Dehumanization isn’t a way of talking. It’s a way of thinking – a way of thinking that, sadly, comes all too easily to us. Dehumanization is a scourge, and has been so for millennia. It acts as a psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions. As such, it empowers us to perform acts that would, under other circumstances, be unthinkable.

— David Livingstone Smith

David Livingstone Smith Quotes

Dehumanization isn’t a way of talking. It’s a way of thinking – a way of thinking that, sadly, comes all too easily to us. Dehumanization is a scourge, and has been so for millennia. It acts as a psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions. As such, it empowers us to perform acts that would, under other circumstances, be unthinkable.

— David Livingstone Smith

Before dehumanizing a population, we set them apart as a “race.” That is, a variety of people who are fundamentally different from “us.” The folk notion of race is very much an artificial construction.

— David Livingstone Smith

Rather than looking for explanations for why all people deserve to be treated with compassion and respect, we ought to be working at creating a world in which people are treated with compassion and respect. Human rights aren’t lying around waiting to be discovered. They’re made, not found.

— David Livingstone Smith

Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts. – Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand.

— David Livingstone Smith

The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

— David Livingstone Smith

The impressive record of atrocities racked up by the human race does not suggest that our conduct is guided by sympathy for others.

— David Livingstone Smith

For dehumanization to occur the target group must first be essentialized. They, the others, must be seen as a distinct kind of person: not just superficially different, but radically so. This pattern is borne out by all of the cases of dehumanization that have been surveyed so far in this book.

— David Livingstone Smith
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