The urge to dehumanise others is itself all too human

January 22, 2014

Rival sides in such conflicts describe each other in ways that deny their shared humanity: they may liken each other to vermin, or pests to be exterminated. The words onlookers use to describe such conflicts – bloody religious factionalism in the Central African Republic, for example, or the civil war in Syria – are also animalistic: perpetrators are “brutal”, while their victims are “slaughtered”. (New Scientist)