This Thing of Darkness: A Sociology of the Enemy

by James A. Aho

"I went into the field with a typically objective scientific question: What causes people to join hate groups?" writes James Aho. In the course of his wide-ranging observations, interviews, and sometimes dangerous investigations into the persistence of right-wing extremism in the Unites States, he has come to recognize a seemingly universal need of social groups to identify 'the enemy', that which is held responsible for the bad things in life.

In This Thing of Darkness Aho attempts to understand the making and breaking of domestic and foreign enemies in general. He considers enemies as social products rather than as psychological phenomena, and focuses on how enemies are perceived or constructed in the minds of a group or society at large.

Genres: Sociology, Psychology, Nonfiction

232 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[Sami Eerola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great academic study about the process of vilification of groups. The author chows great passion and impartiality in the topic, by presenting cases of far-right people terrorizing minorities and authorities terrorizing far-right people. The book analyzes how no one admires to be evil, but instead construct a narrative where they are the victim of a hateful group, and there for they must trike first. So "evil" is more a question of perception than a actual ontological state. Still evil exist and no one is free from doing evil. So this is a great sociological study of violent radicalization, hate groups and the warped belief in "pure heart" heroes.