THE EXCLUSIONARY CONSCIENCE
Global Politician, NY
Aug. 7, 2006
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. – 8/8/2006
The self-identity of most nation-states is exclusionary and
oppositional: to generate solidarity, a sense of shared community,
and consensus, an ill-defined "we" is unfavorably contrasted with a
fuzzy "they". While hate speech has been largely outlawed the world
over, these often counterfactual dichotomies between "us" and "them"
still reign supreme.
In extreme – though surprisingly frequent – cases, whole groups
(typically minorities) are excluded from the nation’s moral universe
and from the ambit of civil society. Thus, they are rendered
"invisible", "subhuman", and unprotected by laws, institutions,
and ethics. This process of distancing and dehumanization I call
"exclusionary conscience".
The most recent examples are the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda,
the Holocaust of the Jews in Nazi Germany’s Third Reich, and the
Armenian Genocide in Turkey. Radical Islamists are now advocating the
mass slaughter of Westerners, particularly of Americans and Israelis,
regardless of age, gender, and alleged culpability. But the phenomenon
of exclusionary conscience far predates these horrendous events. In
the Bible, the ancient Hebrews are instructed to exterminate all
Amalekites, men, women, and children.
In her book, "The Nazi Conscience", Claudia Koontz quotes from Freud’s
"Civilization and its Discontents":
"If (the Golden Rule of morality) commanded ‘Love thy neighbor as
thy neighbor loves thee’, I should not take exception to it. If he
is a stranger to me … it will be hard for me to love him." (p. 5)
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. is the author of Malignant Self Love – Narcissism
Revisited and After the Rain – How the West Lost the East. He served
as a columnist for Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline,
and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business
Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe
categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia. Sam Vaknin’s Web site is at