this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 47 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

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)

[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (2 children)

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:

My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell, I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz, I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the 'Third Reich' for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done. I ask the Polish people for forgiveness. In Polish prisons I experienced for the first time what human kindness is. Despite all that has happened I have experienced humane treatment which I could never have expected, and which has deeply shamed me. May the facts which are now coming out about the horrible crimes against humanity make the repetition of such cruel acts impossible for all time.

...and (in a letter to his wife before his execution):

Based on my present knowledge I can see today clearly, severely and bitterly for me, that the entire ideology about the world in which I believed so firmly and unswervingly was based on completely wrong premises and had to absolutely collapse one day. And so my actions in the service of this ideology were completely wrong, even though I faithfully believed the idea was correct.

...and (in the same letter, to his children):

Keep your good heart. Become a person who lets himself be guided primarily by warmth and humanity. Learn to think and judge for yourself, responsibly. Don't accept everything without criticism and as absolutely true... The biggest mistake of my life was that I believed everything faithfully which came from the top, and I didn't dare to have the least bit of doubt about the truth of that which was presented to me. ... In all your undertakings, don't just let your mind speak, but listen above all to the voice in your heart.

We wouldn't have any of that if we had treated Höss like an animal, rather than a human being.

[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

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.

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[–] immutable@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Dearth@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Dehumanization of groups from a position of power is bad.

Dehumanization of bad powerful individuals to make it emotionally easier to take them down may be necessary.

I don't believe in evil, but I do believe in consequences.

[–] abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah but here's the thing:

A good amount of people use the race of a wrongdoer to justify the dehumination and collective guilt of everyone said group. Look at how people justify the murder of Jews by pointing to Netanyahu. Look at how Islamic Terrorists justified the murder of Westerners by pointing to the crimes of America. Look at how many people justify the murder of Muslims by pointing to 9/11 or Rotherham. Look at how Terfs justify the dehumanization and extermination of transgender people, or even gender variants in general, by pointing to cases involving transgender people.

It does not prevent the collectivisation of crimes to justify the dehumanization of groups and people. It is still a slippery slope that leads to fascism.

[–] HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

A good amount of people use the race of a wrongdoer to justify the dehumination and collective guilt of everyone said group.

Its a good thing I'm not advocating for that.

Look at how people justify the murder of Jews by pointing to Netanyahu. Look at how Islamic Terrorists justified the murder of Westerners by pointing to the crimes of America. Look at how many people justify the murder of Muslims by pointing to 9/11 or Rotherham. Look at how Terfs justify the dehumanization and extermination of transgender people, or even gender variants in general, by pointing to cases involving transgender people.

These are all in-group out-group dynamics. They have nothing to do with the fact that people point at specific bad powerful individuals. In fact its often the other way around, people will often hate/love a leader more depending on whether they're perceived to be in any specific group.

It does not prevent the collectivisation of crimes to justify the dehumanization of groups and people. It is still a slippery slope that leads to fascism.

I am specifically advocating only to make it easier to pull the trigger on powerful people doing massive harm. More harm comes from letting a powerful person live if they're active in doing harm. Anything that makes it easier to take down harmful powerful people in aggregate results in a net good.

Luigi Mangione is innocent of murder. The dead CEO is guilty of mass murder and intended to continue. The new CEO taking his place is also likely someone that should be luigi'd, as are the current stockholders.

[–] Aeao@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Let me explain it this way:

I burnt out at work and lost my job a little while back, I moved in with my mother on south padre island.

This island is only half a mile wide but the rent on the ocean side is a little bit more than rent on the bayside.

As a joke I’ve decided that makes me better than bayside people. I’ve decided people who live on the other side of the one road are poorly educated troglodytes and they smell like the gross bay over there.

Obviously it’s a joke but it illustrates how arbitrary dehumanizing can be.

I do understand you’re point that it can make it easier for some people to do what needs to be done… but I’d argue if you need to dehumanize then you shouldn’t be doing part of the job. It’s bad for your mental health.

I don’t need to dehumanize bad humans to fight them. If you do then perhaps the physical fight isn’t the best place for you. There’s plenty of logistic works and none physical roles you can slide into. Leave the violence to people who can say “look, you’re human but you’re in the way of improving this world.… I have to get you out of the way now…” best to leave that job to people who don’t have to mentally justify it with “it’s only fine because they weren’t really people” no… they were people but what needed to be done still needs to be done.

[–] foggianism@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't agree. Dehumanizing even one evil individual takes away from the severity of their bad deeds.

[–] HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

OK, but I care about material consequence. Not the emotional catharsis of moral judgement.

[–] traceur301@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The world could be made a better place if so many people weren't trained into reflexive, voluntary disarmament masquerading as moral high ground. Actual morals involve bringing those prowling "low" to justice

[–] HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Absolutely. Though I want to clarify my take on justice. If an injustice is required to make the world better, happier, safer, freer, I'm in favor of it. I'm not looking to bring punishment to bad people.

For instance, I don't want a certain racist rapist fascist idiot to suffer, I want him to stop causing suffering. If that means a quick and painless death, or being put into a peaceful vegetative state, or simply being removed from office and somehow made culturally/politically irrelevant, I will take it.

Now, would I personally enjoy seeing him suffer? Yes, but that's not really the important bit.

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 2 days ago

Also: "sociopath/psychopath/narcissist" etc. is not just another name for a horrible person.

