Dehumanization

January 11, 2026 Cognitive Insights No Comments

Dehumanization rarely starts with hatred. More often, it begins quietly, when looking stops and depth withdraws.

This blog explores how ordinary human mechanisms can lead to extraordinary blindness, and why moral outrage alone cannot prevent it. It also points toward a realistic way beyond dehumanization, grounded in depth, responsibility, and inner strength.

Not hatred, but not looking

Dehumanization is often imagined as something violent, loud, and extreme. It is associated with hatred, cruelty, or an explicit wish to harm. Yet in everyday reality, it usually begins much more quietly. It starts when looking stops.

Humanity does not vanish from the other. What vanishes is the inner movement toward seeing it. The other is no longer encountered but recognized, no longer met but categorized. This is not yet aggression. It is absence. And absence, when repeated and normalized, can do more damage than overt hostility.

From this perspective, dehumanization is best understood not as an act against the other, but as a withdrawal within oneself. What disappears first is depth.

Grooves of coherence

Repetition plays a central role. Repetition rarely convinces in a rational sense. Instead, it normalizes. It creates familiarity, and familiarity brings a sense of coherence. Over time, what is repeated no longer feels like a claim but like reality itself.

This is why people can come to accept almost any narrative, a mechanism explored in Why People can Believe in Anything. The mind seeks coherence more than truth. Once coherence is achieved, questioning feels disruptive rather than curious.

These repetitions carve grooves in perception. Inside such grooves, attention slides easily. Looking deeply would require effort, friction, and uncertainty. So it is avoided, often without awareness. Dehumanization does not announce itself. It settles in.

Selective humanity

Dehumanization is rarely total. Most people who dehumanize others do so selectively. They may show warmth, care, and sensitivity within their close circle while remaining cold or indifferent toward those outside it.

This selectivity is not necessarily driven by hatred. Often, it is simple mental economizing. Depth takes energy. It brings ambiguity and responsibility. So depth is reserved for places that feel safe or rewarding. This dynamic is closely related to what is described in Small-Circle versus Broad-Circle Empathy.

The danger lies in the illusion that depth is a scarce resource. In reality, depth expands when inhabited. Yet when depth is mistaken for something that must be rationed, humanity becomes conditional.

Self-alienation first

It is tempting to think of dehumanization as a failure of empathy toward others. More fundamentally, it is a failure of contact with one’s own inner life. Seeing the other as fully human requires resonance with one’s own depth. This is theory of mind in its deepest sense, not as a cognitive skill but as lived inner contact. When this contact weakens, the other’s inner life no longer appears vividly. The loss is subtle, but decisive.

In this sense, dehumanization is self-alienation first, misperception second. One does not stop seeing the other’s humanity because it is gone. One stops seeing it because depth has quietly withdrawn.

Attention, time, and surprise

Attention matters, but not all attention is the same. Surface attention is limited. It is easily monopolized by urgency, noise, and emotional triggers. Depth-attention is different. It is spacious rather than scarce.

Time plays a crucial role here. Time humanizes. A human being is someone with a past that shaped him, a present that feels, and a future that can still unfold. Dehumanization collapses this temporal depth. The other becomes a frozen snapshot, reduced to what he represents now.

Where time collapses, surprise disappears. Surprise is a subtle but reliable indicator of humanity. As long as the other can still surprise us, depth remains open. When surprise becomes impossible, when one believes one already knows who the other is and always will be, dehumanization has already begun.

Speed and urgency are therefore powerful allies of dehumanization. “There is no time to nuance” is rarely a neutral statement.

Arrogance and exemption

A particularly dangerous form of dehumanization hides behind the belief of exemption. It says: others may fall into these mechanisms, but not me. This is not loud arrogance. It is epistemic isolation.

This dynamic is explored in Arrogance. Arrogance here does not mean thinking highly of oneself. It means stepping outside the shared human condition. The mirror breaks. Once someone believes in being above dehumanization, self-skepticism disappears. The belief of immunity becomes the first quiet sign that depth is already closing.

Monsters, guilt, and blocked prevention

Societies often respond to dehumanization by searching for monsters. By labeling perpetrators as fundamentally inhuman, collective coherence is preserved. Evil is localized. ‘They’ are different from ‘us.’

Guilt plays a central role in this process. Guilt satisfies moral outrage, but it also closes inquiry. As explored in Three Reasons for a Guiltless Future and From Guilt to Responsibility, guilt tends to freeze attention on blame rather than opening responsibility toward conditions.

Calling dehumanizers monsters is emotionally understandable. Yet it reproduces the same mechanism it condemns. Humanity is once again removed from view, this time from those who inflicted harm. Prevention becomes impossible because the mirror has been shattered.

