Dehumanization
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Dehumanization is a process by which members of a group of people assert the "inferiority" of another group through subtle or overt acts or statements. Dehumanization may be directed by an organization (such as a state) or may be the composite of individual sentiments and actions, as with some types of de facto racism. State-organized dehumanization has been directed against perceived racial or ethnic groups, nationalities (or "foreigners" in general), religious groups, sexes, sexual minorities, disabled people as a class, economic and social classes, and many other groups.
Sociologists and historians often view dehumanization as central to some or all types of wars. Democratic governments sometimes present "enemy" civillians or soldiers as less than human so that voters will be more likely to support a war they may otherwise consider mass murder. Dictatorships use the same process to prevent opposition by citizens. Such efforts often depend on preexisting racist or otherwise biased beliefs, which governments play upon through various types of media, presenting "enemies" as barbaric, undeserving of rights, and a threat to the nation. Alternately, states sometimes present the enemy government or way of life as barbaric and its citizens as childlike and incapable of managing their own affairs. Such arguments have been used as a pretext for colonialism.
The Holocaust of WW2 and the Rwandan Genocide have both been cited as atrocities predicated upon government-organized campaigns of dehumanization, while crimes like lynching are often thought of as the result of popular bigotry and government apathy. Anthropologists Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson famously wrote that dehumanization might well be considered "the fifth horsemen of the apocalypse" because of the inestimable damage it has dealt to society. When people become things, the logic follows, they become dispensable - and any atrocity can be justified.
Dehumanization can be seen outside of overtly violent conflicts, as in political debates where opponents are presented as collectively stupid or inherently evil. Such "good-versus-evil" claims help end substantive debate. (See also thought-terminating cliché).
Methods of dehumanization
A common theme is that of scapegoating, where dehumanizing the target provides a release from guilt for the person that scapegoats them, who typically begins to see themselves as a victim of the dehumanized person, rather than as a potential oppressor.
Ethnic stereotypes and racism are among the most powerful tools used to dehumanize people in the eyes of others. The Nazis carried out a successful campaign of anti-Semitic propaganda to dehumanize the Jews in the Germany in the 1930s, describing them as "rats" or "vermin" and arguing that they threatened the "racial purity" of Aryans. This helped justify oppression of the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust.
In war, the enemy is generally demonized, with ethnic slurs being used to dehumanize them to the point where killing them becomes morally acceptable.