Human beings are remarkable creatures. By working together as one we have been able to rapidly develop and create a society that is full of technological advancements, music, art, mass social interaction and cooperation, and many other wonderful things. Despite all our amazing achievements, there are great shames that have permanently stained our human history. These great shames have led to the deaths of millions of human lives by the hands of humans. The question as to why these horrid things happen has always been something that has baffled many people. David Livingstone Smith is one of the few people who offer a glimpse of an answer to this question.
David Livingstone Smith is an academic author and a Philosophy professor at the University …show more content…
He then goes on to explain what exactly dehumanization is. He defines dehumanization as a “psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions” ( Smith 13). From Smiths definition, we are persuaded to believe that dehumanization is a process that allows humans to perceive other humans as subhuman. It therefore, gives humans the ability to ignore their natural inhibitions and act on their most violent and harmful drives that are normally suppressed.
The second world war is globally known as the most devasting event in human history, due to the amount of worldwide casualties that happened during the war. Smith persuades readers to believe that dehumanization had a very important role in second world war and that dehumanization is what made people commit so many atrocities during the war. Smith begins to analyze the war from the two separate sides of the war, the allied and the axis powers. He does this in order to explain what part dehumanization had in the …show more content…
He discusses the topic “ Dehumanization in the Media”. In our world, the media has a very large influence on a very large number of people because it has the ability to shape the opinion and views of people, especially civilians. During the Second World War, the most popular form of media was Propaganda, and this propaganda was used to spread dehumanization. Propaganda from the Second World War usually depicted enemies as vicious and b animals. For example, Russian propaganda portrayed “Germans and Italians fascists and their allies as a veritable menagerie…” (Smith 21). Due to the fact that enemies were represented as subhumans to the public, the public would, therefore, form opinions that would support dehumanizing acts towards these enemies, despite their natural inhibitions. The primary goal of all propaganda is to make the public believe that it is okay to kill and torture the enemies of their
David Livingstone Smith is an academic author and a Philosophy professor at the University …show more content…
He then goes on to explain what exactly dehumanization is. He defines dehumanization as a “psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions” ( Smith 13). From Smiths definition, we are persuaded to believe that dehumanization is a process that allows humans to perceive other humans as subhuman. It therefore, gives humans the ability to ignore their natural inhibitions and act on their most violent and harmful drives that are normally suppressed.
The second world war is globally known as the most devasting event in human history, due to the amount of worldwide casualties that happened during the war. Smith persuades readers to believe that dehumanization had a very important role in second world war and that dehumanization is what made people commit so many atrocities during the war. Smith begins to analyze the war from the two separate sides of the war, the allied and the axis powers. He does this in order to explain what part dehumanization had in the …show more content…
He discusses the topic “ Dehumanization in the Media”. In our world, the media has a very large influence on a very large number of people because it has the ability to shape the opinion and views of people, especially civilians. During the Second World War, the most popular form of media was Propaganda, and this propaganda was used to spread dehumanization. Propaganda from the Second World War usually depicted enemies as vicious and b animals. For example, Russian propaganda portrayed “Germans and Italians fascists and their allies as a veritable menagerie…” (Smith 21). Due to the fact that enemies were represented as subhumans to the public, the public would, therefore, form opinions that would support dehumanizing acts towards these enemies, despite their natural inhibitions. The primary goal of all propaganda is to make the public believe that it is okay to kill and torture the enemies of their