Book

Anale

by Tacit · 117 · 1 reading card · public domain

AuthorTacitShelvesPower and the polity

1 card

  1. 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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