Abortion, Evil and Dehumanization

I have been reading “Lucifer Effect:  Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” by Philip Zimbardo and thought that you might be interested in this quote.

“Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil. Dehumanization is like a cortical cataract that clouds one’s thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. It makes some people come to see those others as enemies deserving of torment, torture, and annihilation. Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil.[1].”

Dehumanization is one of the favorite tools of political propagandists who have embraced identity politics. They identify groups or sometimes create groups to divide; then they demonize and dehumanize the groups that stand against their ideology. All this is for the purpose of gaining power. This process always begins with name-calling and the branding of groups of people with derogatory labels.

This dehumanization is fostered by propaganda that portrays the others as an enemy of humanity, for example in the area of abortion, they often do this by comparing the unborn to something less than human. Their use of the word ‘fetus’ echoes this. Why not just call it a child? This method that makes the victims, the enemy, was used by the early abortionist to convince the masses that they had to destroy human life because the planet was being overrun by humans and that the masses would ultimately starve to death from a lack of resources.[2] On a smaller scale, the propagandists attempt to convince women that somehow their unborn child was going to steal their life and thus is an enemy of their freedom. In addition, they dehumanize infants in the womb by referring to them as just a bundle of cells comparing the unborn fetus to a ball of’ snot or a tadpole.

[1] “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” by Philip Zimbardo.

[2] The very opposite has turned out to be the truth. Fewer people are starving now than ever in the history of the world.