Dehumanization is a process by which members of a group of people assert the "inferiority" of another group through subtle or overt acts or statements. Dehumanization may be directed by an organization (such as a state) or may be the composite of individual sentiments and actions, as with some types of de facto racism. State-organized dehumanization has been directed against perceived racial or ethnic groups, nationalities (or "foreigners" in general), religious groups, sexes, sexual minorities, disabled people as a class, economic and social classes, and many other groups. Racism is a belief or concept that inherent differences between people (such as those upon which the concept of race is based) determine cultural or individual achievement, and may involve the idea that ones own race is superior. ...

Nations and governments

Sociologists and historians often view dehumanization as central to some or all types of wars. Governments sometimes present "enemy" civilians or soldiers as less than human so that voters will be more likely to support a war they may otherwise consider mass murder. Dictatorships use the same process to prevent opposition by citizens. Such efforts often depend on preexisting racist, sectarian or otherwise biased beliefs, which governments play upon through various types of media, presenting "enemies" as barbaric, undeserving of rights, and a threat to the nation. Alternately, states sometimes present the enemy government or way of life as barbaric and its citizens as childlike and incapable of managing their own affairs. Such arguments have been used as a pretext for colonialism. Forms of government Part of the Politics series Politics Portal This box:      A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by a dictator. ... 1. ... Sectarianism refers (usually pejoratively) to a rigid adherence to a particular sect or party or religious denomination. ... It has been suggested that Benign colonialism be merged into this article or section. ...

The Holocaust of World War II and the Rwandan Genocide have both been cited as atrocities predicated upon government-organized campaigns of dehumanization, while crimes like lynching (especially in the United States) are often thought of as the result of popular bigotry and government apathy. Anthropologists Ashley Montagu and Floyd Matson famously wrote that dehumanization might well be considered "the fifth horsemen of the apocalypse" because of the inestimable damage it has dealt to society. When people become things, the logic follows, they become dispensable - and any atrocity can be justified. “Shoah” redirects here. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass extermination of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutu sympathizers in Rwanda and was the largest atrocity during the Rwandan Civil War. ... Lynching is a form of violence, usually murder, conceived of by its perpetrators as extrajudicial punishment for offenders or as a terrorist method of enforcing social domination. ... Ashley Montagu (June 28, 1905, London, England - November 26, 1999, Princeton, New Jersey), was an English anthropologist and humanist who popularized issues such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development. ...

Dehumanization can be seen outside of overtly violent conflicts, as in political debates where opponents are presented as collectively stupid or inherently evil. Such "good-versus-evil" claims help end substantive debate. (See also thought-terminating cliché). A thought-terminating cliché is a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance, especially in cases where the person experiencing the cognitive dissonance might resolve it by reaching a thought-provoking epiphany. ...

Themes of dehumanization: scapegoating, ethnic stereotypes and racism

A common theme (or meme) is that of scapegoating, where dehumanizing the target provides a release from guilt for the person that scapegoats them, who typically begins to see themselves as a victim of the dehumanized person, rather than as a potential oppressor. It has been suggested that Memetics be merged into this article or section. ... The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in Judaism during the times of the Temple in Jerusalem. ...

Ethnic stereotypes and racism are among the most powerful tools used to dehumanize people in the eyes of others. The Nazis carried out a successful campaign of anti-Semitic propaganda to dehumanize the Jews in Germany in the 1930s, describing them as "rats" or "vermin" and arguing that they threatened the "racial purity" of Aryans. This helped justify oppression of the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust. An ethnic stereotype is a generalized representation of an ethnic group, composed of what are thought to be typical characteristics of members of the group. ... Racism is a belief or concept that inherent differences between people (such as those upon which the concept of race is based) determine cultural or individual achievement, and may involve the idea that ones own race is superior. ... The Nazi party used a right-facing swastika as their symbol and the red and black colors were said to represent Blut und Boden (blood and soil). ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Face The 1930s (years from 1930–1939) were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known in Europe as the World Depression. ... This article is about the term Aryan. For Arian, a follower of the ancient Christian sect, See Arianism. ...

In war, the enemy is generally demonized, with ethnic slurs being used to dehumanize them to the point where killing them becomes morally acceptable. The following is a list of ethnic slurs that are, or have been, used to refer to members of a given ethnicity (or in some cases, nationality, region, or religion) in a derogatory or pejorative manner. ...

Other topics

The empirically supported propaganda model of Herman and Chomsky shows how corporate media are able to carry out large-scale, successful dehumanization campaigns when that promotes the goals (profit-making) that the corporations are legally obliged to maximise. Government-controlled media, in either democracies or dictatorships, are also capable of carrying out dehumanization campaigns, to the extent with which the population is unable to counteract the dehumanizing memes. The propaganda model is a theory advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that alleges systemic biases in the mass media and seeks to explain them in terms of structural economic causes. ... Edward S. Herman is an economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew :אברם נועם חומסקי Yiddish: אברם נועם כאמסקי) , Ph. ... Corporate may refer to either A corporation, a type of legal entity, often formed to conduct business Corporate (film), a 2006 Bollywood film starring Bipasha Basu. ... It has been suggested that Memetics be merged into this article or section. ...

The Darwin Awards are considered by some to be dehumanization as entertainment. The death or sterilization of Darwin Awards honorees is celebrated because they have removed their un-fit genes from the human gene pool. Others think the Darwin Awards are merely funny, without involving dehumanization. Other forms of planned circus of past eras, such as the man-to-man mortal combat gladiatorial events of the Roman Colosseum, are more clearly dehumanizing since a human life is exchanged for entertainment. A Darwin Award is an honor given to people who supposedly help to improve the human gene pool by removing themselves from it in a spectacularly stupid manner. ... The Colosseum by night: exterior view of the best-preserved section. ...

The dissections of human cadavers, such as in these videos was seen as dehumanizing in the Dark Ages (See Medieval anatomy), but now the benefits of well-trained physicians are more clearly understood. This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... The history of anatomy as a science extends from the earliest examinations of sacrificial victims to the sophisticated analyses of the body performed by modern scientists. ...

See also

• Ethnic stereotype
• Life unworthy of life
• Objectification
• Nonperson
• Race
• Racism
• Sectarianism
• Second-class citizen
• Social defeat