Customer Reviews

Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book should be required reading for anyone that has the slightest interest in international affairs. I wouldn't go so far as to say this book changed my life, but I would say that it radically altered my thinking and lead me down paths of human understanding that I wouldn't traveled if not for this book.

Whatever side of the war argument the reader lands on, this book will provide necessary information to supplement the discussion.

This book addresses the way past wars have been intensified by demonizing the enemy beyond whatever real reasons caused the wars.

The history presented in this book -- the posters, the commentary, the pictures -- is not commonly taught. The author may have a point a view with which the reader disagrees, but the examples presented should be known if society is to make reasoned decisions on behavior and not just react to base emotions.

I recommend this book highly for a look at an aspect of history that we often quickly forget once the battles are over.

Altogether, this is a very good book but there are several serious problems that affected my enjoyment of this book. First, the graphics and quotes reproduced throughout this book are excellent. In the one-sided world we are forced to live in it is really refreshing to see the other perspective and for me it brings a whole range of thoughts and emotions to realize that the other perspective is really our own. The world really is round.

I consider this a philosophy book. There really are no sources or studies to back up the author's ideas. There is a short bibliography section but it is short and philosophical, in my opinion it falls far short of "rigorous", in a scientific sense. There is also a short notes section for sources in the text, but again it is short, there is no expansion on the notes, and mostly they seem to me to be attributions for quotes. I would say that part 4 "In the Meantime" is a complete waste of time. In a few paragraphs the author tries to elucidate a new world order (there are several different scenarios), a new paradigm on how to govern our planet. Obviously, in a few paragraphs all these ideas feel shallow and short, very unsatisfactory; the inevitable conclusion is "Viola...details to follow at a later date". This is a completely unacceptable way to promulgate policy and the book would have been much better without this section, or at least a radically changed section.

Another major problem is that there will always be people who just don't get it. In the back of my mind I always was thinking about these people. Obviously the other reviewer from Canada who resents violence being committed in his name being compared to other people's violence is one of these people and his review is just plain silly (is George Bush's pre-emptive war for peace really being fought in his name?...I guess that is a thought for another time). The author is not trying to describe a utopia, but is actually trying to explore a way to make our world a better place; therefore, I believe he should confront the issue of what to do with people who just don't get it. I would say that if you look at the last 100 years (even 10 years) of history you could make a strong argument the really high possibility that at least one of these people will find his way into a position of power...what then?

There seemed to me to be several contradictions in this book; for me the most glaring was the following. On page 178 the author states "we are not instinctually sadists...Homo hostilis must be created by the media and the institutions that subject him to constant indoctrination". From this (and the rest of what he states on this page) it seems to me an obvious conclusion that without extra effort we would naturally revert to a more peaceful state; that there is a natural energy already pushing us in that direction. However, on page 184 the author then states, "Since the process of education for paranoia and warfare requires a total social effort, we must assume that the effort to create a compassionate psyche and society will require a similar or greater effort." Such obvious contradictions should not be in a well thought-through book.

Finally, for a book that seems to have such direction, a pre-determined point to make, the author ends the book with five pages of unanswered questions. I don't really understand this. It is OK to have some questions, but five pages of them seems like a lot to me. Did the author start out with a strongly held position, then after exploring it for 200 pages end up only with questions? I don't really believe this but I don't have a good explanation either.

So I would say that this book has serious problems, but even after considering these, I would still recommend reading it, this is a very good book.

One of the best books on propaganda and psychological projection ever written, extended treatment of Jung's theories on the "shadow side" as well as many full color illustrations of propaganda and war posters over the centuries and quotes from hundreds and hundreds of sources. As the author reminds us, the enemy isn't without, he's within...

This is an excellent book for someone who would like to meditate on or provoke discussion on the connection between the individual psyche and warfare as a social phenomenon. I think reviewer Joseph Biskup was right is saying that this is more of a philosophical treatise than an academic monograph, as citations are totally absent. But I would add that it is also interesting from a psychoanalytic perspective, as much of the structures that underly his psychological assertions about the individual are based on the Freudian tradition.

I used the chapter "The Psychology of Enmity" in a class on post-colonial criticism and theory recently with incoming university freshmen, and it was a hit (if a bit overwhelming as an introduction to college). The graphics of propaganda from around the world are great conversation fodder.

