Group identity formation requires the existence of enemies to define the self against

Evidence

One grim Weltanschauung for this new era was well expressed by the Venetian nationalist demagogue in Michael Dibdin’s novel, Dead Lagoon: “There can be no true friends without true enemies. Unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what we are. These are the old truths we are painfully rediscovering after a century and more of sentimental cant. Those who deny them deny their family, their heritage, their culture, their birthright, their very selves! They will not lightly be forgiven.” The unfortunate truth in these old truths cannot be ignored by statesmen and scholars. For peoples seeking identity and reinventing ethnicity, enemies are essential, and the potentially most dangerous enmities occur across the fault lines between the world’s major civilizations. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 33

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Being-for-others generates perpetual conflict as each self objectifies the other — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1462; National identity requires crafted enemies to become activist ideology — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 1656; Groups invoke external enemies to justify the suppression of internal disunity — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 649 (+6 more)