Stop the Tactic of Dehumanization

I have been thinking about the tactic of dehumanizing an enemy. It has long been used in warfare to make it easier to legitimize harming and killing other people. It starts with language. By calling your adversary an animal, particularly something like a rat, you begin the process of conceptualizing people as vermin. From there, the propaganda generally transforms into pictures, these might include political cartoons--but with the advent of computers, people have gotten very creative. The images are often dismissed as humorous, but the level of acceptability keeps getting pushed to more extremes.

There tends to be a lack of reality in the propaganda of dehumanization. It is about changing the viewpoint of the population to seeing a person or more likely a group of people, as inferior and not deserving basic human rights. Truth is not important.

While it has been in the realm of politics, more recently, perhaps with the rise of Donald Trump, dehumanization reached new heights in politics in the USA. Some people show no restraint in name calling and blaming others unjustly. Combining that with the growing use of social media, it has pushed the tactics of dehumanization into daily communications over social media and biased news sources. Once the language and images have painted the adversaries as subhuman, physical violence becomes the avenue for deranged individuals to convince themselves that they are doing something about the perceived threat.

We can stop this ugly trend by rejecting the offensive language, insulting images, and blatant lies and fabrications. Use your better judgment before participating in the hate. We owe our children a better world than that.

-KJC