Since the beginning of time, the very essence of humanity has been darkened by its own deliberate degeneracy. The darkened revelation of humanity’s descent is due to mankind’s apropos propensity toward the proliferation of dehumanization. Mankind’s theoretical predisposition toward dehumanization can be transcribed as a recurrent historical phenomenon extending back many millennia, seemingly conjugated as a necessary precondition for the perpetration of sustained injustices, especially slavery, genocide, and racial subjugation. Humanity’s predisposition toward dehumanization can be well supported by an in depth analysis drawn by the written works of “Rossum’s Universal Robots”, by Karel Capek, and the combination of Charles Darwin’s “The Descent
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So, the androids within “R.U.R.” may look like humans, but the characters of the story recognize that they are not human in their essence. However, Darwin makes the point concerning a being’s essence in his “Descent of Man” by stating,
“The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them.”
This simply supports the idea that the robots do have the ability to demonstrate qualities we associate with being human. Their widespread oppression keeps the growth of their souls at bay, masking their true feelings of the human race. To dehumanize, therefore, is nothing more or less than a refusal to acknowledge the human essence of others, despite their obvious human …show more content…
Man is seen as supreme and the robots are seen as their slaves. This quote also goes to support the idea of a mechanistic form of dehumanization that is inflicted upon the robots. This mechanistic form of dehumanization occurs when features of human nature, cognitive flexibility, warmth, and agency are denied to individuals, in this case the robots. The targets of this mechanistic dehumanization are seen as cold, rigid, interchangeable, lacking agency, and likened to “machines”; a list of defining qualities for Capek’s robots, results from the oppression the story’s humans have put upon the robots very
So, the androids within “R.U.R.” may look like humans, but the characters of the story recognize that they are not human in their essence. However, Darwin makes the point concerning a being’s essence in his “Descent of Man” by stating,
“The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed, as in man. For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them.”
This simply supports the idea that the robots do have the ability to demonstrate qualities we associate with being human. Their widespread oppression keeps the growth of their souls at bay, masking their true feelings of the human race. To dehumanize, therefore, is nothing more or less than a refusal to acknowledge the human essence of others, despite their obvious human …show more content…
Man is seen as supreme and the robots are seen as their slaves. This quote also goes to support the idea of a mechanistic form of dehumanization that is inflicted upon the robots. This mechanistic form of dehumanization occurs when features of human nature, cognitive flexibility, warmth, and agency are denied to individuals, in this case the robots. The targets of this mechanistic dehumanization are seen as cold, rigid, interchangeable, lacking agency, and likened to “machines”; a list of defining qualities for Capek’s robots, results from the oppression the story’s humans have put upon the robots very