The Politics of Humanity

benefits of colonialism. Craig Calhoun notes that more generally, "Colonialism itself
was often understood (with no cynicism) as humanitarianism."^65 This kind of
attitude was deeply embedded in liberal humanitarian thought, and figures like J.S.
Mill, while arguing against one set of dehumanising practices, simultaneously
advocated others, such as treating colonial subjects as children to be educated.
Neta Crawford notes that contemporary “advocates of humanitarian intervention
pose justifications that recall the civilizing mission of colonialism”.^66 More recently,
Jeremy Moses argues that Bush and Blair drew on humanitarian discourse to
effectively establish “an inside and outside of a global ‘human’ identity”.^67
What is going on here? In the previous section, I argued that putative
humanitarians come to the discussion with a variety of different ideas of what
cruelty, dehumanisation and inhumanity might entail. These ideas are confronted
with new ways of being cruel and inhuman. The argument I have put forward so far
is that the concept of humanity at stake for humanitarianism is negotiated through
this negative process. But this leaves an incomplete picture, for it neglects the way
putative humanitarians come to the discussion with a paradigmatic humanity in
mind. This prior conception of humanity is also being negotiated, both in terms of
widening its catchment area and of rescuing those threatened with expulsion. For
example, some Christian abolitionists were primarily concerned with saving their
own souls, but they also wanted to create “proper” humans, i.e. Christians, out of
the slaves.
Rhetorically those engaging in dehumanising discourses often claim to be
doing so precisely in the name of a defence, a purification of the category of
humanity.^68 Indeed, for Rorty the category of human is precisely problematic
because we always envisage humanity as “like us”. For him, we are more likely to
engage in acts of solidarity if we expand that “like us”, rather than grounding an
idea of the “human”. He sees the possibility of a human rights culture to react
65
66 Calhoun, "The Imperative to Reduce Suffering", 78.^
Neta C. Crawford, Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decolonization, and
Humanitarian Intervention 67 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 400.
Jeremy Moses, "Liberal Internationalist Discourse and the Use of Force: Blair, Bush and
Beyond", 68 International Politics 47, no. 1 (2010): 30.
Rorty, "Human Rights, Rationality and Sentimentality", 168.