My friend is finishing her undergraduate degree in criminal justice and asked me to help her with a paper she had to write about the Holocaust (dehumanization) and how it relates to today.
Dehumanization is the way a group of individuals assert 'inferiority' over another group. A great example would be wartime. One Country asserts that the Country that they are at war with are not human in order to rationally and mentally prepare their soldiers for battle. Once, the dehumanization process is asserted into the subconscious of the soldier, it is easier for that soldier to defend their country against the enemy. It was a tool that was used to prevent opposition from citizens in the Holocaust Era. The Dictatorship of Nazi Germany utilized 'dehumanization' to create a mental picture that 'Jews' were not human beings rather a threat to their great nation that released the guilt of poor judgment in the mass murder of millions of people. Adolf Hitler created a pseudo-dichotomy that was near religious. In religion, there is a higher power that parishioners pray to or holds in high regards. Hitler was a higher power in bad economic times and Hitler's regime created a media frenzy that the Jewish population were the devils that helped maintain poor conditions in Germany. It was a fight between good and evil. He assimilated the Jewish population to be less than human by characterizing them as evil beings or devils. Hitler maintained that Jewish people were sub-species of humanity.
Is this any different from the dehumanization that President Bush placed on the Iraqi people during the 'WAR ON TERROR'? When will the genocide stop? Tell me your thoughts.
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