What Dehumanizing Others Says About Our Humanity

“You want to know what’s wrong with the world?” Dad paused. “It’s this alienation that permeates every aspect of humanity.” —Mark David Henderson, The Soul of Atlas

Aliens are by definition unfamiliar, unknown, strange, and foreign. In science fiction, they are not even human. They’re big black-eyed space creatures who pose an uncertain danger to humankind.

This word is used daily at a nation’s borders, by politicians and law enforcers to describe human beings who happen to not be from their country. In the United States, we confer the status of “resident alien” on non-Americans from other nations who live here legally. An immigrant without official government papers sanctioning their presence in the US is called an “illegal alien.” The very nature of the word “alien” sends a clear message: that person does not belong here.

The nation is galvanized into conflicting groups around what to do with illegal aliens. Do we confer citizenship on them, cut them some legal slack, or kick them out and deport them back to their country of origin? Do we expand our group by increasing our membership, or do we maintain or decrease our group size by excluding those we deem inadequate because they look different, speak another language, and are alien?

Some people are accused of engaging in criminal acts, furthering the outrage of some citizens. You can imagine someone thinking, “Here we are letting them stay in our country and what do they do? Steal from me. Hurt me. Devalue me. Let’s get rid of ‘em!”

Alienation begins when one person devalues another person.

Just as respect leads to value and value leads to trust, disrespect leads to devaluation, and devaluation leads to mistrust. Mistrust activates all sorts of biological survival responses.

Sometimes this alienation does not stop at mistrust but continues to become one of the most dangerous attributions in any and every society: dehumanization.

Sometimes a person from one country will dehumanize a person from another country. No wonder they commit all these crimes. They have no human ethic, moral compass, or simple human courtesy. How could they? They are not human.

Sometimes a person from the same country will dehumanize another, perhaps because they do not agree with their politics, their sexuality, their religion, their perspective. his dehumanization can lead to violence, aggression, attribution of non-human behaviors, and less-than-human treatment.[1]

But oddly, this dehumanization says something remarkably powerful about who we are as humans.

For one human to hurt another we first have to dehumanize them. You are not going to hurt someone you care about until they dip below the threshold of being human.

Think about this for a moment.

This says something about who we are as human beings.

Our human instinct to protect each other is so powerful, that the only way we can hurt someone is to make them not human.

We cannot hurt someone in our own group.

And we are one group called humanity.

We are one group.

Every single person, no matter what their nationality, politics, gender choice, socioeconomic status, their perspective wants the same thing: to feel valued by another person.

If we all want the same thing, then we are truly all members of the same group.

When we remember this, it will be much, much more difficult to dehumanize someone just because they have a perspective different and are alien.

Despite that perspective, they want the same thing that you do: to feel valued. And at any and every moment, you can remind someone of their value.

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And whenever you remind someone of their value you increase your own value.

You control no one but influence everyone. You get to choose the kind of influence you want to be.

When we ignore, we devalue. When we exclude, we devalue. When we say impulsive, mean, and thoughtless words, we devalue another person. We alienate others on many levels—religious, societal, racial, economic, educational, and many more.

You get to choose.

And small changes can have big effects.

By showing interest instead of judgment, you send a message of respect and value. Respect leads to value, and value leads to trust. Why would I dehumanize someone I trust?

We all want the same thing. Why not remind another person of their value instead of trying to diminish and alienate them? Whenever you remind someone of their value you increase your value.

Respect leads to value, and value leads to trust.

And with trust, everyone is safer.

We can do this.