Modernity functions as the benchmark that defines who counts as human

Evidence

Modernity’s corollary has been the ability to place those whose societies have evolved in other ways beyond the limits of the fully human, resulting in discriminatory treatment that became most clearly formulated in the paralegal status of “enemy combatants” and the establishment of offshore camps for detainees—such as that in Guantánamo Bay—where subjects defined as less than human, shorn of their rights, can be caged. In other words, modernity becomes the benchmark through which to measure and therefore to define the human. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 46

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the argumentative move by which ‘modernity’ is used to place others beyond the fully human — a category that underlies Islamophobic representation.
• XREF: connects to: Proximity to nature indicates society’s assigned humanness ranking — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 1095