Why Dehumanization Matters

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.