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it's important to define and describe dehumanization, because it's what opens the door for cruelty and genocide.

it can be helpful to understand what it is that allows human beings "to overcome the very deep and natural inhibitions they have against treating other people like game animals or vermin or dangerous predators."

Mostly, they were seen as "soulless animals." And that dramatic dehumanization made it possible for great atrocities to take place.

The cross-cultural psychologist Gustav Jahoda catalogued how Europeans since the time of the ancient Greeks viewed those living in relatively primitive cultures as lacking a mind in one of two ways: either lacking self-control and emotions, like an animal, or lacking reason and intellect, like a child. So foreign in appearance, language, and manner, “they” did not simply become other people, they became lesser people. More specifically, they were seen as having lesser minds, diminished capacities to either reason or feel.

In the early 1990ss, California State Police commonly referred to crimes involving young black men as NHI—No Humans Involved.

The essence of dehumanization is, therefore, failing to recognize the fully human mind of another person. Those who fight against dehumanization typically deal with extreme cases that can make it seem like a relatively rare phenomenon. It is not. Subtle versions are all around us.

In 1945, the Austrian physician René Spitz investigated an orphanage that took extra care to make sure its infants were not infected with disease. The children received first-class nutrition and medical care, but they were barely touched, to minimize their contact with germs. The approach was a catastrophe. Thirty-seven percent of the babies died before reaching age 2.

It turns out that empathetic physical contact is essential for life. Intimate touch engages the emotions and wires the fibers of the brain together.

The famous Grant Study investigated a set of men who had gone to Harvard in the 1940s. The men who grew up in loving homes earned 50 percent more over the course of their careers than those from loveless ones. They suffered from far less chronic illness and much lower rates of dementia in old age. A loving home was the best predictor of life outcomes.

Some people correctly perceive something like a frat party full of blackface as wrongheaded, file it under "cultural appropriation," and adopt the erroneous heuristic that any appropriation of a culture is wrongheaded. When the chef who staffs the dining hall at their college serves sushi, they see injustice where there is none. Conversely, other folks see a protest over sushi, perceive that it is absurd, see it filed under cultural appropriation, and adopt the bad heuristic that any grievance lodged under that heading is bullshit. Later, when their Facebook stream unearths a story about blackface headlined, "These Frat Boys Are Guilty of Cultural Appropriation," they erroneously conclude that nothing wrongheaded occurred. Perhaps they even ignorantly add a dismissive comment, exacerbating the canard that racial animus or dehumanization is a nonissue.

It has already succeeded in shifting the terms of the debate, taking phrases like “debt-ceiling” and “budget crisis” out of the limelight and putting terms like “inequality” and “greed” squarely in the center. This discursive shift has made it more difficult for Washington to obscure the spurious reasons for the financial meltdown and the unequal outcomes it has exposed

In early September, “occupy” signaled on-going military incursions. Now it signifies progressive political protest. It’s no longer primarily about force of military power; instead it signifies standing up to injustice, inequality and abuse of power. It’s no longer about simply occupying a space; it’s about transforming that space.

This is a far cry from some of its earlier meanings. In fact, The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that “occupy” once meant “to have sexual intercourse with.”

Most of us say we admire people who stand up for what’s right (or what is eventually shown to be right), especially when they are strong enough to stick to their guns in the face of strenuous opposition.

Australian academics argue that group members are often hostile to people who buck conformity, even if the members later agree with the dissenter.

Professor Zimbardo has classified evil activity in three categories: individual (a few bad apples), situational (a bad barrel of apples) or systemic (bad barrel makers).

The Mechanical Bride, published in 1951, he established himself in the emerging field of cultural studies by offering a caustic survey of the dehumanizing impact of popular magazines, advertising, and comic strips.

In The Gutenberg Galaxy, he offered a map of modern history by highlighting the hitherto-unexplored effect of print in shaping how we think. This was followed by Understanding Media, which prophesied that new electronic media would rewire human consciousness just as effectively as print once did, giving birth to a “global village”

DO harsh words lead to violent acts? At a moment when hate speech seems to be proliferating, it’s a question worth asking.

worry that heated anti-Muslim political rhetoric would spark an increase in attacks against Muslims.

Some claim that last month’s mass shooting in Colorado Springs was provoked by Carly Fiorina’s assertion that Planned Parenthood was “harvesting baby parts”; Mrs. Fiorina countered that language could not be held responsible for the deeds of a “deranged” man.

For some of us, this was a concern from the beginning of President Trump’s rise — not just the policies he would adopt but also the attitudes he would encourage and the passions he would provoke.

The problem is one of social psychology. Human beings are wired to favor their ingroup and to view people in outgroups as interchangeable and dispensable. We are willing to form ingroups at the drop of a hat, based even on minor characteristics.

We tend to believe that bad things that happen to people in our ingroup are bum luck, while bad things that happen to people in outgroups are evidence of a just universe. Because we are inherently predisposed toward stereotyping, we are particularly vulnerable to propaganda.

why did so many people get so angry when President Trump said “These are animals” in response to a remark about a gang called MS-13?

Obviously, because he wasn’t just stating a simple fact; he was using those words to demote those people from the human race.

And by the transitive property, to demote immigrants from the empathy and consideration that decent people extend to other human beings.

Her Film on Sex Assault Depicts Her Own and Fuels a #MeToo Moment

Danijela Stajnfeld included her account of being assaulted in a film that has led to contentious debate in Serbia and prompted other women to come forward to say they were sexually abused.

Her face graced billboards in Belgrade. She appeared regularly in Serbian movies, magazines and television shows

Among the human remains in Harvard University’s museum collections are those of 15 people who were probably enslaved African American people.

This dehumanizing history of collecting African American bodies as scientific specimens is not a problem just at Harvard.

However, scholars and activists across the U.S. are now seeking to recognize and redress the deep history of violence against Black bodies. Museums and society are finally confronting how the desires of science have at times eclipsed the demands of human rights.

Misogyny Fuels Violence Against Women. Should It Be a Hate Crime?

Experts say the everyday harassment women have learned to put up with — the catcalling and lewd gestures — connects directly with more serious abuses.

“Men who kill women do not suddenly kill women, they work up to killing women.”

As with many things in France, an unresolved colonial history lies below the surface of the battle over the word ensauvagement.

The word is a direct outgrowth of France’s colonial and slave-trading past, a history that the French have yet to come to terms with and that they have often preferred to ignore, said Pascal Blanchard, a historian on French colonialism and its enduring impact on French society.

More than any other imperial power, France justified colonialism by describing it as a “civilizing mission,” Mr. Blanchard said.