World Events Are Testing Our Moral Compass, and We're Blowing It
World Events Are Testing Our Moral Compass, and We're Blowing It
Dehumanization is far more common than you think
A cursory scan of the headlines these days reveals a mishmash of seemingly unrelated events: the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, a looming election in the United States, new federal border restrictions on asylum-seekers, the reelection in India of Narendra Modi’s ruling party, and new anti-trans bills advancing through America’s statehouses.
Dig further into any news site and the stories look no less disjointed: a new far-right coalition in the Netherlands; war and humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan, Myanmar, and Syria; and China’s sprawling concentration camps for its ethnic Uyghur minority.
While this mélange might appear to lack a common denominator, a closer look reveals a shared theme: dehumanization. Each of these accounts involves the persecution of groups seen as less deserving of the humanity readily granted to others.
A Crisis of Inhumanity
Though visible everywhere, dehumanization is starkest in the conflict zones. The atrocities it begets evince a harrowing similarity regardless of locale or political context. In Ukraine, Syria, and beyond, one sees a mix of the same inhumane practices, from unlawful detention, torture, and sexual violence to carpet bombings, ethnic cleansing, and summary executions.
Such crimes are premised on the notion that only certain communities merit the full protections of humanity. This belief is evident in the language of the perpetrators. Pro-government forces in Myanmar label ethnic Rohingya as “lying dogs” and “camels,” thereby stripping them of their personhood. Russian officials and state media depict Ukrainians as “cockroaches” and “blood-sucking parasites.” In both cases, dehumanizing rhetoric enables genocide by obscuring its grim reality.
Dehumanization is a variable. At its most extreme, it takes the form of genocide and crimes against humanity. Other times, it is less overtly violent and merely crushes its victims under the dull weight of bureaucracy.
However, dehumanization is hardly limited to all-out war. Take India, where the reelection of Modi promises a continuation of his decade-long campaign to elevate the Hindu majority at the expense of other groups. Degrading rhetoric toward Muslims is par for the course in the ruling party, where members frequently compare them to dogs. Modi himself once likened Muslims killed by Hindu mobs to puppies who get run over by a car. “It is natural to be sad,” he glibly remarked.
Western countries are not immune to this phenomenon. In Europe, hard-right parties rule alone or in partnership with others in Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, and the Czech Republic. Elsewhere, they top opinion polls, as in France, Belgium, and Austria, or poll second, as in Germany, Poland, Latvia, and Estonia.
Every one of these parties, to varying degrees, pledges to restore the volk to its privileged status over racial, religious, and sexual minorities it considers less worthy of humanity. Geert Wilders, the power behind the new Dutch coalition, has referred to immigrants as “Moroccan scum.” In addition to minimizing the crimes of the Nazi S.S., high-ranking members of Alternative for Germany were caught on tape mulling the prospect of mass-deportations. Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s neofascist prime minister, fumes at “Brussels,” which, “together with the Soros [read: Jewish] troops, simply wants to force immigrants” upon authentic Hungarians.
Then, of course, there is the United States, where Donald Trump vows to reclaim the glorious heritage of “real” Americans over undeserving interlopers. Trump’s statements are replete with dehumanizing references to “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country” and the immigrants he deems “animals” and “not people.”
Dehumanization is a variable. At its most extreme, it takes the form of genocide and crimes against humanity. Other times, it is less overtly violent and merely crushes its victims under the dull weight of bureaucracy. Nearly 40 percent of America’s trans youth live in states that have banned gender-affirming care, a treatment which, for many, is the only thing standing between them and suicide. Thanks to discriminatory over-policing and wildly disparate sentencing guidelines for crack and powder cocaine, Black and Brown people are locked up at higher rates and for far longer prison terms than whites.
Intellectual Ineptitude
If societies writ large can be guilty of dehumanization, one would be forgiven for thinking their smartest members know better. Alas, it is often not the case.
Some of America’s most esteemed social scientists, including Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia, Stephen Walt of Harvard, and John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, have penned withering critiques of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians. Yet, all three are among the most vocal proponents of a “peace deal” in Ukraine, which would consign millions of its citizens to a similar—and likely worse—occupation by Russia.
How can they adopt such starkly incongruous positions, condemning the violent subjugation of one nation while endorsing it for another? The most charitable explanation is ignorance—that they are somehow unaware of Russia’s openly genocidal aims in Ukraine and its extensive history of brutally dominating other peoples. If true, it would call into question their basic competence to speak on the subject in the first place. The other possibility is dehumanization; they see Palestinian lives as more worthy of protection than Ukrainian ones.
Collective punishment is predicated upon the dehumanization of the “Other.” To ascribe collective guilt to an entire group of people is to see them as an undifferentiated mass instead of a collection of distinct individuals, each possessing inherent worth.
A more bizarre form of selective dehumanization is evident among ostensible leftist commentators such as Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, and Michael Tracey. Under the guise of countering American imperialism, they bestow humanity only on those who happen to stand in its crosshairs—chiefly the Palestinians. If, by contrast, you happen to be a victim of Russian imperialism, they will rationalize your humanity out of existence.
