Making Enemies: Reactive Dynamics of Discursive Polarization

This chapter discusses certain discursive-relational aspects of the dynamics of polarization, illustrated with empirical material from discourses of and on right-wing nationalism. We approach polarization as a historically evolving process of identity-construction, focusing on the back-and-forth movement of action and reaction between the various actors involved. We show how, through scapegoating, denigration, etc., the parties tend to alienate each other, actively making their enemies. In specifically discursive terms, we analyse ways in which discourse in polarized settings tends to become deadlocked, mutually hostile and in other ways limited and distorted in its communicative function, sketching various part-logics of polarization, including a logic of ‘doubles’, a logic of ‘shibboleths and taboos’, and of ‘pollution and paranoid extension’.