Dehumanization: A Big Part Of World War II

Dehumanization is when one people group is viewed as subhuman to another people group. The Nazis did everything they could to degrade and dehumanize the Jewish people. When the Jewish people were deported, they were shoved into cattle cars for days long trips with little food, air, or water. All of their personal belongings were stripped from them. The prisoners were shaved bald and referred to only by their assigned numbers, never their real name (Wiesel 22-42). This was all an attempt to dehumanize the Jewish people, making them nothing but a number. On the other hand, the Ukrainians were considered traitors to the Soviet Union and placed below the people of Russia. The blame was placed on the Ukrainian peasants’ shoulders when there was a shortage of grain. Vladimir Lenin, the predecessor of Joseph Stalin wrote a tirade against the kulaks, calling them “bloodsuckers” and “plunderers” (source 1). Although both the Jews and the Kulaks were dehumanized and not seen as citizens of the country they lived in, the dehumanization process was different for

Lastly, the notion to hurt one’s enemy peoples to force their government into a complete surrender and to minimize the general loss of one’s own troops is immoral. Naturally, the typical ethical standards of war would not justify any use of dehumanization in order for a nation to supersede the other. The Japanese became dehumanized in the minds of American combatants and civilians. The process enabled greater cultural and physical differences between white Americans and Japanese than between the former and their European foes. In Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars (1977), he defines “ the use of force by one nation against another is always wrong unless the latter has already forfeited its basic rights.” Walzer is clearly stating that wars; especially nuclear wars are unjust if they strip away basic civilian rights. In other words, they are ponds in a game of political and nuclear warfare.

One of the methods of dehumanization was separating families.”Men to the left, women to the right”(29). Hitler didn’t care about how the Jews felt. Jews were treated like force breeding farms for animals. They did not have a lot of food and bad living conditions. “The beloved objects that we had carried with us from place to place were now left behind in the wagon and, with them, finally, our illusions”(29). Jews weren’t considered humans and so they didn’t get to have human like possessions. Everything they owned was just taken away from them and they never got to see it again.

Racism was manifested in many ways during World War Two. The Germans believed that the Aryan race was superior to all other races and began to seek and destroy the race that they believed to be the least. The Japanese, while calling for the unification of Asia, believed that the Japanese Yamato race was the most superior race and in many cases treated their Asian neighbors with the same hatred and malevolence that the German Nazi’s had for the Jews and other undesirables like gypsies. The author goes on and explains the difference between racism and the Japanese and American folk histories that guided them. While the definition of racism is the belief that another race is inferior the ideas of the American and Japanese folk tales tend

“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” stated by Elie Wiesel. In the book Night Elie Wiesel describes in traumatic details of the year he spent at Auschwitz. In Night, Elie Wiesel reveals the devastating experiences that took place in the death camps.Throughout the novel, examples of dehumanization occur when the many jews are forced to cut their hair, when they are compared to or called dogs, and when they had to throw their friends and family into the crematorium.

The author used a very unique and disturbing attitude to look at the uses of racist ideology by both the Western Powers and Japan to fuel their pursuit of military, political and cultural dominance during the early 20th century which leading up through the brutal "War without Mercy" known as the Pacific War. In this book, John Dower argued that race not only colored America’s actions in the Pacific theater of World War II, but the Japanese harbored a similar preoccupation with their own racial superiority that motivated them to engage in martial and power pursuits. This sense of superiority fueled emotions which would bring both countries to act inhumanely to one another during the war.

Despite dehumanization being an important phenomenon in social psychology, it has been neglected by some philosophers. It has extensive ramifications for moral philosophy. Study of dehumanization in psychological aspects is very crucial as it has implications for diverse areas as conceptions of what is humanity, notions of racism and race, genocide and war. This paper will analyze slavery on concepts of dehumanization and how it affected the history of psychology. Works of various prominent figures in the history of psychology will be analyzed, and their implications put forth. The paper will further discuss and analyze how an individual’s concepts contribute to the development of the modern psychology and how their ideas are employed in the contemporary society.

