Less Than Human

David Livingstone Smith wrote in Less Than Human, “The Holocaust is the most thoroughly documented example of the ravages of dehumanization.  Its hideousness strains the limits of imagination.  And yet, focusing on it can be strangely comforting.  It’s all too easy to imagine that the Third Reich was a bizarre aberration, a kind of mass insanity instigated by a small group of deranged ideologue who conspired to seize political power and bend a nation to their will.  Alternatively, it’s tempting to imagine that the Germans were (or are) a uniquely cruel and bloodthirsty people.  But these diagnoses are dangerously wrong.  What’s most disturbing about the Nazi phenomenon is not that the Nazis were madmen or monsters.  It’s that they were ordinary human beings.”  

The most disturbing thing about the Holocaust is that it was committed by ordinary human beings, people like you and me.  The most disturbing thing about the practice of slavery here in the United States was that it was supported by “half a nation” of ordinary human beings.  The most disturbing thing about segregation was that it was orchestrated, practiced, and condoned by ordinary human beings, who pledged allegiance to the flag, who read the Bible, who recited the Lord’s Prayer, and who stood up during the singing of the national anthem!  The most disturbing thing about the treatment of the Native American—then and now—has been meted out by ordinary human beings.  To put a point on what I’m saying:  “the ravages of dehumanization” whatever example one chooses, either in the past or in the present, has been committed by ordinary human beings!  

A Native American elder, wrote George Bernard Shaw, described his own inner humanness this way:  “Inside of me there are two dogs.  One of the dogs is mean and evil.  The other dog is good.  The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.”  When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, “The one I feed the most.”

Which dog in you, in me, in our country, is being fed most these days—the good dog or the mean and evil one?  To dehumanize another brother or sister makes us less than human.