Sacralized dominance frames out-group resistance as savage to sustain moral superiority.

Evidence

In this sense, managing and regulating consciousness affects both groups, the dominant and the dominated. Construction of superior rights with the help of religious claims leads to portraying the dominated, their collective voice, and their struggle in ways that serve the self-perceived moral superiority of the dominant (such as when they claim that Others are violent, savage, or terrorist) and their political superiority. This process is encouraged when the larger global politics is indifferent or even supportive. The dominant tries to manage and regulate the mode of thinking, the belief systems, the symbols, and even the existence and destiny of the dominated in such a way that they all become subordinated to a supreme, divine narrative. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 115

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that dominant groups portray Others’ struggle as ‘violent, savage, or terrorist’ maps onto the reader’s prior Islamophobia work and the moral-correction-backfire question — external approval reinforces, not corrects, the sacralized framing. — connects to: Perceived threat to the group’s moral image triggers moral disengagement strategies and ranks closing. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2136; Dominant groups frame subordinate demands as illegitimate through principled defenses
• SEED: Angle for an essay: when global powers are ‘indifferent or even supportive’ of a sacralized dominance regime, what internal or external interventions could actually dent it — and does moral condemnation by outsiders ever work, or only entrench it?

Broader Connections

• Dominant groups frame subordinate demands as illegitimate through principled defenses #corroborates (0.82)
• Perceived threat to the group’s moral image triggers moral disengagement strategies and ranks closing. #expands (0.78) — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2136