Yes... and dehumanisation denies us the opportunity to seek to understand such behaviours and social phenomena from a psychological and sociological perspective, which can be tremendously valuable in terms of understanding why they think and behave as they do – and why others give them the power to have the influence they have – which is important information to possess in terms of knowing what, if anything, can be done about it; or at least having a better sense of why they are as they are.
An excellent reminder of how not to characterise the challenges Trump’s regime poses to the world. What is needed is a counter narrative that we of good will take a collectivist approach to addressing our human condition. Tele
Unfortunately it's intentional. He's too smart not to know the consequences of his actions. If someone is a "Monster" then, logically and inevitably, you must murder them. That is only good, right, and obvious. Reich, knowing this, also knows that is wrong, so he is attempting to convince some other to enact this murder for him. That's substantially more evil.
Do I exaggerate? Not really, about 30% of my Substack feed is people calling for mass murder widely, a murder of whoever they feel isn't quite right, but barring all process, evidence, trial, and appeal. This is while I furiously attempt to keep a moderate algo. ...And that's from the tolerant Left.
I have engaged with some of them. Merely: "Is this truly your own morals? Is this truly what you want?"
Reich’s work was often heavy with moralizing and open ended hand wringing. He rarely delves into nature of things, and I have to say he could be dismissed as a well meaning demagogue.
Solution to the human condition — how to resist corruption of power and doing bad things in the name of this and that.
No one has figured it out yet, and Reich is no help.
Thank you for humanizing Jabba. He was someone’s son and even a baby at some point.
I suspect the reason he runs around calling everything a disgrace is because his Mother said it to him on numerous occasions. He chose to become what he is and relishes in sadism. I’m good with demonizing him all the way to hell.
This is such an important point that is rarely pointed out . That to maintain decency requires resisting the temptation to dehumanize the worst among us , yet history shows it is the only way to move forward with our humanity in tact . The only way.
I really appreciate your work and have been using it for a class I created called The Rhetoric of Dehumanization. However, I am a little disappointed that up to this point the genocide in Gaza has not been mentioned explicitly. So far, you have only referred to it as the “ callous extinction of countless innocent lives,” which really is an understatement considering the many innocent lives they have killed, starved, tortured, trapped, humiliated, and destroyed. I think that, based on your work, what Israel is doing is a blatant act of genocide. It seems impossible to approach the study of dehumanization without considering how the people of Palestine have been systematically dehumanized for decades and made into monsters leading up to this genocide, which has gained complete impunity from America. I feel that every scholar of dehumanization has an obligation to address this issue; not doing so is contradictory to the field and its purpose.
Yes, I read both and I noticed the prediction which was on point. I’m just hoping there would be a detailed explanation of how they have been dehumanized up to this genocide and how it’s being carried out. What’s happening in Gaza is the first explicit act of genocide that is being witnessed by the world through social media, so it adds great depth to the study of genocide and dehumanization. I’m really looking forward to seeing more work from you on this topic that I can use for my course.
There has been so much coverage of Israel's genocidal violence (and now Trump's statements about ethnic cleansing) that I've not had anything novel to say. That said, I am always on the lookout for ways that my work can throw light on these horrors. If you come across anything that I might be able to address in ways that have not already been addressed, please let me know.
I totally agree that we should never, never fall into the trap of dehumanization. Individuals are always human, but what we get together to create sometimes, many times, is dehumanizing. Just about every human institution with a uneven power differential dehumanizes. We must be away never to waste our lives on dehumanizing a person or a group of persons. We must work to adjust power differentials so that we humanize our constructions. These constructions become our dehumanizing rules of engagement - ideologies that remove humanity from the center of persons’ thoughts, replaced by created angels and demons. The best do it, but it is not the best construction.
Jung also had a lot to say about this in The Undiscovered Self,
Jung warns that when the State becomes too powerful, individuals lose their freedom and responsibility, turning into mere parts of a system rather than independent thinkers. The government decides what is right, how people should live, and even what they should believe, reducing both leaders and citizens to functionaries rather than individuals. In totalitarian societies, the State often replaces religion, with leaders treated like sacred figures who cannot be questioned, enforcing a single “truth” while punishing dissenters like heretics. When this happens, people stop thinking for themselves and blindly follow authority, and because humans need meaning and purpose, political ideologies start functioning like religions—even if people secretly have doubts they are too afraid to express.
Everywhere in the West, there are subversive minorities who, sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice, hold the incendiary torches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population. One should not, however, overestimate the thickness of this stratum. It varies from country to country in accordance with national temperament.
One could, on an optimistic estimate, put it’s upper limit at 40 percent of the electorate. A rather more pessimistic view would not be unjustified either, since the gift of reason and critical reflection is not one of man’s outstanding peculiarities, and even where it exists, it proves to be wavering and inconsistent, the more so, as a rule, the bigger the political groups are.
The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the constitutional State should succumb to a fit of weakness.
