Dehumanizing entire groups makes persecution of them socially acceptable

Evidence

Dehumanization has a long bloody history. In the holy terror of the Crusades, Pope Urban II portrayed Muslims as “despicable, degenerate, and enslaved by demons.” In his contemporary jihad, Osama bin Laden portrayed the American “decadent infidels” as “the most ravenous of animals.” The Holocaust, genocides, mass killings, and military atrocities are fueled by institutionally orchestrated campaigns of dehumanization. Once entire classes of people are rendered less than human, their stigmatization, persecution, and exclusion from the most basic human rights becomes personally and socially acceptable. If the justifications are crafted skillfully, the degrading treatment can be made morally acceptable as well. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 613 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The mere label of a target group becomes a mandate to distort them — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 145; Dehumanizing contained groups lets perpetrators deny racism is even possible — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1873; Intergroup competition selects prosocial norms that can simultaneously dehumanize outsiders. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 558 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Dehumanizing rhetoric legitimizes persecution across cultures and eras #corroborates (0.96) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 613