One point on which I would disagree with Joseph Biskup's review. He argues:
"There seemed to me to be several contradictions in this book; for me the most glaring was the following. On page 178 the author states "we are not instinctually sadists...Homo hostilis must be created by the media and the institutions that subject him to constant indoctrination". From this (and the rest of what he states on this page) it seems to me an obvious conclusion that without extra effort we would naturally revert to a more peaceful state; that there is a natural energy already pushing us in that direction. However, on page 184 the author then states, "Since the process of education for paranoia and warfare requires a total social effort, we must assume that the effort to create a compassionate psyche and society will require a similar or greater effort." Such obvious contradictions should not be in a well thought-through book. "

This criticism assumes that the subject returns to his 'natural state' after an influential stimulus stops. I'm not sure why Biskup assumes this. I believe that Sam Keen's argument in the book is based on the idea that humans, once indoctrinated in the discourse of warfare to the degree 'we' are, do not just revert to a natural peaceful state. Also, Keen doesn't say positively that we are naturally good or peaceful--just that peacefulness or warmongering can be taught equally well by concerted social efforts to educate and influence through arts and media. Of course Keen is speaking idealistically--that's the goal of his book. It's not a policy analysis or recommendation, but a way of inciting people to think outside popular assumtions of psychic territoriality and the paranoid construction of an imagined other on which to project our hatred and seek to destroy.

Although I agree with Biskup that policy analysis and change is needed as a complement to Keen's kind of thinking, I don't think that the criticism that Keen doesn't accomplish this is a valid criticism--a book can only do so much.

Why do Creationists quote Evolutionists as saying, "Anything goes"? Why does any teacher who advocates a child-centered approach get branded with the "Montessori" label? Why is any adult who enjoys children considered a potential threat? "Faces of the Enemy" explains not only what you see in the newspaper, but what you see all around you.

A very good book! So many examples of images of the enemy, allied to explanations of how we see our enemies, in order to keep them.
Unfortunately, the author analyze basically the enemyship between nations, leaving the question about enemy diads without answers. But I liked it anyway, it helped me a lot

Just a brief comment on the quality and fascination of the hundreds of B&W and full-color images of propaganda posters (mostly), ads, and cartoons through recent ages and from around the globe.

These pix alone are an education, whatever one's views on the text. They make for a weird kind of mini-coffee table book status -- I guarantee that few visitors who open it up will be inclined to put it down before a thorough perusal!

I read this book several years ago, and a lot of it still stays with me. Reading this book had a pretty profound and, I believe, a very positive effect on me. There are not many books I would recomend higher.

This book is too ambitious and falls flat. Had the author been content to describe how war propaganda is used to target certain emotions, this book would be an essential addition to the libraries of those who are interested in thought control by the state. However, the author overreached himself and tried to make explain all hostitilities in the world. He falls into the trap of using theory that is questionable at best to overanalyze certain forms of propaganda and extrapolates that to explain all forms of enmity. However, the author overlooks the fact that often pre-hostilities, most common people really don't have enmity towards other lands. (Is not a common lament by academics that Americans don't know of other countries unless they're attacked by them?) Thus the author's main contention falls apart.

The book also posseses many other problems such as: 1)the author thinking that war can be eliminated. Such sentiment, while admirable, is naive and dangerous. Certain problems will exist as long as humanity exists. War is one of them as is crime. There will be evil people who will resort to war like Hitler, Pol Pot, etc. The author fails to take this into account just as a hypothetical person who believes crime can be eliminated fails to take into account Jeffrey Dahmer, Albert Fish, and John Wayne Gacy. 2) the author implies there is no difference between the Nazi Reich's army and the US army in Vietnam. Furthermore, the author calls the US's war in Vietnam "immoral". Such belief is inexcusable. The US was attempting to save South Vietnam from communist takeover and, after the US pulled out, millions of lives were lost to the communists. The author briefly mentions the deaths in Cambodia but apparently misses the connection between the US's "immoral" war and the keeping of those millions alive. Also inexcusable is the author not mentioning the thousands who died taking to rickety boats fleeing from North Vietnam and those who died in "reeducation camps". 3) the author denouncing the efforts against the USSR and Sandanista Nicaragua. In both cases, the US enmity that the author decries helped end both nations and bring about freedom at least more than existed before. Eastern Europe is free as is Nicaragua which repeatedly turned away commmunist candidates. 4) the author relies on high-sounding rhetoric that doesn't stand the test of reality such as war rarely solves conflict. Tell that to the city fathers of Carthage or Hiroshima.

This book's only bright spot is its reproducing of war propaganda, much of which has gone unseen since the time it was first used.