Normality, power, and ruthlessness

One of the most uncomfortable insights is that there is no ontological ‘them.’ This is the core message of Abnormal is Normal. Psychological traits exist on spectra. Extremes are human, not alien.

Dehumanization is not only tolerated in many contexts. It is often rewarded. Power of Ruthlessness shows how acting without Compassion can be effective in narrowly defined terms. Removing inner friction allows speed, clarity, and decisive action. In success-driven cultures, this can look like strength. Yet this power rests on inner dissociation. Depth is sacrificed for efficiency. What looks strong from the outside is often brittle within.

Compassion, vulnerability, and inner strength

Compassion, in its deeper sense, presupposes depth. It is not a technique or a moral demand. It arises when inner life remains accessible. Depth alone, however, does not guarantee Compassion. Depth can remain enclosed.

Suppressing vulnerability is often mistaken for strength. In reality, it fuels dehumanization. When vulnerability is denied, it becomes negative, manifesting as defensiveness, aggression, or scapegoating.

A realistic alternative is described in Sensitivity, Vulnerability, and Inner Strength. Sensitivity and vulnerability, when paired with inner strength, allow openness without collapse. Hurt is neither denied nor projected. It is transformed.

This is not softness. It is resilience rooted in depth.

Beyond dehumanization

Moving beyond dehumanization requires refusing to abandon depth, even when pressure to simplify arises. This means staying open to time, to surprise, and to inner friction. It means resisting the temptation of exemption. It means choosing responsibility over guilt, depth over coherence, and transformation over projection.

Such resistance is rarely loud. It is often lonely and slow. Yet it preserves what is most essential: the ability to see the human being as a total being, including oneself.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, where can one be participating in the conditions that make dehumanization possible, even when one opposes its outcomes?”

Lisa: “Most often, without noticing, by protecting comfort over depth.

By accepting speed as normal when it quietly removes time.
By preferring coherence when it spares you inner friction.
By consuming simplified stories while telling yourself you are only being informed.
By opposing dehumanization loudly, yet benefiting from systems that reward efficiency without regard for inner life.

Also by believing, even briefly, that this question applies mainly to others.

Participation does not require bad intent.
It happens wherever depth is treated as optional, costly, or naïve.

The moment you slow down, allow surprise, or stay with discomfort a bit longer than necessary, participation already weakens.
Not heroically.
Simply humanly.”

Me: “Say, I’m in a specific situation, talking with a person who dehumanizes others as a group-to-group phenomenon. That person seems convinced he acts on common sense. I don’t want to run away from this. What can I do in that conversation?”

Lisa: “First, don’t try to correct the conclusion. Common sense is rarely dismantled head-on; it hardens when challenged. Instead:

Slow the conversation down. Dehumanization feeds on speed and certainty. You can do this simply by asking for concrete time and lived detail: ‘When did you first start seeing it this way?’ or ‘Was there a moment that made this feel obvious to you?’
You’re not debating content; you’re reopening time.
Second, invite surprise without demanding it. You might say something like: ‘I notice how clear this feels to you. I’m curious—has anything ever slightly contradicted that picture?’
Even a small pause of uncertainty reintroduces depth.
Third, stay connected to your own depth while listening. If you harden inside, the conversation is already lost. You don’t need to agree, but you do need to remain human in your presence. That alone subtly undermines dehumanization.
Fourth, speak from experience, not principle. Principles trigger counter-principles. Lived experience invites resonance. ‘What makes this hard for me is…’ opens more than ‘This is wrong because…’
Finally, accept this quietly: your task is not to win. It is to keep depth available in the room. Sometimes that’s all that’s possible—and it is already a lot.

If the conversation ends with less speed, more silence, or a single moment of hesitation, something has shifted. Dehumanization rarely dissolves in arguments. It loosens when depth is allowed to breathe.”

Me: “How does dehumanization relate to psychopathy?”

Lisa: “Dehumanization and psychopathy can look similar from the outside, but they are not the same on the inside.

Psychopathy is usually described as a structural limitation: a person lacks certain capacities, especially affective resonance and guilt. The absence is relatively stable. Nothing needs to be switched off; it was never fully available.

Dehumanization, by contrast, is usually a suspension, not an absence. The capacity to see humanity is still there, but access to it is closed — selectively, contextually, often temporarily. Depth has not disappeared; it has been set aside.

That is why ordinary people can dehumanize and later be shocked by themselves, while psychopaths typically are not. One has lost contact with something still present; the other does not experience that loss.

