Alan Aubut is a retired geologist, based in Nipigon.Every ideology that seeks to reorganize society from above must identify an enemy. This is not a rhetorical accessory. It is the structural requirement of all collectivist systems. A population cannot be unified under a single project unless it becomes convinced that someone stands in the way. The enemy provides focus, urgency, and emotional fuel. Without one, the ideology loses its ability to demand obedience. With one, it can suppress dissent, justify coercion, and claim moral necessity. As with a poisoned apple, the poison works only when the apple is held high enough to be admired and the enemy is held low enough to be despised, such that the victim willingly bites the treacherous fruit.The pattern is embedded in political history. Those who hold out the poisoned apple present themselves as caring and empathic while hiding convictions built on shaky moralizing. Lenin blamed the failures of Russia on “class enemies” and insisted that any resistance to Bolshevik rule proved that the saboteur class still lurked in the countryside. Stalin transformed entire groups into targets through manufactured labels such as “kulak,” a word that originally described relatively prosperous farmers but soon expanded to include anyone the state wished to punish. Mao condemned broad categories of citizens as “rightists,” “bourgeois elements,” or “counterrevolutionaries.” These terms were intentionally vague. Their purpose was not accuracy but flexibility. A regime that governs through ideological purity needs the ability to criminalize anyone who challenges its narrative.Hitler’s system operated on the same logic. Jews became the universal explanation for every German problem. They were blamed for inflation, unemployment, moral decline, and military defeat despite the lack of causal links. Once the narrative took hold, evidence no longer mattered. The enemy had been identified. The regime did the rest. Pol Pot exemplified the pattern in its most brutal form. His government’s defining belief was that Cambodia needed to be purified by eliminating educated and urban people. The result was a genocide conducted by untrained zealots who viewed intelligence as treason. The enemy was not discovered. It was designed.The mechanism has not changed in the modern era, even if the vocabulary has. Some political movements that describe themselves as progressive or humanitarian use the word “Nazi” not as a historical category but as a rhetorical weapon, a slang term for National Socialist perverted to imply the opposite. The aim is to convert disagreement into moral crisis. Once someone is defined as a Nazi, there is no need to listen. There is only a need to act. The insistence that all political opponents are fascists or extremists is not an accident. It is a strategy that makes persuasion unnecessary and violence permissible. It is the contemporary form of Orwell’s two minutes of hate. The target shifts, but the instinct does not.This dynamic exists because collectivist ideologies function on emotion rather than argument. Emotion requires contrast. Narratives require villains. Images and symbols travel faster than facts. A movement framed as a moral struggle can justify policies that would otherwise be indefensible. It can label censorship as protection, repression as compassion, and force as justice. What begins as a campaign for fairness transforms into a crusade against those who stand in the way of fairness. The motives may sound noble, but the results are destructive. The poison is effective precisely because it tastes sweet..Free societies do not operate on this foundation. They rely on institutions that assume disagreement. Parliament exists to mediate conflict. The courts exist to apply the law impartially. Markets exist to coordinate decisions that no government could possibly centralize. A free press exists to expose mistakes. The entire structure of a democratic republic is based on the premise that no group holds a monopoly on truth. The common good emerges from balancing competing interests, not eliminating them. This is why free societies rarely produce organized political violence. They have mechanisms that allow disagreement without destruction.Collectivist systems cannot tolerate this. They require unity but cannot obtain it voluntarily. The state must therefore identify those who obstruct progress. Once this begins, the logic becomes self-reinforcing. Criticism becomes disloyalty. Dissent becomes sabotage. Skepticism becomes complicity. The ability of a society to correct its own errors is slowly replaced by the political need to preserve the narrative. The poison spreads because it feels righteous. Few recognise the danger until it is too late.This psychology has resurfaced in various forms across the modern world. The convergence between radical Islamist movements and segments of the contemporary left provides a current illustration. Both define their identity by opposition. For both, the Jews once again serve as the universal scapegoat. This is not because of any coherent political programme but because the Jewish example undermines key ideological claims. Ashkenazi Jews, in particular, have a long history of academic and professional achievement. Their success contradicts the narrative that all inequality stems from oppression. In collectivist frameworks, counterexamples cannot be tolerated. They must be redefined as enemies or removed from view.This is why competence becomes a threat in collectivist systems. People with expertize undermine ideological certainty. They expose flaws and reveal falsehoods. They provide evidence that contradicts slogans. Consequently, they are among the first to be targeted when ideological purification begins. The Soviet Union imprisoned engineers and scientists who challenged unrealistic quotas. China humiliated teachers who resisted indoctrination. Cambodia murdered people who wore glasses, spoke French, or displayed signs of education. The presence of intelligence was viewed as proof of treason. When ideology governs, truth is the enemy.It is a mistake to assume this behaviour requires clinical pathology. No political movement relies on a population of psychopaths. It relies on ordinary human traits that exist in all societies. Ambition, envy, and resentment provide the emotional catalysts. Moral certainty provides the justification. Centralized power provides the mechanism. When these traits combine within a system that rewards ideological loyalty over competence, outcomes become predictable. Collective violence becomes an expression of collective virtue. The poison flows through the social bloodstream because people believe it is good for them..The free society erodes when this process becomes normalized. The change is rarely immediate. It begins with small concessions. People adjust their language to avoid censure. Institutions alter their priorities to avoid controversy. Laws are interpreted through new moral categories. Public debate becomes ritualized. Emotional narratives replace evidence. The enemy-making process becomes routine. The apple looks even more appealing. By the time the poison takes effect, society has lost the ability to recognize what has happened.This is the core reason why collectivism, in all its forms, cannot coexist with sustained liberty. The issue is not only economics or governance. It is psychology. Systems that require unity must impose it. Systems that impose unity must identify an enemy. And once an enemy is identified, the logic of repression becomes unavoidable. The poison becomes the point.The path forward begins with recognition. A society must first understand the mechanism before it can resist it. Citizens must recognize when they are being encouraged to hate abstract groups rather than examine concrete issues. They must notice when slogans replace arguments and when moral language is used to silence debate. They must see that unity built on hostility corrodes every institution that depends on trust. A society that identifies the poison can avoid biting the apple. A society that refuses to see the poison will eventually lose the freedom to choose.There is no single solution that can be imposed from above. The antidote to collectivist psychology cannot be administered by decree. It emerges from a return to the habits that sustain a free society. Truth must be allowed to challenge fashionable narratives. Debate must be protected even when uncomfortable. Institutions must be led by people chosen for competence rather than ideology. Law must restrain authority rather than empower it. Citizens must be encouraged to think rather than instructed to obey. These disciplines preserve self-government.The first step is always the same. A society must recognise the enemy-making instinct and refuse to accept it. Only then can an appropriate plan be formulated. Only then can a free society remain free.Alan Aubut is a retired geologist, based in Nipigon.
