Science topic
Dehumanization - Science topic
The process by which a person or group of persons comes to be regarded or treated as lacking in human qualities.
Questions related to Dehumanization
I am doing a PhD Public Health Dissertation. Any help is greatly appreciated.
There have been growing patterns in global education systems and what is apparent to me is that these patterns can be categorized into two clusters. The first cluster characterizes a system that is dominated by entity theorists – those who believe human intelligence is something fixed that cannot be improved – and predominantly common in hierarchical societies. In this system of education, the emphasis is placed on stringent requirements in which students either fulfill or get kicked out. There are no intermediate students in their dictionaries. A student is either bright or weak because of their preconceptions of fixed intelligence. Any failure on the part of the students is directly blamed on students’ intelligence. This type of system cares less about the personal development of their students rather they take pride only in academic excellence. The worst scenario is to find an excellent student that is doing well in virtually every aspect of “their curriculum” except for one. Instead of a dehumanized system to investigate that problematic part of the curriculum they blame the student’s intelligence for his failure and may even kick him/her out of the system.
On the other hand, a humanized education system is usually dominated by incremental theorists – those who believe intelligence is not fixed and can be improved over time as challenges are encountered. This type of system is common in egalitarian societies. Curriculum requirements are key elements of this education system but with some flexibility depending on the situations. A failing student is not dejected and kicked out so quickly. Rather, remedial efforts are channeled towards invigorating such a student. In this system, learners are seen as evolving through a series of cognitive development. There are weak students, bright students, and struggling students. The roles of struggling students are interchangeable with either weak or bright students. For example, a bright student could become struggling when faced with some difficult tasks and his/her intelligence is not blamed for this incidence. Rather, necessary supports will be provided in a humanized system to circumvent this challenge. People are happy with the learning process in this system and properly prepared to face challenging societal difficulties after schools. However, what seems quite unsatisfactory is this system is, in some cases, lack of proper scrutiny or criticisms of students which might lead to complacency at times.
Dear esteem teachers, it is high time you changed your opinions on the flexibility of students’ intelligence. The students you described as ‘weak’ are in reality struggling to improve their intelligence and perhaps the only reason they enroll in your programs. It is your job to assist these students in actualizing their dreams and not outright rejections. Surprisingly, the so-called ‘bright’ students are often very timid to face difficult situations and blame their intelligence for failures. Carol Dweck wrote an excellent book on this issue where she demonstrated empirically how personal theories on intelligence affect academic success.
To this day, human beings use technology en masse, basing the survival of the entire society on its continuous evolution. Despite this, many have rejected it because they consider that they are dehumanizing the world. We live in an industrialized and artificial age, where technology replaces labor instead of being its complement… However, many people do not perceive a normal life without technology. We justify consumerism in which many unnecessary goods are produced, but currently there is a diversity of perceptions. I would like to know your opinion about whether the influence of technology on society has become positive or not, and whether some kind of precaution should be put in place to stop it, since it is an issue that has generated a lot of controversy.
Talk about AI, are we going to have something "dehumanizing" offer in intelligent technology? What will happen to logistics human capital?
Is Hi-Tech just another "Machine in the Garden" that is resulting in dehumanization? Or will Hi-Tech prove to redeem humanity from the deleterious effects of the Industrial Age?
For my research I am looking at publications by military and government sources regarding dehumanization in the Rohingya conflict using Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis approach.
It is unclear to me whether I should include secondary sources, such independent newspaper articles or the report by the UN fact-finding mission, and if so, how. Fairclough seems to indirectly advocate for the necessity to do so (see below) in order to detect inclusions/exclusions or prominence/marginalization. The how question is basically the following: How do I need to analyze secondary sources in order to ensure a robust discourse analysis of my primary sources?
While he seems to say that we should see takes in secondary sources only as another representation, it is unclear to me whether that implies I need to do another whole discourse analysis or if it suffices to e.g. simply mention some "facts" from the report left out of the military take on an event. Or is there some (analytical/methodological) approach between these two extremes that captures their role as secondary/baseline sources? I haven't found other papers with similar methodological approaches
What Fairclough writes on the matter:
Especially with regard to representations of events, he, for example, mentions paradigmatic relations, relations of choice between what is present and what could have been present but is not ("significant absences"). There is also the following quote from Analyzing Discourse (2003):
“We can look at texts from a Representational point of view in terms of which elements of events are included in the representation of those events and which are excluded, and which of the elements that are included are given the greatest prominence or salience. Rather than seeing such a procedure as comparing the truth about an event with how it is represented in particular texts (which raises problems about how one establishes the truth independently of particular representations), one can see it in terms of comparison between different representations of the same or broadly similar events (see Van Leeuwen 1993, 1995, 1996 for such an approach to Representational meaning)”.