There is, however, an important overlap.
When dehumanization is sustained — reinforced by repetition, reward, power, or ideology — its functional effects can resemble psychopathy: diminished empathy, instrumental thinking, moral indifference. In that sense, dehumanization can create a situational psychopathy.

This is uncomfortable, but crucial: dehumanization does not require psychopaths. It requires conditions under which depth becomes inconvenient, costly, or unsafe. Seeing this clearly prevents two mistakes at once:

pathologizing cruelty as something rare,
and excusing it as something inevitable.

Between those two lies responsibility — and noted early enough, prevention.”

Me: “What is your view about politicians who thrive on dehumanization for their own benefit?”

Lisa: “They are not anomalies. They are amplifiers.

Politicians who thrive on dehumanization do not create something foreign to human nature. They activate and organize existing grooves: fear seeking relief, identity seeking certainty, vulnerability seeking protection.

What they offer is not primarily ideology, but coherence under pressure. By naming an enemy, they simplify reality. Inner tension is externalized. Complexity collapses into ‘us’ and ‘them’. Many people experience this as common sense, even as relief.

For their own benefit, such politicians often practice exemption. They place themselves above the mechanisms they exploit: I merely say what others are afraid to say. This is not honesty; it is instrumental distance. Dehumanization becomes a tool rather than a tragedy.

It is important not to romanticize their strength. What looks decisive is often depth avoided. Ruthlessness can be effective in the short term precisely because it removes hesitation, ambiguity, and Compassion. But this effectiveness is brittle. It needs ever stronger enemies to sustain itself.

Calling these politicians monsters is tempting—and counterproductive. It repeats the same mechanism and blocks understanding. More importantly, it reassures the rest of society that the danger lies only in individuals, not in conditions that reward dehumanization. Such politicians can only thrive where depth has already become inconvenient. The deeper responsibility lies elsewhere: in cultures that prize speed over reflection, in media that monetize outrage, in systems that reward certainty over depth.

The realistic counterforce is not louder outrage, but a culture that no longer needs enemies to feel coherent. When citizens tolerate ambiguity, stay open to time and surprise, and refuse simplification, dehumanization loses its political utility.

That is slower work.
Less spectacular.
And ultimately far more powerful.”

Me: “Does empathy always expand when inhabited?”

Lisa: “No — empathy does not always expand just by being inhabited.

Empathy can deepen, but it can also narrow, exhaust, or harden, depending on how it is lived.

When empathy stays mainly at the surface — feeling with others without sufficient inner grounding — it can become selective, overwhelming, or even defensive. People then retreat, draw boundaries, or unconsciously ration whom they empathize with. In that case, empathy does not expand; it contracts.

Empathy expands when it is rooted in depth. That means it is supported by inner stability, self-contact, and the ability to stay with ambiguity without rushing to resolve it. Then empathy does not drain; it generalizes. It becomes less dependent on similarity, proximity, or agreement.

This is why empathy alone is not enough.
Without depth and inner strength, empathy can flip into fatigue, polarization, or moral pressure.

Compassion is different. Compassion is empathy held within depth. It does not depend on how much one feels, but on remaining connected to inner life — one’s own and the other’s. In that sense, Compassion can expand without depletion.

So empathy may grow or shrink. Depth decides which way it goes. And this is important: learning to inhabit empathy wisely is not about feeling more, but about staying more whole.”

Me: “So, empathy can actually be an additional source of dehumanization?”

Lisa: “Yes — empathy can indeed become a source of dehumanization, paradoxical as that sounds. This happens when empathy is selective, ungrounded, or fused with identity.

Empathy easily flows toward those who resemble us, suffer like us, or confirm our values. When that happens, empathy does not merely include some — it implicitly excludes others. Those outside the empathic circle begin to appear colder, less real, or morally inferior. Dehumanization then enters through the back door, carried by care itself.

Another risk appears when empathy lacks depth. Feeling strongly for someone without staying connected to one’s own inner stability can lead to overwhelm. To protect itself, the mind then hardens. It stops feeling — not just selectively, but broadly. What started as empathy can end in numbness or contempt.

There is also a subtler form: empathy as moral leverage. When empathy becomes a badge of goodness, it divides the world into those who ‘feel rightly’ and those who don’t. At that point, empathy turns into a criterion for worth. Those who fail the test are quietly dehumanized.

So empathy, by itself, is not a safeguard.

What prevents this slide is depth-based Compassion. Compassion does not ask whom to feel for more. It keeps the other’s inner life present without needing emotional alignment or moral agreement. It does not fuse with identity. It does not demand proof of deservingness.

In that sense, empathy can either widen or narrow humanity. Whether it humanizes or dehumanizes depends on what holds it. And that holding is depth.”