A year after its start, the war in the Middle East has become for philosopher David Livingstone Smith a paradigmatic contemporary case of the topic in which he is an expert: dehumanization.
This philosophy professor at the University of New England defines this phenomenon to which he has dedicated several books as “the attitude of conceiving others as creatures inferior to human beings.”
“Dehumanization occurs in people’s heads, and then these attitudes can influence how they treat those others whom they conceive as subhuman animals,” explains Smith in an interview with BBC Mundo.
In his opinion, That definition is the background to Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, when it killed some 1,200 people and took another 251 hostage, as well as the Israeli military response that left more than 40,000 dead. in Gaza according to the Ministry of Health of the Hamas-controlled strip.
Smith also warns that the dehumanizing rhetoric that fuels this conflict is also perceived in other contexts, from the war in Ukraine to the messages of former United States President Donald Trump, current Republican candidate for the White House.
What follows is a synthesis of the dialogue with the author of Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization (“Creating Monsters: The Mysterious Power of Dehumanization”):
How would you define the war between Israel and Hamas a year after it began?
It is a nightmare, extremely dangerous and brutal.
I do not see that anything good can come from the suffering inflicted on the Palestinians as a result of Israel’s reaction to the brutalities committed on 7 October.
Now the war is spreading to Lebanon and Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is much more formidable than Hamas. I am very worried.
Do you see examples of dehumanization in the Gaza war?
Yes, and they also have an important prehistory.
If you look at the political discourse, at least since 1948 there has been a mutual dehumanization between the Palestinians and their Arab supporters, and the Israelis, on both sides.
Political discourse has often described the other as subhuman, as an insect, as a pig, as a dog.
And when one group of people views another as subhuman, it creates a very dangerous situation, because we may treat less human creatures very differently than we feel obligated to treat members of our own species.
Insects can be exterminated, stepped on, crushed. Nobody feels much compassion for a worm. So, if it is possible to instill in the minds of the population that these others are subhuman, terrible acts of violence can be allowed.
One could argue that all war is a final form of dehumanization. What makes the conflict between Israel and Hamas special?
Dehumanization is quite common in war, especially if there is a racial element, if the enemy is seen as fundamentally different and inferior. When that type of construction exists, dehumanization very easily occurs and atrocities are committed.
For example, in World War II the Allied forces tended not to dehumanize Germans because they considered them racially similar, members of their own species.
But with the Japanese the situation was very different. The Allies dehumanized the Japanese quite clearly and explicitly, and the Japanese dehumanized the Western Allies quite explicitly.
In the Israeli-Palestinian, and now Lebanese, conflict, there is also that element. There has long been a racialization of the Jewish people in the eyes of Muslims, more specifically Arabs.
And there is a racialization of Muslims, and more specifically Arabs, by Israelis.
We have that background of belief in a fundamental difference, in the inferiority and danger of the other group. That creates a situation where there is an extraordinary likelihood that dehumanization will develop.
Is the Gaza war a paradigmatic case of dehumanization?
Not historically. But I think it could be considered a paradigmatic contemporary case of dehumanization.
War in itself is not dehumanization. The attitudes that inform violence are the dehumanizing element.
You have cited as an example of dehumanization the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called at the start of the war to defeat “bloodthirsty monsters,” or that his Defense Minister said that they were fighting “human animals.” Are these not just words to reflect the outrage and terror caused to your people by the Hamas attacks on October 7?
Of course they are reactions to that. But they lead to dehumanization, not only of Hamas but of the Palestinian people in general.
When we say that “we are fighting human monsters,” of course there is a feeling of indignation at the atrocities committed. But the language was not “we are fighting people who have committed monstrous acts.”
It is not about the acts: what propaganda is denying is the very humanity of not only the people who committed the acts, but, almost by contagion, of the entire Palestinian population.
Whoever doubts this, let him see the extent of the brutalities that Israel has committed against the Palestinians in general in this conflict.
Monsters are not real. They are fictional incarnations of evil. And when you start considering a group of people as embodiments of evil, you have a very dangerous and destructive situation. We have seen it again and again historically.
When you deal with “monsters”, there is no mercy, there are no rules: the task is to destroy them completely. I fear this is what we are seeing in much of the exterminationist rhetoric taking place in the Middle East today.
You published a book two years before the start of this war, “Making Monsters”, where you raise this precisely. Do you think that rhetoric was mere coincidence or something premeditated?
It’s very difficult to say, because this type of rhetoric has a long history. And propagandists often use dehumanizing rhetoric to scare the population enough to perform acts they would not otherwise be willing to perform.
We see it again and again. I describe it in my 2021 book. You have a person in a position of authority saying, “Don’t trust your eyes; “These look like human beings, but in reality they are dangerous subhuman creatures.”
