When I first set out to write this book I was a little worried about the subtitle. I was worried that readers might expect me to deliver some sort of tidy formula for getting rid of dehumanization. Resisting dehumanization is complicated, because dehumanization is complicated. It’s not something that can be expressed in a set of bullet points or a list of rules.
I’ve assumed from the outset that resisting dehumanization has to be based on an understanding of how it works, and my main goal in writing this book has been to explain these things in the most accurate way that I can muster. In this, the concluding chapter, I want to distill and emphasize some key points about resisting dehumanization that I think are particularly important for you, the reader, to put into practice. I want this book to be one that you don’t just read, but that you use.
Dehumanization is both political and psychological. It’s about the distribution of power in the public sphere and it’s about the beliefs that we form about ourselves and others. To resist dehumanization, you’ve got to understand how it works, and to understand how it works, you’ve got to understand both political and psychological aspects of it and how they interact. Insist on paying attention to both the political forces that push us to think of others as less than human and the psychological forces that make it possible for us to do so.
Resist dehumanization through political action and resist it by knowing yourself. Because dehumanization is produced by both political forces outside you and psychological processes within you, resisting dehumanization has to take place on two fronts. You can’t combat the spread of dehumanizing beliefs without taking political action. At the very least you have to combat it in small ways in daily life, calling it out where you see it, objecting when people you speak to or people who represent you employ its dangerous rhetoric, and, crucially, opposing it in the voting booth. You may choose to oppose it in larger ways in the public sphere, making the decision to dedicate some or even most of your time to activism or politics to help be a force for good in the face of dehumanization’s spread.
But to resist dehumanization you’ve also got to oppose the dehumanizing impulse in yourself. To do this, you need to understand that you are capable of dehumanizing others. Unless you accept this, and unless you are vigilant, you will be easy prey for dehumanizing propagandists. You will be more likely to be frightened by their xenophobic tales of bloodthirsty savages, and your tendency to essentialize others—which you share with the rest of humanity—may be triggered. People who dehumanize others aren’t pure evil, or monsters, or animals, or scum. Thinking of them that way makes it hard for us to accept that we are all vulnerable to the dehumanizing impulse. So, don’t dehumanize the dehumanizers. Doing that promotes the very attitude that you are trying to combat. People who dehumanize others are still people. Try to think of them as people. Don’t play their game, but don’t delude yourself that you are not capable of playing it.
Don’t confuse dehumanization with other kinds of bias. Dehumanization isn’t the same as racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, objectification, religious bigotry, or prejudice against sexual minorities. All these things are bad, and all of them are dangerous, but dehumanization is potentially much more dangerous than the others. So, when you talk about dehumanization, try to be precise, rather than running lots of different things together. Remember, the word “dehumanization” has accumulated lots of different meanings, so don’t assume that others know what you’re talking about.
Study history to learn about dehumanization. Learn about genocide, colonialism, and racial oppression, and resist the temptation to think that we have put these things behind us. We haven’t. Don’t think of dehumanization as something that only other people do. It’s easy to point to the crimes committed by others and to ignore or minimize the ones committed by those whom we consider our own. Learn the darkest history of your nation, religion, or ethnic group, and tell others what you have learned. Be brave and stand up for the truth. Stand up for humanity.
Know that dehumanization comes from outside of us. Human beings naturally tend to see others as human beings. The tendency to see them as subhuman creatures is foisted on us by people who have an investment in getting us to harm others. This implies that an important component of human nature is on our side in the struggle to resist dehumanization. Be wary of those who tell you that we are natural-born dehumanizers—that the urge to dehumanize others is in our genes. There’s no reason to think that is the case. It may be true that human beings have an inherent disposition to be biased against outgroups, but outgroup bias is a far cry from dehumanization. And anyway, where the line gets drawn between ingroup and outgroup is a political matter. It’s not something that’s coded in our DNA.
