LONGING FOR A PERFECT WORLD:
Destruction of the Diseased Other

One may call the diseased other a Jew or Bolshevik or homosexual or mental patient or Slav (as the Nazis did).

One may call the diseased other a Mexican, Muslim, Syrian, an Arab, an immigrant, a capitalist, a communist, or a socialist (as some Americans do today).

In our hearts the dream remains the same: the desire to restore the goodness or perfection or purity of the nation. One restores the nation's goodness or purity or perfection by removing a certain class of people identified as being responsible for destroying the nation's goodness or perfection or purity. 

At the heart of nationalism—the dream remains the same: removal of the diseased other from within the boundaries of the nation.

Longing for a perfect world. The unbearableness of reality. Killing or the production of death--and goodness--are two sides of the same coin.

Perpetrators "kill for peace:" creation of a world where the disturbers of peace are removed or eliminated. Nirvana. Stoned on heroin. Destroying those who "Brought Death into the World, and all our woe" (Milton).

Hitler: "We may be inhumane, but if we rescue Germany we have achieved the greatest deed in the world."
 

Infectious Germs: The microscope reveals symbols for the British pound and the American dollar, and for Jews, communists, and homosexuals (triangles). Image from Der Stürmer, Nazi newspaper, April 15, 1943.