Sometimes this is done cynically, in an effort simply to manipulate attitudes. But often people in those positions with that kind of speech actually believe what they say.
For example, I believe that the propaganda minister in Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels, believed much of what he said about Jews as monstrous subhuman creatures who must be destroyed. So it’s hard to know.
Do you see the same rhetoric from the Palestinians in the context of this war?
I have less access to verbal representations. And the situation is so charged that I never know if the translations are accurate.
However, in the Arab press there are often caricatures depicting Israel or Jews as bloodthirsty monsters, as subhuman creatures, who eat babies, which ironically is an old anti-Semitic theme that dates back 800 years in Europe. .
We have a long history of this on both sides of the conflict.
In an essay about this you pointed out that you are neither a Hamas sympathizer nor an anti-Semite, and that you are in fact Jewish and would be happy to “see Hamas destroyed.” Why did you feel the need to explain that?
Because we have to walk a tightrope. First I want people to understand that I am a Jewish person who is very critical of what Israel does.
This situation has become very polarized around the world, and I want to dispel the feeling that if you are Jewish, you agree with the atrocities that Israel has committed and continues to commit.
But I am opposed to any group of people who consider it legitimate to commit atrocities, to murder innocents. And that is precisely what Hamas did in the October 7 massacre.
In fact, if we look at the Hamas charter, they explicitly describe themselves as wanting to wipe Israel off the map. Historically that is understandable, but it is incredibly destructive and dangerous.
We are dealing with a theocratic organization.
Palestinians and Israelis are not going anywhere. The task now is to find a way for these people to live together in peace and prosperity.
Unfortunately, there are forces on both sides working against that: right-wing Israelis and groups like Hamas and its allies.
Is what happened in the Middle East extraordinary or part of a growing pattern of dehumanization in the world?
I don’t know if dehumanization is growing. Unfortunately, it has been a feature of human life for as long as we have records. We can find references to others as monsters or subhuman creatures in writings from ancient civilizations to the present. So I wouldn’t say it’s growing; It is a perpetual danger.
What I do believe is that, with climate change imminent, dehumanization will become a much more significant and dangerous problem.
Because?
Because we are going to have a human migration that probably has no parallel in history.
As parts of the world become uninhabitable, populations will shift. We already see it with the refugees who move from the Middle East to Europe.
There is a rampant dehumanization of these people. And this can only get worse with climate change.
Do you see examples of dehumanization also in the war in Ukraine?
There are certainly examples on both sides.
The Russian media has made all kinds of dehumanizing references to Ukraine and Ukrainians.
One of the most famous is when a Russian propagandist described the war as “worming a cat.” The parasitic worms, of course, would be the Ukrainian ones. It is a type of blatantly dehumanizing image, which the Nazis used in the 1930s and 1940s.
Also, Russia at the beginning of the war frequently described Ukraine as a country full of Nazis. It is an image of the embodiment of evil in its purest form, especially in Eastern Europe, a dehumanizing reference.
On the Ukrainian side there have been statements describing the Russian invaders with demonizing language and visual representations.
A poster for recruiting soldiers shows a Ukrainian in a military uniform with a very human and heroic appearance, fighting against Russian zombies like those that appear in horror movies.
Any signs of dehumanizing political propaganda taking place in the West now?
Yes, in the United States. Our former president Donald Trump has often described migrants, especially from Latin America, as subhuman beings.
And he has done it in a rather ambiguous way. Each time it is not clear whether he is referring to gang members who have done terrible things or to imm undocumented immigrants in general.
I think it is a strategic ambiguity. But even if I were talking only about criminals, they are human beings and characterizing them as non-human is wrong and dangerous.
More recently, Trump has described Haitian immigrants as people who steal and eat pets, dogs and cats.
Pets are like children, members of the family. So accusing Haitians of stealing and eating pets is psychologically equivalent to accusing them of cannibalizing children. It is a dehumanizing strategy that dates back centuries.
What does it take to stop and reverse a process of dehumanization once it has started?
It’s very difficult once it’s started, unfortunately. So prevention is more hopeful.
We can take action on several fronts. One of them is educational. Most nations and ethnic groups lie about their own history.
If we look historically, everyone has blood on their hands. Nations are born in violence. It is false that there is any religious group that has been universally tolerant and generous towards others, despite claims to the contrary.
And it is very important that people are educated in the acts of atrocity that their own group has committed historically, because that introduces a measure of humility. It teaches people: “My God, we are able to do these things; It’s not just others, it’s us. So we have to be careful.”
Another important educational element is understanding how and why we are all capable of dehumanizing others and understanding the specific forms of propaganda that are so powerful in getting us to think that others are less than human.
We need ways to defend ourselves against such propaganda and our own very human psychological inclinations. Otherwise, we will not be able to be alert.
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