Support a free press and freedom of speech. It’s through media that dehumanizing ideas are spread and reproduced. That’s why totalitarians puts a premium on destroying freedom of the press. Beware of attempts to destroy the credibility of media outlets that oppose and expose the dehumanizing propaganda of those in power. The Nazis referred to newspapers that opposed their message as the Lügenpresse (the “lying press”) and claimed that it was run by Jews. In Myanmar, Wirathu and his followers claim that the media are against them because they’re run by Muslims. Support the press. Subscribe to a newspaper. At least one.
Know that dehumanizing propaganda is usually not about hate. It’s common to think of dehumanization as motivated by hate. This is a serious mistake. Dehumanizing propaganda trades mostly on desperation, fear, and the longing for salvation. Although it may feel good, calling people names and accusing them of hatefulness will not put an end to dehumanization. It will only make it stronger. The task of resisting dehumanization is too important for us not to be focused on what is most likely to get the best results. If you can, and if it is safe, treat your interlocuter as a human being. Try to have a conversation instead of trying to win a fight with them. It may prove impossible, at which point you’ll have to walk away. But maybe even then you will have planted a seed of doubt in their mind that will grow into something more.
Remember that race is a social invention for justifying oppression. Resisting race is crucial for resisting dehumanization, because as long as racial categorizing persists, dehumanization is just around the corner. Washing your hands of the concept of race is an act of resistance and defiance. It doesn’t mean that you are betraying your family, your culture, or your history, or the work of securing justice for racialized people, because it does not deny that people have been treated as though race is real, and they have suffered from it. Be prepared for negative reactions though. Others will resent you, and they will try to put you back into the racial box, because you are a threat to the whole hierarchical racial system. It’s hard to resist the social and psychological pressures to embrace race, so try to find like-minded people who will support you and whom you can support. You may retort that this is easy for me, a White man, to say. You’d be right. In most circumstances, I have the luxury of not being racialized. But that observation only confirms my point that race is by its very nature an oppressive ideology.
Following on from the previous point, avoid using the words “racist” and “racism” whenever possible. Instead, be explicit about what you mean. It’s very easy for people to deny that they are racist, but it’s much harder for them to refute an explicit, clearly articulated charge. When other people use these words, try to get them to say what they mean by them. Racism isn’t all about hate, so don’t use terms like “hate speech” and “hate group” as substitutes. Concepts of race have racism built right into them, so know that—like it or not—if you hold on to the concept of race, racism will come along for the ride.
Know that almost any group can become racialized. Dehumanization feeds on race. But race is not an objective biological property of human beings; it’s a social invention. People are racialized when they’re regarded as an inferior natural human kind whose essence is transmitted by descent. That means that many different groups of people can become racialized. Ethnic groups, religious groups, national groups, and even political parties can become racialized, and, therefore, any of these can be dehumanized.
Know the warning signs. Although every episode of dehumanization is unique, they all have certain things in common. Know these signs, be alert to them, and call them out. It’s usually the dominant group in a society that dehumanizes a vulnerable racialized minority and portrays themselves as victims of that minority. Notice when people in positions of power and influence—politicians, religious leaders, celebrities, and the like—say of others that they don’t belong here, that they’re not truly one of “us,” and that they should go back to where they’re “from” (even when they were born in the country where they are living). Listen closely for the language of parasitism—the charge that the despised minority are lazy (or as the Nazis put it, arbeitssheu—“work shy”), that they are sponging off conscientious, hard-working citizens, and that they have special privileges that the majority are denied. Be alert to statements or implications that a racial minority is essentially criminal, that they are breeding quickly and will soon overtake and replace the majority, and that they are dirty and diseased. Listen closely for animalistic slurs, and words like “predator,” “infest,” “infect,” “poison,” “breeding grounds,” “invasion,” “parasites,” “swarm,” and explicit or implicit comparisons of human beings with feces.
To conclude, it’s important to be mindful of the fact that the scene of resistance is not always in the voting booth, on a protest march, or at the bully pulpit. Much—most—of our resistance is in everyday life. It’s expressed in what we say and do at home with our children and spouses, at work with our colleagues, and at play with our friends. In all of these contexts, we can cumulatively affect the course of history, and work against the downward drag of the dehumanizing impulse. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” That’s only half the story, because it only bends toward justice if we push it very hard to bend it that way.