[–] ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago

Billionaires are subhuman and don't deserve to exist.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 137 points 3 days ago (4 children)

To say that Hitler wasn't human is to pretend that no human could ever do the same, making way for another human to step up and do the same.

Accepting that Hitler was human means putting processes in place to prevent another human from doing the same.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 55 points 2 days ago (8 children)

And to take it a step further: recognize that everyone in Nazi Germany was human. Humans built the gas chambers and the crematoriums. Humans designed the walkways to the gas chambers to look like a normal pathway to a shower facility so the victims wouldn’t panic, as they had at earlier tests.

Humans architected the whole damn thing. Not just a few. It was thousands of people working throughout the Nazi regime. To fully acknowledge their humanity is to recognize that all of us (given a bad enough set of circumstances) are capable of participating in horrific crimes. When dehumanization is widespread and brutality is normalized, we suppress or even lose our moral centre.

Some people find this fact so horribly unpleasant to contemplate that they go to great lengths to deny it. They must have been monsters, psychopaths, deviants. No, what was wrong was that they were in the throes of ideology. Recognize for yourself the seductive and dangerous power of ideology.

[–] nymnympseudonym@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

everyone in Nazi Germany was human

So is every MAGA. In exactly the same way.

When we are serious about fixing America, we will have a credible program of de-Nazification

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[–] Rachelhazideas@lemmy.world 24 points 2 days ago (11 children)

Dehumanizing AI is a good thing.

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[–] chocosoldier@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

human monsters are still human. if you want to defeat human evil you need to acknowledge and address it for what it is, not disavow it. you won't "no true scotsman" your way to defeating fascism.

So many times I have said this to be met with "hurr durr but you can't empathize or let fascists off easy" by people just repeatedly missing the point

[–] nymnympseudonym@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Dehumanization, tribalism, racism, religious intolerance.

Name a more iconic, perfidious quartet.

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 64 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I would add to that: It is also vitally important to see horrible, monstrous, evil people as human. It's a hell of a lot more important than the (also vital) virtue signaling "homeless people / ethnicity people / etc are people too" brand of refusing-to-dehumanize.

For one thing, if you understand why they bombed this city, polluted that river, cheered for this insurrection, whatever they did, then you're a hell of a lot further ahead towards stopping them in the future. You can see how they operate, you can understand it. Even if it's horrible and evil, you can grasp it, come to grips with it, start to work to limit the damage in an effective way, instead of just the "abstinence-only" approach to criminality that is so popular in cities that don't fight their crime very effectively.

For another thing, being evil and doing horrible things is very much a part of being human. It's how we operate. If you can't see that and accept it, if anyone who does something horrible or is just lazy, dirty, crooked, whatever, becomes "not human," then you can't really understand yourself, either. The version of morality where everyone "allowed" to exist in the world doesn't contain some evil is just not useful, in the real world. The Nazis were absolutely human, they were doing human things. They're indicative of a problem with humans. They're not some wild outlier you can safely place outside of "humanity" because they don't count.

"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Solzhenitsyn

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[–] Donkter@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

All dehumanizers are sub-literate neaderthals

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[–] nectar45@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Personally I think more murder would solve a lot of our problems but you do you.

Just saying imagine how much better the world would be if the guy who shot Trump didnt miss

[–] Ronno@feddit.nl 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

As much as I would like to believe that, I doubt it though. Trump isn't the mastermind behind these plans, he is merely a puppet. Puppets are easily replaceable.

[–] voldage@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Calling Trump just a puppet is an overreach. He personally had boosting effect on the entire world right wing parties with his rethoric and charisma. With the personality cult working as the primary motivator for the right wing voters, I doubt that fascists could prop up anyone nearly as effective as Trump for that role. He IS sort of like their messiah that comes once in a century.

I also toy with the thought that if there was any kind of propaganda ruling class would like you to believe and would try hard to influence you into believing, it would be something along the lines of the sentiment that violently removing them would be for some reason ineffectual. As opposed to playing the game THEY designed, mantain and oversee and trying to vote them out or use some sort of peaceful process to limit their power. That's also contrasted by their insistance that they deserve to rule because they are in some way special, or whatever elitist argument people believing in meritocracy use. I do get the sentiment that removing figureheads might not do anything, as something that is somehow well known and estabilished, but, I mean, french royality sure did eat that cake. That train of thought might be something we've been implanted with, since logic doesn't necessarily follow.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

They are dehumanizing people right now, as we speak. It has to stop. One way or another.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people. -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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[–] als@lemmy.blahaj.zone 65 points 3 days ago (9 children)

Go talk to all the pet play enthusiasts

[–] germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 44 points 3 days ago

The secret ingredient is consent

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[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 28 points 3 days ago (12 children)

The antidote is class consciousness and solidarity. Some may think that this just replaces one enemy with another, but fascists blame the powerless, while my side blames the powerful.

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[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (12 children)

What about dehumanizing billionaires and cops?

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Humanity is inalienable. The most wretched, hateful human you can imagine cannot become un-human.

Think of it like calling a turd on a pedestal art. It doesn't mean it's good art, or even that you shouldn't bag it up and throw it out.

Same thing.

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 days ago

Still human. Being human has nothing to do with being a good human.

[–] dontbelievethis@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago (3 children)

It's the paradox of tolerance but with violence this time.

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