„Swój” czy „obcy”? o mechanizmie dehumanizacji

In the following considerations the author attempts to describe mechanisms of the process which he calls dehumanization. According to the author this process allows to explain mechanisms leading to genocide. For we know from history that “genocide is always preceded by dehumanization of future victims – all groups are dressed up in uniforms, and by bad life conditions perpetrators try to drive victims to such a state in which they will not arouse sympathy any more”. Strangers are always treated in a different way, as worse ones, subhumans. The author calls such phenomenon after Jacques-Philippe Leyens “infra-humanization, i.e. a subtle dehumanization of members of a group of strangers”. Creating emotional difference between these two groups results in not as much competition but, in the case of any dependence of one group on another one, in infrahumanization of the dependent one. The power of exclusion mechanism is also so mighty that the subordinate group generally accepts its oppressive situation. At the same time infra-humanization kills a part of humanity, depriving people of trust in others and of optimism in life.