the Holocaust with other crimes against humanity, we find this process of
dehumanisation repeated in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and countless other
theatres of atrocity. Its purpose is to dissolve the existence of a common humanity
by attempting to “animalise” certain humans. This mode of inhumanity tries to push
certain humans across the human/non-human divide. It contrasts human animals
with non-human animals, yet reserves a particularly virulent hatred for the
dehumanized victim that is rarely exhibited towards other animals. It is thus a
somewhat paradoxical illusion, for the very process relies on a prior identification of
common humanity. It is these humans in particular who are non-human. And this
rhetorical displacement can only be inflicted upon humans, by humans.
The idea of a sentimental education put forward in Rorty’s writing, of
teaching humanity through the telling of “sad and sentimental stories”, here
presents its dark side: the social psychological process it describes arguably also fits
the process of dehumanisation, which has its own stories to tell. Thomas Laqueur
makes exactly this point:
Consider, for example, the words “they are not human, they are animals,”
perhaps the most common formula for why one does not need to, indeed
should not, extend the moral franchise to another person or group. It is
supported not by an argument for a switch of species being – Rorty is right
that such arguments are largely irrelevant – but by a “sad and sentimental
tale,” that is meant to make the hearer treat someone as radically other.^61Once that initial step has been taken, it is easier to take it further, to make claims
such as “these people who you may have known as neighbours are not like you. In
fact they are animals. Worse than that, they are vermin who should be eliminated.
If not, they will harm you and your family.” We have countless examples of this
dehumanising sentimental education at work, from the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Nazi
Germany to the hate-speak of Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines during the
Rwandan Genocide. Dehumanisation explicitly challenges the integrity of a category
of common humanity, even if it paradoxically may draw on assumed commonalities
61
Thomas W. Laqueur, "Mourning, Pity, and the Work of Narrative in the Making Of
"Humanity"", in Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy , ed. Richard
Ashby Wilson and Richard D. Brown (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 35-36.