Cruelty

This chapter examines the dimension of cruelty in the dehumanizing process. It reveals that acts of abominable cruelty have something to do with the fact that dehumanizers see their victims as human beings. It is because dehumanizers cannot help recognizing that their victims are human, and this recognition coexists in their minds with the belief that they are animals, that the members of the dehumanized group are regarded as horrific monsters, and such monsters are, by definition, malevolent, evil beings. And because those who are dehumanized come to be seen as evil, they become targets of the most extreme forms of moralistic aggression. The magnitude of their wickedness is such that no imaginable punishment is too severe for them. In addition, dehumanizers almost always take pains to humiliate those whom they dehumanize.

Impurity

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.

Dangerous Speech

This chapter is concerned with dangerous speech. Dangerous speech is any form of expression that is likely to cause others to commit or condone acts of violence against some group of people. Not all dangerous speech is dehumanizing speech, however. People often incite or justify violence against a group without encouraging an audience to think of their targets as nonhumans. But this chapter shows that dehumanizing speech is an especially dangerous kind of speech, because of its power to elicit extreme forms of violence. This form of speech dehumanizes indirectly, by causing others to adopt dehumanizing attitudes. The producer of the speech may or may not even share these attitudes.

Ideology

This chapter argues that dehumanizing beliefs are ideological beliefs. So, to understand how dehumanization works, and to resist it effectively, the chapter stresses the need for a clear conception of ideology. One popular conception of ideology is that ideologies are beliefs that have the function of fostering oppression. The chapter agrees with and adopts this notion of ideology, because it homes in on something important that we do not have the term for. But to truly understand what ideology is, this chapter pushes the analysis further and looks closely at the two core elements of the definition: the concepts of oppression and function.

From Barbados to Nazi Germany

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.

Racism

This chapter defines the term “racism” and considers the historical trajectory of this phenomenon. Racism is the belief that races exist and that some races are intrinsically superior to others. A person can be a racist, in this sense, even if they do not feel any hostility toward those whom they regard as their racial inferiors. With this definition, the chapter attempts to elaborate on the concept even further. It begins by discussing the meaning of “racial superiority” and how racists believe that each race has an “intrinsic value.” They think that the members of one race are objectively inferior or superior to the members of another just because of their racial identity, and, therefore, each race can be assigned a rank on a hierarchy of value. The idea that some races are superior to others thus results in the idea of a racial hierarchy.

How We Do Race

This chapter teases out the core elements of the ordinary conception of “race.” This does not include a scientific or philosophical definition of race. Rather, the chapter talks about the view of race that most people just slip into when going about the everyday business of life. It is a conception that has been taken so thoroughly for granted that many do not even question it. The chapter argues that understanding the conception of race is key to understanding dehumanization, because beliefs about race lie at the heart of the dehumanizing process. It shows that dividing human beings into races—into “our kind” and “their kind”—is the first step on the road to dehumanizing them.

Resisting

This chapter emphasizes some key points about resisting dehumanization that can be put into practice. It stresses that dehumanization is both political and psychological. Dehumanization must be resisted through political action and by knowing oneself. Moreover, dehumanization must not be confused with other kinds of bias. The chapter argues that it is important to study history to learn about dehumanization, to know that dehumanization comes from outside of us, and to understand that dehumanizing propaganda is usually not about hate. In addition, the chapter asserts that race is a social invention for justifying oppression and that almost any group can become racialized. To conclude, the chapter shows that it is important to be mindful of the fact that most acts of resistance happen in everyday life.

The Politics of the Human

This chapter explores the view that, far from being an objective biological category, the category of the human is an ideological construction that is basic to ways that human societies exercise power. In short, the category of the human is a social construction. The chapter points out that when a group of people essentializes itself—sees itself as fundamentally and ineradicably distinct from all other people—the concept of the human becomes indistinguishable from the concept of “our kind.” In ethnically homogenous societies, this means members of the society are human, and everyone else is not. In heterogenous societies where there is “racial” or ethnic diversity—that is, most modern societies—the situation is more complex. In such societies, the concept of the human is an ideological structure. It is a concept that is used to legitimate and regulate relations of domination. If, as is often the case, the dominant group essentializes itself, that becomes the paradigm of the human and all others are either lesser humans or, at the extreme, subhumans. This view of what it means to be human has some important implications for the struggle against dehumanization.

Self-Engineering

This chapter illustrates how, as hypersocial animals, we have strong inhibitions against harming our own kind, but we are also able to recognize that doing harm to others can benefit those who are capable of overcoming their reluctance to performing acts of violence. Here, culture does more than allow us to engineer material artifacts. It also allows us to engineer ourselves. Our knack for culture gives Homo sapiens vastly greater behavioral flexibility than is available to any other species, because it creates conditions that allow us to push back against some of the biological imperatives of human nature itself. Through culture, we can get ourselves to behave in ways that would otherwise be unavailable to us. Among these are ways that we have found to overcome our visceral aversion to performing acts of calculated, instrumental violence against our own kind. The chapter argues that it is thus our feats of self-engineering that have made certain kinds of violence—by far, the most destructive kinds of violence—possible.