De-humanisation is the Trojan horse of genocide

De-humanisation is the Trojan horse of genocide, to strip someone of their humanity allows for cognitive justification of their suffering. I argue that one must abandon their own humanity to dehumanise another, and I think as humans we have collectively conditioned each other to avoid/ deny/ devalue our full humanity.

How I see it is, the lack of humanity is a product of subjegating our capacity to feel, feeling being a central component to our humanity, our empathy- our ability to see, seek and tend to our connections.

We have trauma bonded to a megalomanic system that narcissistically looks only to service itself and like in any toxic relationship dismantles the fabric of who we innately are, to be a product of their manipulation. We have been manipulated to cut off and discard more than half of the feelings we are capable of because they do not serve the colonial, capitalist, patriarchy. A deep seed of condition that our feelings make us weak, unproductive and of lesser value. In this toxic environment everybody suffers and some suffer so much more than others.

Denying our feeling leaves us numb, unmet in our human needs, and over time our muscles for grief, sorrow, guilt, love, joy, insecurity, true connection- they grow weak and we look to escape at any means necessary. By telling us that the core of who we are - our inescapable reality, is of no value, we desperately look to what we can fill ourselves up with to retain this value- this is our distraction. When our own selves have no value, how can we really see the true inherit value in another?

Learning to feel is something most adults won’t prioritise, and I do believe at this point it is a learnt skill, one that requires practice. Be beautiful and lean deep into feeling to find your likeness to every other human being on this planet. Look for your likeness, not your difference, even with those that commit atrocities, because all shadows of humanity live in each of us. The more we ignore, the more they fester into intellectually justified attacks on our humanity. How do you dehumanise yourself to keep up with cultural expectation? Lean into the discomfort of grief at witnessing the assault on innocence. Let your feeling take loving action toward humanity, stand for human life, not one side on a double edge sword. This will lead you to sustainable action. Loving our full humanity means taking responsibility for it and in that responsibility we preserve human life, not destroy it.