El otro es el enemigo

Imaginarios sociales y polarización

Abstract

The other one is the enemy. Social imaginary and polarization. Without stopping to detail the historical multi-causality of the deep crisis facing Venezuela, social polarization and political violence are the factors that more visibly have worsened the socio-political conflict during the last three years. During this period, the opposing and excluding postures of official sectors and of opposition, expressed as well by the political actors as by their followers, have put in evidence the emergence, use and political exploitation of values, beliefs, symbols and social myths of the social imaginary. The article tries to approach the understanding of the conflict from a psychosocial approach to these imaginaries which revindicate and give another meaning to a series of myths, beliefs, representations of the self and the other; of military, religious and revolutionary referents expressed in different public and private social fields, in real and virtual, corporal and territorial boundaries, and through verbal and iconic speeches of great mobilization power.