by Kathie MM
On this blog, we talk a lot about moral disengagement –the processes allowing ordinary individuals (people who can become confused, anxious, and angry when feeling threatened) to behave in inhumane ways.
The best-known type of moral disengagement involves dehumanizing or demonizing some vulnerable group for personal advantage–e.g., political or economic profit. Are citizens getting restless, angry at economic hardship, starting to rebel? Create an enemy, dehumanize whoever it is (perhaps next year’s ally), and sic those restless citizens on your scapegoat.
There’s a lot of dehumanizing going on right now, just as there is whenever people in power want to boost their profits by getting their citizens to go to war. Stop, look, and listen for the dehumanizing language–e.g., calling members of some group “animals,” “monsters,” “rats,” “pigs,” or “snakes.”
Then take a very good look at the context for that dehumanizing language. Ask yourself who used the term and for what purpose. If the speaker is trying to get people to go along with some sort of harm–e.g., denial of human rights, direct or indirect violence–then you are probably seeing moral disengagement in action.
Not every use of epithets like “animal” or “brute” is an example of moral disengagement. If someone calls her or his spouse a “brute” because that spouse is constantly violent, that’s not moral disengagement. If the speaker is calling all men “brutes” and urging the passage of laws requiring universal castration, or even just denying men the right to own property because of their alleged subhumaness, that would be moral disengagement.
So, pay attention to talk in which selected groups of people are being labelled animals or similar dehumanizing terms, and ask yourself: What is the speaker trying to gain here? What advantage can accrue to the speaker and his or her followers through the kind of dehumanizing language being used? If you can answer those questions, you are gaining an understanding of moral disengagement.
Then, to make yourself feel better, search this blog for encouraging reminders regarding the processes of moral engagement available to all of us in the face of intended manipulation and exploitation.