BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool

Subject: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: freda underhill
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 07:16 AM

Dehumanization is the psychological process of demonizing the enemy, making them seem less than human and hence not worthy of humane treatment. This can lead to increased violence, human rights violations, war crimes, and genocide.

This interesting article talks about The Psychology of Dehumanisation

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: freda underhill
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 07:26 AM

On a more personal scale, this article examines the problem of violence and cruelty toward foreigners. The author argues that the way we act toward others depends on how we see them. Specifically she argues that injuring another person is only possible when we do not fully see or recognize that person, and that to know another person is to be incapable of injuring them.

she calls this The difficulty of imagining other persons

though as a non-psychologist I would use the term "the difficulty in perceiving other persons".

The author argues that legal structures are essential to guide citizens towards humane treatment of each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST,virus on the town
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 07:34 AM

Oh, like posting "friendly" messages to fellow mudcatters?

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST,antibiotics rule
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 07:44 AM

all viruses will be ex-terminated - but then, that would be de-virusing them. please drop by for a cup of antibiotics and a good chat.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 08:00 AM

People resent laws which push them in a direction they don't want to go. The only positive move governments might make is to prevent ghettoes from developing. Where locals often feel that a part of their country/city has been occupied, and where they feel like strangers in their own land, there you find the seeds of prejudice flourishing.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST,CarolC
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 11:27 AM

A big part of the problem, at least here in the US, is that the media acts as a propaganda arm of the government and corporate interests that benefit from the dehumanization of groups of people. People here are being constantly bombarded by subtle, but definitely negative and highly distorted (and oftentimes, outright false) messages about certain groups of people. As long as this kind of thing is going on, it will be very easy for these interests to manipulate the perceptions and attitudes of the majority of people in this country when it serves their purpose to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 11:44 AM

Interesting subject, Freda! Thanks for the link.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST,Rapaire
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 12:20 PM

And?

Gooks, chinks, slopes, japs, huns, russkies, limeys, frogs -- the list goes on and on and on. You can't kill or hate a person, only an object. Military snipers are taught never to look into a target's eyes.

And it's been going on for ten thousand years....

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST,Brendy
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 12:29 PM

I used to give names to my chickens (Agatha, Mavis, Doris, etc) and my goats (Bertha, Wilhelmina, etc), when I lived in East Clare, based on the premise that I could never eat anything that had a name.

The geese however, pleasant and gentle souls as they were in their own right, were always referred to as 'they who shall remain nameless...'

B.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 12:35 PM

Gooks, chinks, slopes, japs, huns, russkies, limeys, frogs

Bushites?

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST,CAH
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 12:47 PM

"You can't kill or hate a person"

Bull...

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST,Rapaire
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 05:38 PM

GUEST of 12:47:

Should it become (in my opinion) necessary, I could and would kill you without regret. And without hate. Believe this, because it's true. You would be dead not because I hated you, but because it was necessary -- just as it is sometimes necessary to clean a toilet or tighten a screw.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: dianavan
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:03 PM

It appears that many who have posted here have not bothered to read the links provided by Freda. All I can say about that, Freda, is 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.'

As a teacher teaching social responsibility to a multi-cultural group of children, I have found that they can be taught empathy. I agree, however, that to extend it to the wider society, the concepts of justice and fair play have to be enshrined in law.

Personally, I do not like the term, 'foreigner' because it means only what is different or 'strange'. Strange also carries with it the meaning 'abnormal'. All of these terms are exclusive rather than inclusive. I'm not a Christian but I still think that it is best to treat others the way you want to be treated.

I have to disagree with the statement that you cannot injure someone you know. We all know that is untrue. A more accurate statement would be that once you get to know someone, the more likely they are to appear strange or different.

Thanks for the link. I hope others take the time to read and respond thoughtfully.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:08 PM

I just watched a TV programme about the sectarian hatred and violence that is engendered in Glasgow, and the west of Scotland because of the Rangers and Celtic football teams. The only thing it made me think is, there's no hope! I was born in Glasgow, and largely brought up in the area, this hatred and prejudice is inbred and I wish it were otherwise, but it never will be stopped.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:20 PM

I have to disagree with the statement that you cannot injure someone you know.

No, dianavan, I did not say that. I very precisely phrased it as "You can't kill or hate a person, only an object." If someone is made into an object, whether by politics or by you, you can hate them and/or kill them. If you know them you cannot hate them -- although you could know them well enough to make them an object.

Sometimes you have to injure someone you know and love.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:25 PM

And yes -- whenever you start calling people names or applying labels, whether it's "Liberal" or "Neocon" or "Bushite" or "Deaner" or "Tory" or whatever, you're dehumanizing them.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: dianavan
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:34 PM

Rapaire - I wasn't actually commenting on your post. I was disagreeing with the linked article.

I agree with what you are saying. Name calling is a way of objectifying a human being and thereby making it easier to think of them as sub-human or foreign. Its also a form of bullying.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: GUEST,CarolC
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:35 PM

I am a little disappointed in the author of the first link in that she engages in some of the very behaviors she is cautioning people against (us vs. them thinking, and demonizing the "other"), with her use of the term "into-the-sea framing". That seems a bit counter-productive to me for bringing about the state of empathy for the other that she seems to want to promote. But maybe she has biases of her own that she is not aware of.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:37 PM

As I was reading the above linked article I was thinking less about folks with whom the US is at war with but more about folks right here in our own dountry, who have perposely "excluded". And to take it a step further, I can't remember in my life time any administration that has made such a conserted effort to "exclude", *demonize* and "dehumanize" our own people as the current batch of crooks... None... These guys are using psychological warfare on anyone who doesn't goose-step behind them...

