I have been reading Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others by David Livingstone Smith and I would like to share a piece of this book with you. I have talked, briefly, in some Facebook posts and perhaps some other things posted elsewhere about the act of dehumanization, and how it's a necessary component of some of the most atrocious acts committed by man, so when I saw this book, I just had to read it because I haven't seen much on this subject. Nothing I am reading here is a surprise, really, but it's interesting to see the mechanisms of dehumanization laid out in a scientific manner. Anyway, here is the quote I wanted to share:
"When a group of people is dehumanized, they become mere creatures to be managed, exploited, or disposed of, as the occasion demands. Throughout history, propagandists have exploited this to serve their political ends. There's no better way to promote a war than by portraying the enemy as a bloodthirsty beast that must be killed in self-defense. And there is no better way to whip up enthusiasm for genocide than by representing the intended victims as vermin, parasites, or disease organisms that must be exterminated for the purpose of hygiene. The architecture of our minds makes us vulnerable to these forms of persuasion. Images like these speak to something deep inside us. If you still believe that you are the exception, and are immune from these forces, I hope that by the end of this book you will have embraced a more realistic assessment of your capacity for evil."
Now, I am going to put a little warning here. It's 10:17PM after an extremely long day, and I've been reading this book for probably two hours; I am deeply moved, concerned, upset, and depressed by the information in this book (though I was already familiar with much of the content, as we all are, because Livingstone Smith draws from the breadth of human history for his examples). I am weary, and I am going to spend the remainder of this post rambling. You don't have to read this. It has nothing to do with Japan, or Osaka, or school or anything relevant to everything else I have posted to this blog. Still, I feel it needs to be put out there, to the world, because I think it's important. That being said, you are totally excused from this post and I won't be offended if people don't read it. Here we go...
What is the solution to the issue of "race," which is then inexplicably intertwined (even in situations where "race" is a misused term, such as the "Jewish race") with dehumanization, violence, genocide and hatred? Is it so wrong to acknowledge differences from one to another? If one acknowledges a difference, is that acknowledgement then racism? I would like to posit that it is not inherently racist to acknowledge differences, however that acknowledgement of differences is so often used in conjunction with racism, that it is difficult for us to separate the two. However, would our world be better if we completely disregarded those differences? Are we even capable of such a thing?
Humans have an instinctual need to categorize everything. We have "big trucks" and "small cars" and "dress shoes" and "casual clothes." Nearly everything - if not everything - in our entire world is placed into a category; even things which are completely intangible (such as emotions) are categorized. This categorization is the key element to the concept of "race." And yet, the categorization of "race" is not always correct. One can be darker or lighter skinned and yet genetically belong to a race that is lighter or darker than oneself (and thereby assumed to be a member of a race that you don't belong to). If we were to completely ignore the concept of race, would racism be hampered at all? And if we decided not to acknowledge race, would that then force us not to acknowledge other differences? Height, weight, eye color? Or would discrimination simply take place in different venues?
In some schools which have heavy gang populations in the U.S., students are required to wear uniforms and are not allowed to wear bandanas or anything that is traditionally used to distinguish members of gangs from each other. In these situations, students employ different methods to differentiate themselves from other gangs such as oddly colored shoelaces, types of accouterments (bracelets, necklaces), etc. Just because uniforms are required and "gang paraphernalia" is outlawed doesn't mean that the students don't find another method to tell each other (and each other's alliances) apart. Would not the same thing happen if the concept of "race" were somehow magically abolished or disallowed?
Within humanity, there is always a concept of "us" and "them," and for most of human history, the most overt difference was skin color, and yet we are fast coming upon an age where we know so much about our differences that there may soon be other ways to discriminate (a'la the film Gattica). I want to note here that while people of different races are genetically similar (or as I like to say, we are made of the same "stuff"), there are of course mutations and aberrations within genetics that, while perhaps not visible to the naked eye, can cause individuals both within and without the same race to be different (predispositions to heart problems, diabetes, color-blindness, etc). These are things that we are increasingly able to detect, yet are still somewhat in the realm of science fiction at least as far as discrimination goes. So far.
My natural inclination is to believe that education is the solution, however there are innumerable instances in both long-past and recent history that disprove that theory. Some of the most "learned" men and women of our - and in fact any - time have been unapologetically racist and/or discriminatory. Even our highly-vaunted "founding fathers" were slave holders (a group of our society who deemed a particular race sub-human enough that they could be subjected to the same treatment as livestock, if not worse).
In Livingston Smith's book, he talks about how slave owners in the United States frequently referred to their slaves in subhuman, animalistic terminology (vermin, disease, predatory animals, etc). However, he points out that many slave owners were willing to at least copulate with enslaved women, and in this case, if they truly believed their rhetoric, that would make them proponents of bestiality. The same thing happened during Nazi Germany, where there are verified cases of Jews being raped (or coerced, in some situations) by Nazi soldiers. Clearly, there is some cognitive dissonance going on here. These people "believed" that the Jews or blacks were subhuman so long as it was convenient to allow them to overcome the innate nature to empathize and sympathize with other fellow human beings (in order to enact incredible cruelty and violence against them). However it was easy for them to simultaneously believe that the same peoples were human enough to find attractive, or to at least wish to sexually humiliate and dominate them. I don't want to get too far into the issue, but let's just say that it's not normal behavior (and is in fact, exceedingly rare) for a person to desire to copulate with an animal, be it for personal pleasure or to dominate/humiliate the creature.
So again, what is the solution to the problem of discrimination? It is a scary time we live in because I see the same rhetoric that was used against the Jews in Nazi Germany used against Muslims. Aside from that, several genocides have happened just within my lifetime, with even more in less than 50 years before my birth. Sudan, Darfur, Rwanda, Pol Pot, WWII, etc. The machinations of the ganjaweed, the Hutu, the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge; those very same machinations are put into play day in and day out for political ends. I would like to believe that humanity has the capability to redeem itself, however I am probably wrong. It would certainly explains our desire to have an external redeemer, a "savior" which peoples have conjured up throughout history to offer salvation for the many, many sins that we seem doomed to repeat.
Don't be a part of the problem, be a part of the solution. Racially speaking, there is absolutely no biological difference between you and I, between us and someone half a world away, between a tribal man of the Amazon or a powerbroker in a New York sky rise - regardless of gender, race, creed, genetics, we are all people made of the same stuff. It is unfortunate that the faculties that give rise to our great and varied civilization are the very same faculties which allow us to commit atrocities and to build such cognitive dissonance that we allow ourselves to believe things that are factually incorrect. I literally mourn for our (human) race because the path we are on is the path to the apocalypse and I, not being one to believe in any particular savior, don't see any redemption in it.
