On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0002
D. Smith
{"title":"Why Dehumanization Matters","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter argues that dehumanization is a worldwide problem with deep historical roots, but it is also a growing problem around the world that promises to worsen in a future in which climate crises will turn more and more people into refugees on foreign soil. In order to know how to deal with the problem of dehumanization, we have to understand what it is and how it works. Dehumanization fuels the worst brutalities that human beings perpetrate against one another. It is not just a problem of the modern, industrialized world: this chapter argues that it has haunted humanity for millennia. There are traces of it in writings from the ancient civilizations to medieval characterizations and even in far-flung indigenous cultures.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130269297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0010
D. Smith
{"title":"From Barbados to Nazi Germany","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter considers the process of dehumanization through key historical events. It demonstrates how, when one group of people dehumanizes another, they first think of them as members of an alien and inferior race: a lesser kind of human being. Racist denigration morphs into dehumanization when they are imagined to be not merely inferior, but to have a subhuman essence, and this promotes and legitimates their oppression in the eyes of their oppressors. But this is not the whole story of dehumanization. As this chapter reveals, the reality is much more complex. Through a number of historical examples, the chapter shows how certain patterns perfectly illustrate the intersection of hierarchy and essentialism that drives the dehumanizing process, often with catastrophic results.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115060742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0005
D. Smith
{"title":"Lynching","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter presents the horrifying reality of lynching, as removed from the sanitized depictions often seen in media. Racist lynchings were not merely extrajudicial executions. They typically included torture and bodily mutilation, with the remains of the victim being picked through and saved as souvenirs and memorabilia. In addition, lynchings were often treated as festive, public gatherings. The chapter asks how such actions could be made psychologically possible, especially on such a large scale as during the Jim Crow era. Part of the answer lies in dehumanizing beliefs that many Whites held about Black people—especially Black men. Moreover, representations of Black people as subhuman animals were not confined to the popular press. They also bore the stamp of academic authority.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"170 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122064338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a094172
D. Smith
{"title":"Illusion","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a094172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a094172","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the nature of illusion and our vulnerability to it. Political leaders—especially those with an authoritarian bent—often use dehumanizing rhetoric as a means of persuasion because of its power to influence human behavior. First, they frighten us by getting us to think of some group of people as demons, monsters, or deadly predators. Then, they court our support by promising to save us from these terrors. The chapter considers those who are skilled in the dark arts of political persuasion as illusionists, who, under the right circumstances, can be difficult to resist. As such, it stresses the importance of understanding the nature of illusion in order to avoid being ensnared by dehumanizing rhetoric.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133601928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0011
D. Smith
{"title":"Which Lives Matter?","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0011","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter puzzles out why the conviction that there are “higher” and “lower” kinds of beings is so stubbornly rooted in the human way of life. It traces the origins of such a way of thinking. The chapter reveals that racial supremacist beliefs are part of a much larger framework, within which the relationship between race and dehumanization becomes much clearer. Racial thinking and dehumanizing thinking both rely on psychological essentialism, but both also rely on hierarchical thinking. Racialized people are typically thought of as lesser human beings. Because they possess an inferior racial essence, they are thought to be by their very nature at a lower level within the rank of the human. But dehumanized people are thought of as possessing the essence of a subhuman animal. That is what makes them less than human rather than lesser humans.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"118 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134330737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0023
D. Smith
{"title":"Criminals","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0023","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explores how the persecuted are associated with criminality. Indeed, the idea of inherent criminality is at the core of the so-called “superpredator” myth. In the present-day United States, Black and Latino males are most often tarred with this brush. However, the idea of the racialized criminal is quite widespread—both historically and culturally. Today, the figure of the racialized criminal is the embodiment of monstrousness in developed nations. To resist dehumanization, the chapter stresses that it is vital to resist the idea that any group of people are inherently, irredeemably criminal. This kind of rhetoric is a danger signal that the members of this group are, or will soon be, considered as less than human.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124443925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0021
D. Smith
{"title":"Impurity","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0021","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter argues that dehumanization is much more complex than merely thinking of other people as lower forms of life. When people dehumanize others, they think of them as both human and subhuman at the same time, and as violating the categorical distinctions that are supposed to underpin the natural order. Filth and disease are repulsive, so it is in the interest of dehumanizers to instill or reinforce the belief that members of the dehumanized group are a source of pollution. Dehumanized people are often seen as harbingers of disorder, pollution, and disease. And even though these people are almost always marginalized and vulnerable, they are depicted as and treated as though they are profoundly threatening—thus justifying the violence against them.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116386587","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0003
D. Smith
{"title":"Defining Dehumanization","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter defines dehumanization. After emphasizing the importance of laying out a clear definition of the term, the chapter goes on to describe dehumanization as a kind of attitude—a way of thinking about others. To dehumanize another person, in short, is to conceive of them as a subhuman animal. People often mistake dehumanization for its effects on human behavior. This chapter argues that such notions make it much more difficult to comprehend how dehumanization works. When people think of others as subhuman, they often treat them in cruel and degrading ways, and they often refer to them using slurs. But the chapter contends that bad treatment and degrading slurs are effects of dehumanization rather than dehumanization itself.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127155890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0012
D. Smith
{"title":"The Act of Killing","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter considers how we manage violence. Like other social animals, humans inhibit severe forms of violence against members of their own community. These inhibitions are needed, because social life cannot possibly be sustained if the members of a group are at each other's throats. But for most animals these inhibitions against violence do not apply to strangers. Moreover, the human aversion to harming one another is in tension with a basic condition of animal life. Animals must kill, damage, or exploit other organisms in order to live. The act of killing is monumentally important to human lives. The question of what kinds of beings are killable, and under what circumstances they may be killed, is perhaps the most basic of all moral questions. Because killing is mandatory for human survival, it is tempting to fall into the trap of hierarchical thinking, and to rationalize this gut-level bias with fancy philosophical arguments or religious beliefs.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"264 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132736741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On InhumanityPub Date : 2020-09-01DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0025
D. Smith
{"title":"Dehumanization and Its Neighbors","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923006.003.0025","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter explains the relationship between dehumanization and other, nearby, destructive social beliefs and practices—things like sexism, ableism, and transphobia. Often, people lump all of these together under the heading of dehumanization. The chapter argues that they each have their own unique dynamics, and blurring the distinctions between them only makes it more difficult to resist them. The chapter goes on to assert that not all dehumanization is of the sort that makes monsters. There is another kind of dehumanization—enfeebling dehumanization. When people get dehumanized in the enfeebling mode, they are seen as metaphysically threatening but physically innocuous.","PeriodicalId":332690,"journal":{"name":"On Inhumanity","volume":"78 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115886992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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