dehumanization in children of men
Kayleah Trecoske
Professor Tartaglia
ENG 101
20 November, 2014
Dehumanization’s Role in Humans Devolving
Dehumanization is a process where basic human qualities are replaced with the qualities that resemble an animal’s behavior; violent and having the desire to survive. Inmates that are beginning a new life in prison are stripped of everything that free human beings possess. Prisoners become only a number that is trying to survive in the community of the prison system. Soldiers joining the military are also stripped of everything, with a goal in battle to be the last man standing. Killing comes easily, because soldiers are forced to forget about the rules of murder to survive. The rules that say murder is wrong are no longer prevalent to the soldiers who are dehumanized by the government to become killing machines. Dehumanization makes it possible to dehumanize other individuals. In Genocide, groups of people are known as inferior race in the majorities’ eyes. Those individuals are often slaves for the ultimate race. The inferior races are killed so that the world will be a stronger, more intelligent place to live. What separates humans from animals is the ability to recollect the past to change the present and future for the better. The history of warfare has changed so much because it wasn’t effective enough for success. The process of dehumanizing individuals has “side effects”, leading to an increase in violence, violations of human rights, war crimes and genocide, which further impact humans by devolving them back into an animalistic state that puts blinders on to cover up the fixable errors people are making if the errors were thought about in a more civilized fashion.
Violence, in any setting, increases when one needs to fight for resources to survive. This can be seen in the dehumanization of inmates in prisons. Prisons strip inmates of everything they were as humans and automatically give them an inferior roll. That inferior roll gives the
Professor Tartaglia
ENG 101
20 November, 2014
Dehumanization’s Role in Humans Devolving
Dehumanization is a process where basic human qualities are replaced with the qualities that resemble an animal’s behavior; violent and having the desire to survive. Inmates that are beginning a new life in prison are stripped of everything that free human beings possess. Prisoners become only a number that is trying to survive in the community of the prison system. Soldiers joining the military are also stripped of everything, with a goal in battle to be the last man standing. Killing comes easily, because soldiers are forced to forget about the rules of murder to survive. The rules that say murder is wrong are no longer prevalent to the soldiers who are dehumanized by the government to become killing machines. Dehumanization makes it possible to dehumanize other individuals. In Genocide, groups of people are known as inferior race in the majorities’ eyes. Those individuals are often slaves for the ultimate race. The inferior races are killed so that the world will be a stronger, more intelligent place to live. What separates humans from animals is the ability to recollect the past to change the present and future for the better. The history of warfare has changed so much because it wasn’t effective enough for success. The process of dehumanizing individuals has “side effects”, leading to an increase in violence, violations of human rights, war crimes and genocide, which further impact humans by devolving them back into an animalistic state that puts blinders on to cover up the fixable errors people are making if the errors were thought about in a more civilized fashion.
Violence, in any setting, increases when one needs to fight for resources to survive. This can be seen in the dehumanization of inmates in prisons. Prisons strip inmates of everything they were as humans and automatically give them an inferior roll. That inferior roll gives the