As a result of the most recent Presidential Election, many minority groups like Muslims and Hispanics are dehumanized. It was said that current president, Donald Trump, had expressed many concern of the United States and linked them to certain minority groups. By doing so, Trump was able to promote controversial policies like building a wall between Mexico and the United States and create databases to track Muslims. Ironic as it sounds, Trump wanted the United State citizens to pay for the creation of this wall, if not, have the citizens of Mexico pay. The main aspect of this article was to promote the awareness of dehumanization among the United States to certain minority groups like the

Dehumanization occurs abundantly in night. The stripping of human identity of the Jewish people and reducing them to mere numbers is a glaring example of it and the abuses that the Nazis perpetrate on their prisoners are another example of dehumanization. The public beatings, hangings of prisoners and making others walk past them, as well as the selection process are all examples of dehumanization. The nazis killed the jews in such a way that one could not kill a fellow man. Even as Elizer said"To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter.

"Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless." (Lorde, 1984). Dehumanization often makes people think of soldiers fighting enemies in war and having to cope with their actions via dehumanization. While in this particular quote, Lorde (1984) was referencing the dehumanization that comes along side war, but that doesn't change that relevance this quote has on all types of dehumanization. However, dehumanization has occurred quite frequently in world history during the colonization, imperialism and in times of war. Dehumanization has been an issue since biblical times and still proves to be a prevalent issue in today's society. Dehumanization refers to the act of labeling those who are different, justifying mistreatment and reducing people to animalistic ways.

More than half a century has passed since the end of World War Two and to this day it is still difficult to fully understand the severity of what was by far the most destructive war in human history. More than sixty million people were killed during World War Two and more than half of those were innocent town’s people. Among the dead were over six million Jews, which was two thirds of the total living race in Europe at the time. Beyond these general statistics were thousands of stories of crimes committed against soldiers and civilians. These crimes against humanity included cases of prisoners of war being murdered, sent to concentration camps and abuse as well as harmless civilians being rounded up and

The attitude they developed toward the “Subhumans” was that they were not humans and therefore had no rights, soul, or purpose; instead they posed a perceived threat which warranted eradication. However, not all Germans behaved the same way, in fact, some tried to help the Jews. This leads me to believe there must have been an underlying hatred already present among those able to achieve the difficult process of adopting inhumane social beliefs and overcoming the natural instinct to behave

A large portion of literature concerning moral exclusion processes (Opotow,1990) focuses primarily upon situations of extreme conflict that result in genocide (Haslam, 2006; Chalk & Jonassohn, 1990). The underlying argument of this essay, however, is similar to that of Haslam (2006), who sees dehumanisation occurring within and “outside the domains of violence and conflict” (Haslam, 2006, p.252), where all forms of moral exclusion deserve equal attention. This essay argues that milder incarnations of such exclusion are ingrained in the cultural fabric to such an extent that the blunt employment of moral exclusion techniques is acceptable as a standard in news reporting, arguably setting a trend for further developments in how the public

Power allows people to control outcomes with respect to both the environment and the self . This control is considered to be a fundamental human need ; therefore, it follows that powerlessness will disrupt an individual's sense of humanity, which coincides with the fact that many civilizations have equated power deprivation with humbleness, lowliness, and fewer expressed human traits. We based the current study on this notion in order to demonstrate that perceived powerlessness induces self-dehumanization.

Has American society become dehumanized? In the essay DEHUMANIZED: When math and science rule the school, Slouka argues that it is. He argues schools are controlled by what the GDP wants, and it wants scientists and workers. He says people need more than just the ability to solve science problems to be a well-rounded citizen. Math and science is very concrete and straight forward, the teacher or professor present objective facts to the students who absorb the facts and then apply them to objective concrete problems. In our society, we have many subjective problems that require us to think critically, question the norms, and communicate effectively if we want to solve them. Some of those questions revolve around economics, morals, social policies, and structure of government. To answer these questions requires knowledge and skills pertaining to the humanities and not so much pertaining to math or science. To give society these skills, we must increase the extent to which humanities are taught and studied within our education system. I think Slouka makes a great point about the importance of education in the humanities and the continued defunding of humanities in our education system, though I do think he fails to address the extensive benefits and progress made in the sciences.