Everyday Erinyes #122

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

My laryngitis has progressed past having to use cold on the throat constantly to anesthetize it, up to being able to use heat (temperature and condiment) to help heal it. But my energy hasn’t kept up, so I’m not up to treating today’s subject the way it should be treated. Still, it’s important, and I certainly have a lot of sources, so even if this is just a skeleton article, there will be plenty to think about.

Here is the first headline I saw on my screen this morning:

Trump Remains Unapologetic of ‘Animals’ Remark, Says He’ll Always Use It
It certainly put me in mind of how the process of dehumanization is, always has been, and always will be a requisite for getting groups of humans to harm other groups of humans without much if any thought. That is true in wartime but also in dystopian fascism. We, the human race, have seen it over and over again. Yet still, not perhaps all of us, but many of us, in large groups, fall for it. Even those of us who consider actual non-human animals to be superior human beings to most humans are not immune.

In Ken Burns’ The Vietnam War, one of the veterans he interviews, talking about the first time he killed, is quoted (from memory, but close) as saying: “I vowed I would never kill a human being again. But I would waste as many gooks as I possibly could.”

Vox has two excellent articles up now about dehumanization, and the role language plays in achieving it.

The dark psychology of dehumanization, explained is from last year, and is concentrated  on the dehumanization of Muslims specifically, including how this can be measured. There’s a tool where people are asked to estimate how high multiple groups are on the evolutionary scale (and before anyone jumps in with how unscientific this is, the shrinks using it are well aware of that. It’s kind of the point.) There’s a graph showing some of the answers they get. It probably could have been done last week. Incidentally, no group rates 100 on this scale. That alone bothers me.

The second article, Donald Trump and the disturbing power of dehumanizing language, reacts directly to the remarks by Trump this week equating immigrants with animals, including the issue of whether he was referring to all immigrants, or just to immigrants affiliated with MS-13. I certainly had the sense that all immigrants darker than a brown paper bag were meant to be included. But, even if not, there’s no reason to categorize all MS-13 members as sub-human, as I pointed out in a previous Erinyes (the third short take).

One more article specifically about language popped up this week – this one is not directly about dehumanization, but it examines the tendency of this regime to prohibit certain words altogether, while playing others so close to the chest as to make them virtually disappear.

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, it’s not fair to ask you to do for us what we need to be doing for ourselves – that is, keeping our own heads straight.  But I can and do ask you to be vigilant for all kinds of misuses of language to manipulate individuals, constituents, elected officials, media representatives. and – oh, everyone – and to get people (preferably people who will be listened to) to) to call it out, loudly, effectively, and persistently.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 HERE.