” which is associated with appalling regularity with the dream of an effective germicide’ (p. 653). — Cristian Tileagă, The Nature of Prejudice, 710

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to infection/contamination framing in moral panics and to the sacrificer’s logic of cleansing the body politic. — connects to: Menstrual contamination beliefs survived into modern industrial practice and law — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 336