Yes... and dehumanisation denies us the opportunity to seek to understand such behaviours and social phenomena from a psychological and sociological perspective, which can be tremendously valuable in terms of understanding why they think and behave as they do – and why others give them the power to have the influence they have – which is important information to possess in terms of knowing what, if anything, can be done about it; or at least having a better sense of why they are as they are.
An excellent reminder of how not to characterise the challenges Trump’s regime poses to the world. What is needed is a counter narrative that we of good will take a collectivist approach to addressing our human condition. Tele
Unfortunately it's intentional. He's too smart not to know the consequences of his actions. If someone is a "Monster" then, logically and inevitably, you must murder them. That is only good, right, and obvious. Reich, knowing this, also knows that is wrong, so he is attempting to convince some other to enact this murder for him. That's substantially more evil.
Do I exaggerate? Not really, about 30% of my Substack feed is people calling for mass murder widely, a murder of whoever they feel isn't quite right, but barring all process, evidence, trial, and appeal. This is while I furiously attempt to keep a moderate algo. ...And that's from the tolerant Left.
I have engaged with some of them. Merely: "Is this truly your own morals? Is this truly what you want?"
History has periods like this from time to time.
Thank you for this clear and powerful analysis!
Reich’s work was often heavy with moralizing and open ended hand wringing. He rarely delves into nature of things, and I have to say he could be dismissed as a well meaning demagogue.
Solution to the human condition — how to resist corruption of power and doing bad things in the name of this and that.
No one has figured it out yet, and Reich is no help.
Thank you for humanizing Jabba. He was someone’s son and even a baby at some point.
I suspect the reason he runs around calling everything a disgrace is because his Mother said it to him on numerous occasions. He chose to become what he is and relishes in sadism. I’m good with demonizing him all the way to hell.
Not everyday. But some days.
This is such an important point that is rarely pointed out . That to maintain decency requires resisting the temptation to dehumanize the worst among us , yet history shows it is the only way to move forward with our humanity in tact . The only way.
I really appreciate your work and have been using it for a class I created called The Rhetoric of Dehumanization. However, I am a little disappointed that up to this point the genocide in Gaza has not been mentioned explicitly. So far, you have only referred to it as the “ callous extinction of countless innocent lives,” which really is an understatement considering the many innocent lives they have killed, starved, tortured, trapped, humiliated, and destroyed. I think that, based on your work, what Israel is doing is a blatant act of genocide. It seems impossible to approach the study of dehumanization without considering how the people of Palestine have been systematically dehumanized for decades and made into monsters leading up to this genocide, which has gained complete impunity from America. I feel that every scholar of dehumanization has an obligation to address this issue; not doing so is contradictory to the field and its purpose.
I wrote two Substack essays on Gaza immediately after Oct 7. Sadly, all of the horror that I predicted has come to pass.
Yes, I read both and I noticed the prediction which was on point. I’m just hoping there would be a detailed explanation of how they have been dehumanized up to this genocide and how it’s being carried out. What’s happening in Gaza is the first explicit act of genocide that is being witnessed by the world through social media, so it adds great depth to the study of genocide and dehumanization. I’m really looking forward to seeing more work from you on this topic that I can use for my course.
There has been so much coverage of Israel's genocidal violence (and now Trump's statements about ethnic cleansing) that I've not had anything novel to say. That said, I am always on the lookout for ways that my work can throw light on these horrors. If you come across anything that I might be able to address in ways that have not already been addressed, please let me know.
'Monster' is shorthand for a cluster of behaviours and psychological flaws. But I suppose they all have 'daddy issues'.
I totally agree that we should never, never fall into the trap of dehumanization. Individuals are always human, but what we get together to create sometimes, many times, is dehumanizing. Just about every human institution with a uneven power differential dehumanizes. We must be away never to waste our lives on dehumanizing a person or a group of persons. We must work to adjust power differentials so that we humanize our constructions. These constructions become our dehumanizing rules of engagement - ideologies that remove humanity from the center of persons’ thoughts, replaced by created angels and demons. The best do it, but it is not the best construction.
Jung also had a lot to say about this in The Undiscovered Self,
Jung warns that when the State becomes too powerful, individuals lose their freedom and responsibility, turning into mere parts of a system rather than independent thinkers. The government decides what is right, how people should live, and even what they should believe, reducing both leaders and citizens to functionaries rather than individuals. In totalitarian societies, the State often replaces religion, with leaders treated like sacred figures who cannot be questioned, enforcing a single “truth” while punishing dissenters like heretics. When this happens, people stop thinking for themselves and blindly follow authority, and because humans need meaning and purpose, political ideologies start functioning like religions—even if people secretly have doubts they are too afraid to express.
Everywhere in the West, there are subversive minorities who, sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice, hold the incendiary torches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population. One should not, however, overestimate the thickness of this stratum. It varies from country to country in accordance with national temperament.
One could, on an optimistic estimate, put it’s upper limit at 40 percent of the electorate. A rather more pessimistic view would not be unjustified either, since the gift of reason and critical reflection is not one of man’s outstanding peculiarities, and even where it exists, it proves to be wavering and inconsistent, the more so, as a rule, the bigger the political groups are.
The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the constitutional State should succumb to a fit of weakness.