Still, they reserve the greatest consideration not to any one community but rather a select group of dictators who oppose the U.S. It matters not what crimes these upstanding autocrats are accused of nor the weight of the evidence against them; our noble pundits will not stand by and watch their characters be impugned. They might not be familiar with the legal definition of genocide, but they are adamant that China, in its treatment of the Uyghurs, is innocent of the charge. They wouldn’t know the first thing about chemistry or explosives, yet they are sure Bashar al-Assad has never used chemical weapons on Syrian civilians. They refuse to do any research on the subject, but they insist that Putin’s regime has not forcibly transferred Ukrainian children to Russia by the hundreds of thousands.
The Politics of Dehumanization in Israel and Palestine
If there is a single issue which most epitomizes dehumanization, it is Israel and Palestine. One can see it among all the parties involved—not just Palestinians and Israeli Jews but their respective supporters throughout the world.
The people who endorse such measures, all of whom would surely profess adherence to the liberal ideal of equality, are seemingly oblivious to the ease with which they discard it in everyday discourse.
In almost all cases of war and ethnic conflict, rival communities vie to collectively punish each other for the actions of a few. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no exception. Collective punishment, in turn, is predicated upon the dehumanization of the “Other.” To ascribe collective guilt to an entire group of people is to see them as an undifferentiated mass instead of a collection of distinct individuals, each possessing inherent worth.
This dynamic has been especially visible since October 7th. When Hamas militants executed Israeli Jews in cold blood, they made no attempt to single out the ones directly responsible for repressing Palestinians. Instead, they murdered any Jew they encountered—soldiers and civilians, men and women, children and the elderly. Dehumanization is what gave them permission to do so.
In response, Israel is collectively punishing Palestinians for Hamas’s crimes. Look no further than the statements of its top officials. “This rhetoric about [Palestinian] civilians not being aware, not involved” in the October 7th attacks is “not true,” declared Israeli president Isaac Herzog. Israel Katz, the minister of energy and infrastructure, adopted a similar line when he vowed that “no electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home.”
It goes without saying that neither leader would tolerate the collective punishment of Jews as reprisal for Israel’s conduct. The fact that they sanction it in the Palestinians’ case betrays a dehumanizing impulse. If Katz and Herzog do not believe the Palestinians merit the same consideration as Jews, it is because they confer less value on the former than the latter. In their eyes, Palestinians are not fully human. Instead, they are “human animals,” as defense minister Yoav Gallant put it.
The same sentiment is apparent among the worldwide backers of the two groups. Zionists who excuse Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza would never countenance such treatment toward Jews. Likewise, Palestine advocates who defend Hamas’s murderous conduct would never brook such barbarity against the Palestinians. Both facts are plainly obvious. And yet, the people who endorse such measures, all of whom would surely profess adherence to the liberal ideal of equality, are seemingly oblivious to the ease with which they discard it in everyday discourse.
Activist groups like Students for Justice in Palestine glorify the terrorists who paraglided into an Israeli music festival and massacred the concertgoers. The Detroit branch of Jewish Voice for Peace posts memes about “the myth of ‘civilian Israelis’,” arguing they do not exist. The popular protest slogan, “by any means necessary,” can reasonably be taken to imply support for the mass-murder of Israeli Jews—unless, of course, the speaker attests otherwise, a clarification which is rarely, if ever, made.
The answer can be found in the equality of human dignity, the key principle underpinning international human rights and humanitarian law.
In the same vein, pro-Israel voices such as David Frum concoct all manner of excuses absolving Israel of culpability for its treatment of the Palestinians—justifications he would never accept if the shoe were on the other foot. The Palestinians’ failure to attain statehood? It is the inevitable result of opposing Israeli domination. The Palestinian refugees Israel expelled between 1948 and 1967? They are not Israel’s burden but the responsibility of the other countries where they now reside (never mind that millions of them live in territories Israel itself controls).
Bari Weiss, another prominent Zionist, laments the sight of dead Palestinian children before dismissing it as “one of the unavoidable burdens of political power, of Zionism’s dream turned into the reality of self-determination.”
It hardly needs stating that Frum would never explain away Hamas’s savagery as the understandable consequence of Israeli recalcitrance. Nor, one may presume, would Weiss so readily sacrifice the lives of Jewish children for the “dream” of Palestinian self-determination. Yet, the moment we acknowledge the shared humanity of both communities, the silliness and depravity of such statements become readily apparent.
Collective Guilt
However tempting it may be to write off dehumanization as something other people do, we are all complicit in one way or another. The signs are everywhere. It is evident in our complacency toward the systems of repression around us, our habit of skipping past news stories that highlight suffering in faraway places, and the simple gesture of ignoring the pleas of the homeless as we walk down the street.
While perfection is unattainable, we can do far better than we are. The answer can be found in the equality of human dignity, the key principle underpinning international human rights and humanitarian law. Adopting this stance as our moral guidepost forces us to radically change how we approach the world. We turn to this subject next time.
Great, as usual, Neil (now it's time to deal with the crazy klarenberg that demands your attention, good luck!)
David Frum is perfectly correct that it is absurd that a Palestinian born in the US is a US citizen, but a Palestinian born in Lebanon is a fifth-class noncitizen.