Dehumanized victims become a nuisance whose resistance grants functionaries moral self-esteem.

Evidence

Once effectively dehumanized, and hence cancelled as potential subjects of moral demands, human objects of bureaucratic task-performance are viewed with ethical indifference, which soon turns into disapprobation and censure when their resistance, or lack of co-operation, slows down the smooth flow of bureaucratic routine. Dehumanized objects cannot possibly possess a ‘cause’, much less a ‘just’ one; they have no ‘interests’ to be considered, indeed no claim to subjectivity. Human objects become therefore a ‘nuisance factor’. Their obstreperousness further strengthens the self-esteem and the bonds of comradeship that unite the functionaries. The latter see themselves now as companions in a difficult struggle, calling for courage, self-sacrifice and selfless dedication to the cause. It is not the objects of bureaucratic action, but its subjects who suffer and deserve compassion and moral praise. They may justly derive pride and assurance of their own dignity from crushing the recalcitrance of their victims – much as they are proud of overriding any other obstacle. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 301

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense inversion: dehumanization converts the victim’s resistance into the functionary’s moral merit, so cruelty becomes self-righteousness — a mechanism with wide reach.
• SEED: Angle: how this mechanism operates today when state functionaries frame refugees or welfare recipients who resist as ungrateful burdens.
• XREF: connects to: Dehumanization causes perpetrators to perceive victims as nonhuman and therefore not entitled to moral obligation — Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence; Victims’ aggression gets reframed as the victim’s own deviance; To dehumanize someone is to strip them of qualities that make them recognizable as fully human, so cruelty no longer feels like cruelty — The Psychology of Dehumanization and Moral Disengagement (+6 more)

Related

• Dehumanizing an enemy requires first casting one’s own side as innocent victims (similarity 0.82)
• Dehumanization causes perpetrators to perceive victims as nonhuman and therefore not entitled to moral obligation (similarity 0.79)
• Dehumanization redefines targets as less human, using terms like ‘animals’ and ‘vermin’ to get people to accept or engage in atrocities. (similarity 0.79)
• Dehumanizing the victim precedes atrocity through ‘pathic projection’ of the perpetrator’s own image (similarity 0.79)
• Humanizing others reliably blocks cruel behavior even under strong pressure (similarity 0.78)
• Dehumanizing victims as animals makes killing psychologically easier for perpetrators (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Victims’ aggression gets reframed as the victim’s own deviance #exemplifies (0.80)
• Victims’ rational conduct was engineered to serve their own destruction #exemplifies (0.78) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 95
• Victims’ rational survival choices can become tools of their own destruction #exemplifies (0.78) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 349
• Oppressed people can internalize the oppressor’s hatred and turn it against themselves. #corroborates (0.72)