Humans can do many things that we really do not want to. We can drop a bomb on a country and kill thousands of people. We can issue an airstrike knowing that it will kill 40 elementary students. But we can't seem to see a single person die. If we never meet the person that was murdered, then it's almost like they never existed. We would rather pretend that it never happened, then find out the murdered persons name.
By dehumanizing the enemy we no longer need to worry about who we killed. They are just a face in the crowd that doesn't matter to you. You don't have to look into their face and see that they're the one you killed. In 1984 during the Two Minutes Hate Winston talks about Oceania's enemy's.
"-row after row of solid-looking men with expressionless Asiatic faces, who swam up to the surface of the screen and vanished, to be replaced by others exactly similar." (Orwell, 14-15).
In 1984, the people in Oceania think that killing is perfectly fine because they think the enemy deserves to die. They view the enemy as nothing more than animals, so that makes it much easier to kill. By dehumanizing the enemy you no longer have to worry about if they die or not because in the end you think that they probably deserve it. Do you think that by seeing the enemy as nothing that it would be easier to kill them? If you never met the person that was killed would you remember them after some time goes by or would you rather just forget about them?
When you dehumanize your enemy, it makes it a lot easier to kill them. When you're dehumanizing them you no longer see them as your equal. You don't see them as some who has a family, or friends, or a life. You see them as only something standing in the way of whatever goal or end you're trying to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the book's reasoning for dehumanizing the enemy. The enemy changes from Eurasia and Eastasia constantly because it is a war that will never end. I think that the Party wants the people to act out, and allow the Party to continue the fight.
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