Words as One Root of Killing
by Rachel MacNair
One of the books we recommend that’s foundational for understanding the consistent life ethic is one that William Brennan wrote called Dehumanizing the Vulnerable. The first edition had the subtitle: When Word Games Take Lives. A later edition had the subtitle: The War of Words against Victims. Both subtitles give the connection: mere words aren’t just words. They can be at the root of all of the various kinds of socially approved killing that the consistent life ethic opposes.
Brennan gives categories of dehumanizing language common across all the different types of victims, and gives quotes throughout history to illustrate. Here are his categories:
- deficient humans
- nonhumans
- nonpersons
- animals
- parasites
- diseases
- inanimate objects
- waste products
Here are some examples he gave, and I added a line for Muslims since more recent quotes about them add to the point:
The victim being attacked may also be seen as an enemy, especially in war and other power struggles. Dehumanizing can then be demonizing the opposition. They’re seen as worthy of attack, monsters, demons, simply evil. Evidence that they’re real human beings interferes with this understanding. Therefore, the evidence is either ignored entirely or dismissed with scoffing.
Of course, those able to understand the insults can be badly hurt psychologically by the language alone.
But these aren’t mere insults. In linguistic warfare, the viciousness of the words serves as support for acts of violence against targeted groups.
So dehumanization allows violence that would otherwise be inhibited. For example, slaveholders such as early Americans can assert the equality of all and then deny the equality of all at the same time. People can engage in lucrative businesses that cause wars or otherwise hurt people by deciding that the people being hurt are not really people. Why do this, rather than doing without slaves and being honest in business?
Why do people dehumanize others? There’s actually a positive side to this: it shows we have problems with harming other human beings. Otherwise, why bother dehumanizing to be able to do harm? There are inhibitions against hurting others that have to be overcome.
The flip side of this coin is that rehumanizing language can be just as powerful. Language challenging these attitudes also confronts the violence they facilitate.
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For more of our posts on the psychology of the consistent life ethic, see:
War Hysteria and Post-Dobbs Reactions
The Creativity of the Fore-closed Option
Almost No One? How Survey Polls Work
The Mind’s Drive for Consistency
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