The Danger of Dehumanization and Hatred

Dehumanizing, Labelling and Hating People

• "I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives. A disastrous by-product of the development of the scientific and technical mentality. We are guilty. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits."--Albert Einstein

• "It is harder to dehumanize a single individual that you have gotten the chance to know. Which is why people and groups who seek power and division do not bother with dehumanizing and individual. Better to attach a stigma a taint of pollution to an entire group."--Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

We live in a time when the language we use to describe one another is becoming more and more brutal. Instead of seeing people as people, we label them. Left-wing radical. Maga fascist. Neo-Nazi. Communist. Socialist. Traitor. Terrorist. Immigrant. Illegal. These labels have taken the place of names, of faces, of stories. We no longer see individuals. We see enemies.

This week, in Minnesota, a state senator and her husband were shot and killed. The man responsible had a list of others he was planning to target. Why? Because he saw them as left-wing enemies. Not as neighbors. Not as fellow Americans. Not as human beings. Here is part of a CNN report of the murders:

• "The man sought by authorities for allegedly shooting Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota on Saturday while impersonating a police officer worked for a security company that advertised a fleet of “police type vehicles,” and other equipment that could potentially have aided him in appearing to be law enforcement."--CNN

Vance Boelter was also an outspoken evangelical Christian who traveled to Africa to tell his faith story and, in at least one sermon, pointedly questioned American morals on sexual orientation, according to videos and social media posts reviewed by CNN.

• Racism, sexism, homophobia, torture, even genocide. These are some of the horrible things that can happen when a group of people is dehumanized, or thought of as less than human. To disregard another’s humanity is to view them as “other” and often as “less than." Dehumanization frequently takes place in intergroup contexts but can also happen in the realm of interpersonal relationships. It is possible anywhere where one person seeks to deny another’s humanity.-- Please read: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-psychology-of-dehumanization-8723940

This kind of thinking is not new. We have seen it again and again throughout history. Slavery. Lynching. Segregation. The Holocaust. Internment camps. Religious wars. The murder of journalists. The burning of churches and mosques. Every time this kind of violence happens, it begins with one simple and dangerous idea: They are not like us.

That’s what dehumanization does. It removes the person. It turns a father or a sister or a child into a label. And once a person becomes a label, it becomes easier to hate them. To mock them. To silence them. Even to kill them.

A friend of mine once joked, “I love humanity. It’s people I can’t stand.” And as strange as it sounds, there is truth in that. It is easy to love humanity in the abstract. But when we are faced with someone who disagrees with us, someone who looks different or prays differently or comes from another country, we often struggle to see them as fully human.

We pretend to listen. We smile politely. Yet, many of us carry quiet prejudices. We might think, what a stupid Italian. Or he’s just Black. Or she’s just a Muslim. Or he's probably a criminal because he's from Venezuela. These thoughts may never be spoken aloud, but they live in the mind, and they shape the way we vote, the way we speak, and the way we treat others.

Entire communities are blamed for the actions of a few. A radical Muslim commits violence, and suddenly all Muslims are viewed with suspicion. Gangs from Venezuela commit crimes, and suddenly every Venezuelan crossing the border is treated like a criminal. We forget that most people are simply trying to survive, to work, to care for their families. They are not the enemy.

This pattern comes from a very old place in our minds. Tribalism. It means we belong to our tribe and everyone else belongs to another tribe. And the other tribe must be feared or hated. It is us versus them.

But the world is not so simple. There are good people in every country. There are kind and generous people in every religion. There are thoughtful, gentle people on every side of every political issue. And there are also those who act with cruelty or ignorance in every group. No tribe is pure. No tribe is all bad.

Dehumanization is fed by fear. And fear fuels hatred. And hatred feeds paranoia. When we begin to think, they are all dangerous, they are ruining our country, they are the problem, we are slipping into something dark. Something that has always ended in tragedy.

We need to slow down and ask ourselves a very human question. Who is this person in front of me? What is their story? What do they hope for? What do they love? What have they lost?

When we ask those questions, we begin to see again. Not a label. But a person.

That is how healing begins. That is how fear begins to fade. That is how we take a step, however small, toward becoming more human.

And isn’t that what we all want, deep down? To be seen. To be heard. To be understood. And to be treated not as a threat or a slogan or a stereotype, but as a fellow human being.

That is the world I want. That is the world I still believe is possible.

The world according to the jazz legend, Louis Armstrong:

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