Dehumanized enemies must stay human enough that killing them seems valorous

Evidence

This activity of production does not look to a product but shatters it directly and makes the emptiness of specific things emerge. The above-mentioned difference in its appearance is specific determinacy and this is posited as something to be negated. But this, which is to be negated, must itself be a living totality. What is ethical must itself intuit its vitality in its difference, and it must do so here in such a way that the essence of the life standing over against it is posited as alien and to be negated … A difference of this sort is the enemy, and this difference, posited in its [ethical] bearing, exists at the same time as its counterpart, the opposite of the being of its antithesis, i.e., as the nullity of the enemy, and this nullity, commensurate on both sides, is the peril of the batde. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 408 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

Cold-blooded killings and barbaric executions require dehumanization of victims to eradicate any restraining moral qualms. It may be even easier to do it if victims are bestialized, with victims often degraded to “dogs.” … A photo showed him kneeling beside a decapitated corpse (El-Naggar, 2015). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2449 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Enemies are dehumanized into vermin before military force can be unleashed — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1451; Extermination stage killing requires that killers see victims as less than fully human — Gregory H. Stanton, Ten Stages of Genocide, 8; Apocalyptic writers dehumanized conquerors to render them abhorrent (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Enemy depictions must balance dehumanization against valor so violence stays enjoyable #expands (1.00)
• The enemy must be a living totality whose negation is perilous #responds-to (1.00) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 408
• Dehumanizing victims as animals makes killing psychologically easier for perpetrators #complicates (0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2449