The perceived permanent Enemy binds pluralist societies into cohesive defense societies

Evidence

The reality of pluralism becomes ideological, deceptive. It seems to extend rather than reduce manipulation and coordination, to promote rather than counteract the fateful integration. Free institutions compete with authoritarian ones in making the Enemy a deadly force within the system. And this deadly force stimulates growth and initiative, not by virtue of the magnitude and economic impact of the defense “sector,” but by virtue of the fact that the society as a whole becomes a defense society. For the Enemy is permanent. He is not in the emergency situation but in the normal state of affairs. He threatens in peace as much as in war (and perhaps more than in war); he is thus being built into the system as a cohesive power. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 235

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the attention economy/debt-of-war thesis and to how permanent external threats (‘forever wars’) consolidate social control — echoes contemporary security-state critiques. — connects to: Shared humanity overcomes preconceived enemy divisions between strangers — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 190; Belief in vengeful ancestral spirits sustained a society’s institutionalized warfare; Ideologies that succeed in hard times generate enemies even if they start without them — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3976 (+10 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: how ‘permanent emergency’ — climate change, terrorism, pandemics — functions as the modern Enemy binding society into coordinated mobilization, updating Marcuse’s thesis.

Broader Connections

• Shared humanity overcomes preconceived enemy divisions between strangers #contradicts (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 190
• Perceiving a group as powerful and malevolent rationalizes extreme violence as self-defense #expands (0.78)
• Ideologies that succeed in hard times generate enemies even if they start without them #corroborates (0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3976
• Clash-of-civilizations rhetoric ideologically legitimized both foreign wars and domestic attacks #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421
• Perpetual war makes the sovereign dependent on preserving its own enemy #expands (0.72)
• Resolving one conflict merely produces a fresh enemy to define oneself against #expands (0.72) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 353
• Belief in vengeful ancestral spirits sustained a society’s institutionalized warfare #expands (0.70)