An enemy or foe is a relativist term for an entity that is seen as forcefully adverse or threatening. The term is usually used within the greater context of war, to denote an opposing group and the individuals within as threats to one's own national, ethic, or political group. To individuals within the threatened group, the "enemy" concept is an amorphous personification of both a threat to one's collective social group, as well as a personal threat to oneself. The term "enemy" serves the social function of designating a particular entity as a threat, and the "most feared enemy" status reserved for those who pose the greatest mortal threat. The general ideological mechanism by which particular threats are determined is called marginalization. (Mechanisms which assert a unilateral amnesty for particular individuals and groups as being "enemies" is protectionism.) The characterization of an individual or group as an enemy is called demonization. The propagation of demonization is called propaganda.
An "enemy" may also be conceptual; used to describe impersonal phenomena such disease, and a host of other things. Throughout religious theology, "the Enemy" is typically reserved to represent the human tendecy to do evil, often personified as a malicious deity, such as the devil or a demon.
1 Terms
"Enemy" is a strong word, evoking associations of hate, violenceViolence is a general term to describe behavior, usually deliberate, that causes or intends to cause injury to people, animals, or non-living objects. Violence is often associated with aggression. There are essentially two kinds of violence: random violen, battleSee also the town of Battle, East Sussex, England Generally, a battle is an instance of combat between two or more parties wherein each group will seek to defeat the others. Battles are most often fought during wars. Battles may be small scale, only invol and war. The opposite of an enemy is a friend or allyThe word Ally when used alone, has several possible meanings. A member of an alliance; in particular, one of the Allies in the First and Second World Wars the television series Ally McBeal the television series Ally Ally, Betty Spaghetty's sister Ally is; the state of being or having an enemy is enmity. But in general, "the enemy" is a bit too militaristic a term to use in polite society, and informal substitutes are moreoften used. Often the substututed terms become pejorativesA word or phrase is pejorative if it expresses contempt or disapproval about the thing or person described. Most pejorative expressions may also be used in a non-pejorative way, however, and (as with any implied meaning) determining the intent of the spea in the context that they are used. In any case, the designation of an "enemy" exists solely to denote the status of a people or group as a threat, and to propagate this within the local context.
"The enemy," as the object of social anger or repulsion, has througout history been used as the prototypical propaganda tool to focus the fear and anxiety within a society toward a particular target. The target is often general, as with a ethnic groupethnicity An ethnic group is a group of people who identify with one another, or are so identified by others, on the basis of either presumed cultural or biological similarities, or both. Like race and nation, the notion of ethnicity developed in the cont or race of people, or it can also be a conceptual target, as with an ideology which characterises a particular group. In some cases the concept of the enemy have morphed; wheras once racial and ethnic claims to support a call to war may later have changed to ideological and conceptual based claims.
In the United States, the current " War on Terrorism" is widely understood to be the replacement for the Cold War against " Communism." Thus the enemy term "communist" has largely given way to the newer "terrorist," and the threats of nuclear annihilation and " communist expansion " have given way (within politicl parlance) to "acts of terrorism" and religious (almost always Islamic) fundamentalism.
During the Cold War, the terms "Communists" or "Reds" were broadly understood in American society to mean "the enemy," and the meaning of the two terms could extremely pejorative, depending on the political context, mood, or state of fear and agitation within the society at the time.
