objectifying the monster

[luna_manar]

This will be brief and not as specific as I want it, but:

There's this idea, see, that nothing awful, nothing brutal, nothing bad can be human. That if something is horrific, or evil, it is by definition inhuman.

I find this idea to be unbelievably arrogant, not to mention wrong.

If we are to dehumanize people who Do Bad Things, it seems, we ourselves become the very monsters we claim to deplore.

dehumanize, dehumanise [diːˈhjuːməˌnaɪz]
vb (tr)
1. to deprive of human qualities
2. to render mechanical, artificial, or routine; to objectify

Comments

[tangyabominy]

YES.

These people would paint being human as synonymous with never doing anything seriously wrong, ever. And if they'd think about that for a moment, they'd realise that that kicks us all out of the human club. We've all thought monstrous, "inhuman" things.

As such, they create a double standard, where you can become "inhuman" at their whim, but they never apply that standard as broadly as it would need to be applied to be logical.

And yet they still claim that it matters, and that we can judge people by it.

It's ridiculous.

[magistrate]

"The same seeds of cruelty exist within you. And the seeds of your goodness exist within them. To deny that denies the paradox of your entire species."

Or, basically, yes. Inhuman actions are as human as humane ones. Calling them "inhuman" is just a refusal to look humanity in the face, and take it for its failings as well as its strengths.

[hebinekohime]

What Magistrate said.

It's a form of displacement, or maybe psychological NIMBYism; we think that we can define every characteristic we fear outside of ourselves and our tribe.