Challenging the concept of dehumanization

In a recent article in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (titled “Questioning Dehumanization”), Johannes Lang critically examines one of the central assumptions underlying psychological explanations of genocide: that most perpetrators need to perceive their victims as “unhuman” or “subhuman” in order to kill them. Psychologists typically argue that such dehumanization is necessary in order to distance the perpetrators from their victims, making it easier for “ordinary men” to kill civilians.

This emphasis on a need for psychological distance in mass murder is problematic. Using the violence in the Nazi concentration and death camps as his case, Lang argues that the face-to-face violence that occurred in those places is commonly misunderstood in terms of dehumanization because it seemed to aim at effacing the victim's human appearance. Instead, it would be more accurate to see much of this violence as a ploy to extend the perpetrator's sense of power over another human being; it is precisely the human quality of the interaction that provides the violence with much of its meaning.

The concept of dehumanization hinders the perception of these dynamics of power in genocidal violence and, as a result, it ultimately reduces, or displaces, the true horror of the killer-victim interaction. Lang proposes theoretical alternatives to the current emphasis on dehumanization. The article is available online and in print at www.oxfordjournals.org.