Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Each nation seeks to justify warfare by creating a monstrous image of its enemy. Killing is made a source of pride, murder a patriotic duty; war becomes a holy war "with God on our side." Keen (The Passionate Life uses political posters and cartoons to demonstrate that belligerent countries have consistently characterized the enemy as aggressor, barbarian, devil, rapist, insect, germ. Noting that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. need to view one another as evil, he urges a massive overhaul of fixed postures and attitudes. His "potpourri of possibilities" to eradicate deep-seated hate and fear ranges from cultural exchanges to divestment of empires (ours and theirs). Illustrated with color and black-and-white art, this original probe of the root causes of war offers a new perspective on ways to thaw the Cold War. The book is a tie-in with a PBS television series. 25,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

This book shows how ordinary and seemingly decent people can be stirred to hate and even to kill their neighbours, using the twisted caricatures of propaganda posters, biased cartoons, and distorted images served up in print and on screen. In pictures and in text, noted philosopher and Jungian Sam Keen delves beneath legitimate grievances and questions of right and wrong to get at the psychological mechanism of enmity itself.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins (September 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062504673
• ISBN-13: 978-0062504678
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #625,295 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What we need to remember, May 5, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination : The Psychology of Enmity (Hardcover)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, December 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination : The Psychology of Enmity (Hardcover)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quick review and comment on previous review by Joseph Biskup, October 22, 2005

By	Jordan Smith (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.