this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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I seriously hate this debate for the sole reason that FAR too many people take, "don't dehumanize" to mean, "you cannot do 'bad' things to 'bad' people, period." That is a fucking STUPID position to hold, and again, far too many people view, "do not dehumanize" to mean, "you would become a Nazi if you said punching Nazis is good."
Yes, we must remember every human is a human. Good job with the tautological obvious facts of reality! We must also remember many humans betray humanity and do not deserve honor or respect. Sometimes, they don't even deserve life.
It is wholly about how you judge someone else and over what criteria, not about some mystical concept of togetherness. "Dehumanize" is far too generic of a term to create absolute rules with like this. It's just difficult to communicate an exact interpretation with. (see: the many interpretations people are assuming in the rest of the comments)
Look up the trial of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz.
For what he did, there would have been every justification to shoot him in the head and leave his body in a ditch on the side of the road. But instead, we put him on trial, and we got the following statements out of the guy:
...and (in a letter to his wife before his execution):
...and (in the same letter, to his children):
We wouldn't have any of that if we had treated Höss like an animal, rather than a human being.
Yes. I never said to treat them like a rabid dog coming at you. (unless they are coming at you, of course)
Like I said, it's about how you judge someone (such as a proper trial vs flippant execution) and on what criteria.
The main thrust of my point is: Policing language while there are people out there gleefully murdering children and rigging the economy so that more suffer for their gains is pathetic pedantry and only a practice of self-fellatio at best, and running interference for these despicable monsters at worst.
Some people do, in fact, deserve to be called absolute trash monsters for betraying humanity, and do, in fact, deserve to be treated differently. Permanent incarceration (if they are the irredeemable type) after due process is still treating someone differently.
Except it's not pedantry. It's an extremely serious issue. Dehumanization makes it easy to forget who the enemy truly is. It makes it easy to lose face, justify the ones you know as "one of the good ones", just because you see they're human. It makes it easy for that hatred to get redirected onto people who should not be part of your hatred by manipulative 3rd parties.
It's not language policing, it's an important thing to keep in mind so you do not become what you hate.
People need to see everyone is human so they don't think the atrocities are only as such because they are the target(see Israel -- I'm not saying that you should let people off for the horrors they do).
It's only difficult if ones' memory is as pathetic as a goldfish, forgetting who threw the first punch over what reasoning.
And people's memories are. Hence, important
Yeah... Sadly I can only agree with that!
I’m curious though, what value do these statements have?
There is a separable argument about whether we should have due process vs vigilante justice and I think due process is better. Vigilante “justice” is hard to call justice at all.
With due process though he could have been tried and convicted and executed without being allowed to make these statements. The argument you seem to make is that the statements themself are valuable and meaningful.
I mean I’m certainly not looking to the commandant of Auschwitz for any mora guidance, what that person thinks is of little value to me.
His statements are, at the very least, important to those closest to him. He spent his life as a monster, poisoning the thoughts and beliefs of his family and friends. He was able to recognize his errors and given the chance to explain himself.
Humans don't exists in vacuums. We all make ripples in the lives of those around us. If he was executed without the chance to recognize his errors and apologize to his family they might have viewed him as a martyr and continued his mission.
There's also something to be said about his words imposing future generations. There are still those alive today who believe in the mission of those European fascists. Perhaps reading his words of regret will change their minds even just a small amount.