However, the last decade has seen the demonisation of another far larger group: Muslims.

ECONOMIST: Letters

The cartoons had nothing to do with freedom of speech, but with the conscious demonisation of a minority group.

ECONOMIST: Drawing no conclusions

Orientalist stereotyping, as Edward Said has well argued, leads easily to demonisation.

ECONOMIST: Arabs and Americans

Though stable democracies have transparent ways of resolving such disputes, arguments about them are often held in a spirit of mutual demonisation.

ECONOMIST: After Pope John Paul II

With events in the last century having left a deep scar on our collective psyche, the example of the demonisation of Jews is particularly poignant.

ECONOMIST: Letters

In India the demonisation of Muslims has sometimes received official sanction.

ECONOMIST: Letters

But demonisation can easily mutate into new forms.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter: The dangers of demonology | The

The demonisation of Mr Hussein obscures this.

ECONOMIST: America��s demons

She also argued that unemployed people were being "forced into such alleged 'educational' roles as stacking for Poundland for not just low wages, but no wages at all", while the public was "increasingly saying 'no more' to the demonisation of benefit recipients".

BBC: Natalie Bennett

But today polarisation is almost instant, thanks in part to the growing role of non-negotiable issues such as abortion in American politics, in part to the rise of a media industry based on outrage, and in part to a cycle of tit-for-tat demonisation.

ECONOMIST: Lexington: Obama derangement syndrome | The