Hostility toward rivals is expressed by attributing unrecognisable, repulsive opinions to them

Evidence

The attitude adopted by a society in such a case is largely determined by the degree of hostility it feels, rather than by any impartial assessment of the importance of the quarrel. It is not suggested that hostile societies to-day feel more antagonism than hostile societies felt during the Crusades. In fact, the attribution of so many crimes to Islam, those which most disgusted Christendom, was not Just a means (even sincerely and confidently brought forward) to discredit a rival religion. It was also and more simply an expression of the hostility that Christendom felt for the civilisation at its borders. It may be that it is a human tendency for men to dislike other people’s thinking differently from themselves. This would explain why a man often attributes to those who think differently from him a version of their opinions that they themselves cannot recognise, but which from his point of view is agreeably repulsive. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1493

Categorization

• XREF: This is essentially the psychology of projection and belief polarization — connects to things like the mirror-image perception described in studies of Cold War-era US-Soviet mutual caricatures, and to the author’s other writings on how enemy images are constructed. — connects to: Demonizing a rival’s beliefs is a direct expression of hostility, not just propaganda.; Anti-fans justify their hatred as moral objection to unearned attention — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 390; Anti-fans construct their identity in opposition to the target of their hatred — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 393 (+4 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The mechanism — hostility precedes and shapes the caricature of an enemy’s beliefs rather than the caricature justifying pre-existing dislike — is a genuinely rich, uncomfortable insight about how inter-group perception works, dense enough to sit with.