A few year back, there was a Netflix documentary about flat earther. They’ve done a couple of experiment to prove that the earth is flat which (Spoiler alert) demonstrated that the earth is round.
So now that these persons have demonstrated scientifically that the earth is round. How are they doing ? Still flat-earther ? or did they give up with the amount of evidence they collected ?
Even the worst people imaginable are still people. They think, they feel, they experience, they are sentient.
The moment you begin to dehumanize people is the moment you’ve slipped past the point and when you become capable of truly horrific things.
Well said.
I’d also point out that dehumanising a subgroup is a powerful technique used to manipulate people. Tell people who to hate and you can get them to go along with anything while they’re focused on the scapegoats. Popular scapegoats include:
Any time someone is demonising a group theres a good chance they’re just trying to manipulate you.
So allow them to be free and commit truly immoral crimes? Because locking them up is not very dignified
You can separate offenders from the general population in dignified, humane ways.
There’s a difference between humanely housing, feeding, treating, and overseeing people we may consider as bad actors and simply throwing them into a concrete box for the rest of their lives. There’s also a difference between that and, say, torturing and maiming those same people as punishment.
The more you dehumanize the people that you may see as bad or unwanted, the easier it is for you to accept or even want the latter. I hope, in the future, you can see that empathy and dignified treatment of all people (not just ‘the good ones’) aren’t such reprehensible ideas.