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I was recently reading an article concerning a current political and social issue by Peter Wehner, a Christian writer and leader of the Trinity Forum. In the middle of his article, I encountered this paragraph in which Peter Wehner calls the reader's attention to a process that is becoming more and more common in today's public discourse: The tendency to reduce the humanity of one's opponents and enemies. This process is called dehumanization. Here is the relevant paragraph from Peter Wehner's article:
"Dehumanizers view their targets as having “a human appearance but a subhuman essence,” according to David Livingstone Smith, a philosophy professor who has written on the history and complicated psychological roots of dehumanization. “It is the dehumanizer’s nagging awareness of the other’s humanity that gives dehumanization its distinctive psychological flavor,” he writes. “Ironically, it is our inability to regard other people as nothing but animals that leads to unimaginable cruelty and destructiveness.” Dehumanized people can be turned into something worse than animals; they can be turned into monsters. They aren’t just dangerous; they are metaphysically threatening. They are not just subhuman; they are irredeemably destructive."
We should be aware of the fact that two of the most infamous tyrants of the 20th c. - Hitler and Mussolini - called their enemies "vermin." (Lenin and Stalin called them “enemies of the people”). Ominously, the reduction of human beings – perceived as the enemy – to the level of vermin has recently entered into our own public/political discourse. Has that term ever been used before? This is dehumanization in an extreme form, for vermin are simply not human (the word comes from the Middle English - borrowed from the Anglo-French - verm or worm). To describe human beings as "vermin" is to strip them of their humanity, to reduce human beings to people perceived as despicable and dangerous to humanity. This is the dangerous rhetoric, indeed. This supports the definition of dehumanization above by David Livingstone Smith. Vermin, in the words of a parishioner, can only be treated by “extermination.” Hence, violence against such “monsters” is legitimized. We know the horrid results of this dehumanization of living human beings in the ghastly reigns of Hitler and Mussolini. And, for good measure, we can add Lenin and Stalin.
Obviously and tragically, human beings dehumanize themselves through repeated acts of serious sin. This is true of tyrants, dictators and killers. This is why criminal justice and prison systems exist: Human beings can do horrible things that dehumanize themselves and the people that they victimize. It is our responsibility to recognize this when it happens. We call this discernment. Only in this way, can we struggle against the nefarious and even malignant spread of sin, systemic or personal. But Peter Wehner in the passage above is pointing to the troubling trend of dehumanizing the actually decent people who may oppose us ideologically - or even, simply, politically. It is easy to fall prey to this if we lack vigilance or simply allow ourselves to be swept up into such careless discourse. We can easily lose sight of the humanity of the "other side." Is this happening within our own country?
Our goal as Orthodox Christians is to ceaselessly affirm the true humanity of all persons. It is by this affirmation of the other that we acknowledge that each and every human being has been created in the image and likeness of God. We cannot resort to the rhetoric that degenerates to the level of calling other human beings "vermin." We must oppose it even when employed by a person that we tend to agree with or support. In fact, the use of this abusive language may just challenge our own discernment in supporting such a person. Our goal is to humanize, not dehumanize, our neighbor - even if we strongly disagree with such a neighbor.
I would like to re-emphasize, that what I am writing is in no way promoting a relativistic tolerance of sinful behavior (as in: no matter what someone actually does, ultimately we are all fine so we shouldn’t criticize anyone or challenge their beliefs or motives); or even with the non-acknowledgment of how deep-rooted sin deprives a human being of his/her humanity - sin can indeed be dehumanizing. But I was struck by what the philosopher David Livingstone Smith has written on the topic, which serves as a warning to what can happen among decent and well-intentioned people. Is not this what happened under both Hitler and Mussolini in Germany and Italy respectively? Is not the resurgence today, within our own society, of the irrational and wholly unjustified rise of both antisemitism and Islamophobia following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, a warning sign of just how this can happen, even in a democratic society that prides itself on tolerance and civility? Once common civility – or basic deceny- is abandoned when responding to one’s ideological opponents, then the guardrails have been removed, and then, more-or-less, anything is permitted.
When we again celebrate the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, we commemorate His birth in the flesh, but also the renewal of human nature, the very human nature that the eternal Son of God assumed in the womb of His mother. We call this renewal of human nature the deification of that very human nature which had been estranged from God through sin and death. The healing of human nature begins with the Incarnation and subsequent passing of that human nature through death and into the light of the resurrection and its future glorification. That process is not “mechanical” or “magical.” It is given as a potential gift to those who consciously and freely accept that gift and then make an honest attempt to live according to the will of God. This is the noble challenge of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. To contend with our own ignoble tendencies may be equivalent to bearing a cross. But if we pursue that goal of reflecting the presence of Christin our lives honestly, we will always be able to see the humanity of other human beings, fallen and sinful though we and they may actually be.
It is true that we “dehumanize” ourselves through our sinful actions, words and thoughts. But we cannot allow ourselves to dehumanize our religious, ideological or political adversaries by the dangerous rhetoric that is becoming more and more widespread – and tolerated - in the current divisiveness of our contemporary world. And right here in our country. As Christians we can never align ourselves with referencing other human beings as “vermin.” Christians are responsible for opposing such a sinful breakdown of decent civil discourse, not for the sake of “good manners,” but in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who is truly philanthropos.
- Fr. Steven
