Idea
The text treats the enemy not only as a person or a group, but as a mental and political construction that reorganizes the meaning of war. When the enemy is fashioned in this way, war no longer remains an event separate from peace; instead, it enters everyday life and becomes part of how time itself is imagined. In this way, the boundary between exception and habit changes.
Concise Formulation
Constructing the enemy in the age of globalization: reshaping the perception of war and time
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This claim serves the book’s analysis of how conflict operates in the age of globalization. Rather than remaining clearly defined within a conventional confrontation, the enemy becomes an element that produces meaning, fear, and mobilization. From this perspective, the text explains how war is no longer understood only as military confrontation, but as a system for reshaping public perception.
Why It Matters
The importance of this claim is that it reveals a cognitive dimension in Arkoun’s understanding of violence. It asks not only who fights whom, but how the very perception of the enemy is produced. This makes the reading deeper, because it attends to the language, representation, and imaginaries that precede political action and accompany it.
Brief Evidence
The text does not treat the enemy only as a person or a group, but as a mental and political construction that reorganizes the meaning of war. When the enemy is fashioned in this way, war no longer remains an event separate from peace; it enters everyday life and becomes part of the imagination of time itself. Thus, the boundary between exception and habit changes.
Reading Questions
- How does constructing the enemy change the meaning of war itself?
- What happens to the dividing line between peacetime and wartime when the enemy is always present?
Documentation Level
High: the claim appears in a clear location within the book’s material.