Going with Fairclough's "Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research", his method is characterized by a very careful, detailed analysis of texts. He places a lot of emphasis, for example, on grammatical (semiotic) features, such as the relations of clauses to sentences or modality. Now, this method seems applicable to singular texts. However, I'm struggling of how I could apply his analysis style to a large or medium-sized corpus. Do I only code for macro-features? Do I only code particular features I am interested in? Do I code for more grammatical and for more-content based peculiarities (esp. with regard to interdiscursive analysis)?
For my research, I am interested in dehumanization. How do you all apply his method?
- Are we all victims of testosterone? How is the hormone linked to aggression? To hegemonistic tendencies? Can we do something about it?
- Testosterone-fired and dehumanized men fight and die for a foot of two of desolate land or a piece of tinsel at the battle front, while wives and girlfriends and children and family members pray, weep, and keep flowers on the coffin or the bier. Others like Boko Haram use testosterone-fired rape as a weapon of war. When American troops are involved in rape-murder as in Afghanistan, the US of A swiftly removes them for public eye and into comfort of their own country with the UN and the Hague making appropriate noises.
- Will we ever rationalize the catastrophe of war? If so, how?
- The dehumanizing roots of war are not easily apparent but start rotting the core of humans decades before the event, making monsters out of each other ("them" versus "us") by a sustained campaign of largely false vilification, giving us sufficient time to take proactive action. Will we? Or is this all baloney?
- Are we, then, fated to suffer more wars in future?
- Is peace the last resort for humans after collapse at the battlefront? Should it be that way?
- In what ways does the victor further dehumanize the vanquished?
- Do certain countries like the United States of America thrive on war? Do the coffers of their exchequer swell up with drumming up of war? Is war a business for such countries? Or hegemony? On misery in other countries?
- Certain countries like the US of A are experts in justifying war, after propping up puppet regimes that are then surprised by the intensity of the American attack and the incomprehension of its complex rhetoric, extending from Plan A to Plan Z.
- How would Americans feel if an Afghanistan-like force ravaged their own country in a sustained manner over decades with no respite, with better weapons and a crueller streak? Or UK or France or Russia or China?
- I know of no Indian cricketer who has refused to play Pakistan in convenient third country venues as a conscientious objector to the blatant cross border aggressions and terrorist attacks that spew forth from Pakistan killing both Indian troops and civilians. That is why India is overshadowed by a pip of a country such as Pakistan, that is covertly supported by the US of A. No PIL has ever been filed in the Supreme Court of India to prevent such comi-tragic overtures in India as well in other countries.
- The Supreme Court of the US of A has never condemned invasion of another country by the US of A. And the justices in the US of A consider themselves enlightened. The power is there but the cowering is all that is evident. No Chief Justice of the apex Court has ever resigned out of moral compunctions on the issue of war involving American troops at the drop of a hat.
- Nature is the supreme balancer and time is the best reckoner. 2000 years is but a nano hiccup in existence.
- Countries with extensive coastlines always remain vulnerable to the vagaries of Nature and the machiavellian tendencies of their neighbours.
- The map of the world was not always what it is now.
- What goes around, come around in boomerang fashion.
Research are mainly done on how africans were tortured and dehumanized during Neo colonialism era. What are the arguments mainly concerning with global ethics and moral issues to address Neo colonialism in Africa?
The concept of genocide is described by Stanton with 10 steps. The fourth one is the dehumanization that's understood as propaganda of hate speech. Concretely, how can we define that hate speech in terms of vocabulary ? How can we recognize it ?
I know some papers about changes in perception of what is moral in the Internet and what is not, but I don't remember any about dehumanization. It's a great and fascinating topic in Internet science, so if you know something about it - please let me know. As a dehumanization I understand treating another internet users as "less human" (e.g. not having so many emotions, feelings etc.) than outside virtuality. In my opinion at least agression in the Internet is based precisely on processes of dehumanization - I can hurt another user, because he/she has no feeling, he'she is just an avatar. I hope I explain it clearly :)
Thank you in advance!
