BRITISH IDENTITY AND THE GERMAN OTHER A Dissertation ...

such as one’s own culture, race, class, or family, can become a “reciprocal parasitism,” whereby
individuality is sacrificed implicitly in order to strengthen collective identity in opposition to a
third party or “triangulated enemy.” 109 In the case of nationalism, stereotypes reinforce a
psychologically negative, propagandistic ingroup mentality by creating a superficial unity among
diverse social groups, so that nationalism becomes self-exultation, or exoneration, while
internationalism implies a loss of national identity and “self.” The inhabitants of two competing
nations, lacking shared cultural values or common assumptions, will likely see themselves as
irreconcilable rivals on many fronts, locked in a conflict pitting the “good” self against the “evil”
other. 110 This phenomenon especially appears in relation to highly sensitive issues that lead to
wholesale condemnation of the outgroup, such as occurred during “Made in Germany” phase of
the Anglo-German trade rivalry that made headlines in 1896. Whether or not it actually
challenges the ingroup’s way of life, the outgroup is apt to be perceived as malevolent or “wrong-
headed,” and the sole obstacle in the way of progress. 111
109 Stein, “Culture and Ethnicity,” 148-49.
110 Gilman, Difference and Pathology, 18.
111 Lippman, Public Opinion, 127, and Forbes, Nationalism, Ethnocentrism and
Personality, 136-37. See also Adorno et al., Authoritarian Personality, 619, on the “key” idea,
held among anti-Semites, that Jews are the source of all problems. Such pseudo-erudite formulae
“reduce the complicated to the elementary,” and offer “emotional, narcissistic gratifications
which tend to break down the barriers of rational self-criticism.”
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