Utopian promise, not just destructiveness, drives scapegoating movements

Evidence

Although past theorists focused on the destructiveness of scapegoating, a utopianism that promises the fulfillment of people’s basic needs is an equally important feature of scapegoating movements (see Staub, 1989). For example, Friedländer (1997) argued that Nazi anti-Semitism was “redemptive” – the Nazis promised Germans a “Thousand Year Reich” in which the problems of the present would be solved by eliminating their source, the Jews. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1596

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the ‘redemptive’ framing of Nazi anti-Semitism: a utopian promise of a Thousand Year Reich laced into the hostility.
• QUESTION: Does this utopian appeal framing generalize to other genocides (Rwanda, Armenian genocide) the way it does for Nazi Germany?
• XREF: connects to: Instigators rise by offering hope in crises that relies on scapegoating. — Leonard S. Newman and Ralph Erber (eds.), Understanding Genocide: The Social…, 1704