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Article: Demons by Definition: Social Idealism, Religious Nationalism, and the Demonizing of Dissent.(Review)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Journal of Church and State
- Article date:
- June 22, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 J.M. Dawson Studies in Church and State. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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David K. O'Rourke. Demons by Definition: Social Idealism, Religious Nationalism, and the Demonizing of Dissent. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1998.
Social idealism, the drive to make society a better place, must first move those people out of the way who dissent to the social changes that are to be made. Those who seek to bring about change then depersonalize the dissenters, who generally are the ordinary people, labeling them as less than human. At times this singling out of those who are in the way of the utopian vision results in their extermination.
In this ...