Tacit

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1. 01

   Those who harm others end up hating their victims, driven by their own guilt.

   Anale · 117

   The aggressor turns the victim into an enemy to justify their own guilt.

   Tacitus describes a perverse psychological mechanism: the aggressor, to justify the deed, turns the victim into an enemy. Hatred does not come from what the victim did, but from the aggressor's need to reduce cognitive dissonance. A boss who unfairly fires an employee may start to despise them, to avoid acknowledging their own injustice.

   “They hate those whom they have injured.”

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