Yeah, I always wondered what it felt like be grow up as a black person in this country... Bush and Co. have given me a purdy good idea...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 09:19 AM

I betcha blacks would disagree with you, Bobert. That was simutaneoulsy condescending and assuming.

What price have you paid to the Bush administration that qualifies you for such a statement? Have you been enslaved and not allowed to leave your home? Have you had your family ripped from you? Have you been denied a vote? Have you had a cross burned in your front yard? Have you been denied a job because of the color of your skin? Ridden in the back of a bus? Drank from a different water fountain? Sat in the back of a theatre? Had to eat in a different restaurant?

You don't qualify for martyrdom just because you think you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: dianavan
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 12:45 PM

John Hardly - "Have you been enslaved and not allowed to leave your home? Have you had your family ripped from you? Have you been denied a vote? Have you had a cross burned in your front yard? Have you been denied a job because of the color of your skin? Ridden in the back of a bus? Drank from a different water fountain? Sat in the back of a theatre? Had to eat in a different restaurant?"

Most of the above is history thanks to the will of the American people. I doubt if its a qualification for martyrdom today. I am not denying that discrimination exists. I do think that Bobert is saying that the psychological warfare being used today does not discriminate on the basis of colour.

Having said that, I don't think Bobert's reality is anything close to the reality of being a woman of colour. I do understand what he means when he feels that the present administration de-humanizes anyone who does not follow the 'party line'.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: hesperis
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 01:10 PM

At least his experiences have given him empathy. Pain is pain, and a little pain can help you to empathize with the greater pain of others.

The pain of being de-humanized is something we should all try to make only a remembered history.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 03:41 PM

"Having said that, I don't think Bobert's reality is anything close to the reality of being a woman of colour"

Well then, you just wasted a considerable amount of band width defending Bobert from exactly what you, in the end, confirmed.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 04:20 PM

Well, John, I don't feel what I said is in the least bit condescending. Or assuming. I don't need to go into my history or even my present when it comes to interacting with black folks, but if you are curious, PM and I'll provide you with a little back ground right up to the here and now.

The comment, I think, stands on it's own. It's probably something that you are not able to relate to since you seem to be very much in the Bush camp. You might want to reread the original link and think about the concept of "exclusion". When you are squarely part of the in-crowd it kind hard to see the forest thru the trees. I son't feel as if I've been even close to the in-crowd in my life. Okay, maybe a little when Jimmy Carter was president. Since then, it's been one angry white guy's asministartion after another. Clinton's included 'cept in Clinton's case, even though Clinton made a lot of Repubs mad because he defeated Bush I, Clinton was one fine Repubocrat. Yeah, I'm sure that you worked yourself up into a lather hating Clinton but if you look at his policies he was very much part of your in-crowd. But since you have never been truely excluded you won't recognize this.

Yeah, your side has had almost 4 decades of wars. You have seen the wealth of the nation redistributed toward the monied class. You have seen just about evevy Great Society program either cut or reshuffled to divert even more resources to Boss Hog and his buddies. You have seen management beat labor down to nothing. I mean, face it, John. Life over te last 30 or 40 years has been very good to you. You consume as much as you like. You don't have to share and if you run low, you just go steal other folks labors and resources...

I don't have your mindset. Quite the opposite, matter of fact. I believe in pro-human & pro-earth policies. I believe in sharing. And giving of myself to others. But with these beliefs, especially under Bush, I feel very much "excluded". And, yes, from my decades long involvement with the black community, it's this "exclusion" that brings me a little closer to knowing what it has been like for black folks in America.

But you won't get it. You'll smugly throw up Condi Rice or Colin Powell like a shield. I uderstand. That's ok. For you see, I do understand you and I can emphathize with you but that's not what is at issue here. It's you inability to put *yourself* in the shoes of folks like me.

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 04:58 PM

bullshit, Bobert (I love alliteration).

You seem to have cornered the market on empathy. Hardly any left for the rest of us...

...but I guess you, you know, sensed that.

For an empath though, you have a stunning disability to see anything beyond the reference point of how the world fits relative to your view of GWB.

You don't have to be a slave to have decided that slavery is immoral.

You damn well better have been a slave before you claim to have "been in their shoes".

Damn, I hate this time of year. My skin gets dry and cracks 'til the ends of my fingers bleed. Hurts like boogers to finger guitar strings. One good thing comes from that pain though...

....at least I now know what the pain of child birth must be like.

Subject: RE: BS: Dehumanisation as a political tool
From: Bobert
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 05:20 PM

Bull, back atcha, John.

I never said I knew what it feld like to have been a slave. Might of fact, there isn't anyone alive today in the US who was ever a slave (in the historical sense)...

Might of fact, the reference I made to walking in one's shoes was about your inability to know what it's like to be politically and socieo-econimicly "excluded"...

And since when has empathy become a four-letter word? Yeah, I like to say I work at having some and if you'd like some, I'll be more than willing to share...

As fir yer fingers hurting, sorry...

Maybe one of the womenz folk here, who might have gone thru child birth, will have some secret women-folk home remedy... I use Super-glue on cuts but don't can't recommend it since I ain't 100% sure that it's safe to use. But it works for me. Hand creams is also good...

Bobert