Essay: Dehumanization leads to the self-destruction of society

A little boy is walking down the empty streets of his town with his mother, who has a timid look on her face.  She looks around to make sure the coast is clear; however, she sees a man walking in the plaza and suddenly tugs her son into a nearby alleyway.  Time cannot explain how long it feels to sit there.  Her heart is racing but she has to keep her cool; she does not want her son to react and let the man know that he is not the only one there.  The little boy has no idea of why they are just sitting there crouched behind a dumpster; the only thing that makes sense to him is that they are playing a game of hide and go seek.  In reality,  they are hiding because of the mass murder going on in their small town, which is why they are two of the only people out there.  All stores in the area have been shut down due to the unwillingness of people to work them, ultimately stopping all productivity in the community.  Many people have become paranoid about family members and loved ones turning on each other, leading to them leaving one another on their own.
The example of the little boy and his mother prove the point that dehumanization leads to the self-destruction of society through the deprivation of human needs.  Dehumanization is the idea of stripping basic human qualities from a person.  Throughout history, dehumanization has been used to weaken opponents or a group of people that are deemed inferior by the community. This concept can bring out the purest of evil from the most innocent person to the point where they are willing to betray anyone to gain just the littlest of things that at that point means the world to them.  When dehumanization occurs it can strip away the essential properties needed to produce a stable society.  The main things needed to make an efficient society are: satisfied social needs, physical needs, and economic success.  These don’t seem like they would be hard to sustain; however, when people feel that they are worthless and fear that they will be harmed by someone or something, it will cause them to not want to accomplish anything other than survival.
In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel witnesses the deprivation of basic human qualities such as the right to eat.  People he had known during the Holocaust committed horrific actions in order to survive.  Innocent Jews who used to be praised by society now mirrored the behavior of savages.  Instead of trying to help one another get shelter or find food, “dozens of starving men [fought] each other to the death for a few crumbs” (Wiesel 95).  Through starvation, millions of people were denied the main need in life, the physiological need.  According to Maslow, a psychologist who is known for distinguishing needs of humans into an organizational pyramid, physiological necessities like food, water, and rest are the most important to a human.  People who do not satisfy their psychological needs will not move on to fulfill other desires because physiological needs will continue to become “stronger the longer the duration they are denied” (Mcleod, Saul).  This would explain the willingness to kill for small quantities of sustenance; it is like an itch just waiting to be scratched and until you scratch, that itch is just going to get worse.  Once people have been deprived of these necessities for so long, they will start to fall apart, not being able to think rationally.  Instead of wasting the little energy they had on killing each other to get food, the Jews could have worked together to gain as much food as possible; however, each citizen had been deprived of human needs for so long that they tore the bread apart, leading to an unproductive society.
After physiological needs are met, the next need that is in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is the safety need, and when dehumanization occurs people can begin to feel like everywhere they go they are in danger, depriving them of this safety.  This type of dehumanization where people lack the feeling of safety happens in third world countries such as modern Africa.  In South Africa many humans are facing dehumanization to the point where they are being torn apart and eaten by fellow society members, turning from people who are valued to just another meal on the table.  The situation in South Africa has gotten so bad that cannibals have walked into police stations saying they are “‘tired of eating human flesh’” (Miller, Joshua Rhett).  With people just being picked off the streets it has risen the question of who is safe, and who can be trusted?  The feeling of being unsafe can cause people to be intimidated of working, which ultimately will affect the economic success of the community, while the feeling of being alone affects the social needs of the society.  Along with that, a society is meant to have multiple people, and when the citizens are killing each other they are decreasing the population of people there, destructing their society directly and entirely.
Another instance where dehumanization was used to deprive people of human demands was in Japan in 1942.  During this time period tens of thousands of women, especially mothers were raped by Japanese soldiers while some were raped by their own sons.  No sympathy was given to the women and no pregnant women were spared, for afterward they would have “their bellies slit open and the fetuses torn out,” stripping away their natural instinct to nurture (The Rape of Nanking 1937-1938).  It is ironic how each of these soldiers had a mother that cared for and raised them, yet they violate the women that are trying to do the same thing raising their own sons and daughters.  People have depended on women to take care of daily tasks, such as cleaning, cooking and caring for kids, showing that they hold the traits needed to maintain a functional household; however, when women are not treated with respect but as sex toys they are being deprived of the third essential need of Maslow’s hierarchy, belongingness, and love.  Without these needs met women’s sense of esteem and pride is destroyed, which can lead to them not wanting to participate in caregiving roles; therefore leaving a gap between a functioning household and stable society.
CA: Some people might think that the act of dehumanization is not the direct cause of a society falling apart; both dehumanization and an inefficient society are byproducts of simply bad leadership.  In the case of the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler was the one who orchestrated the entire mass genocide.  As a result, German society fell corrupt and divided followed by the dehumanization of the Jews.  In Japan, soldiers were following a general’s order, so wouldn’t it be the leadership of the army to blame as opposed to simply dehumanization?  Dehumanization isn’t the problem, the leader is.  Although it may seem this way in some cases, it is not true because the people influenced by it have a decision: conform to the ideas presented to them or stand up and fight for the greater good.  Oskar Schindler is a prime example of someone who stood up for what he believed in and in the end saved a thousand Jews and died a hero.  It is people like Oskar Schindler, everyday people, who change the world and the way people think in the end, not the leaders.
Due to the stripping of basic human qualities and needs, dehumanization creates grounds for a very inefficient society.  When people are isolated, disrespected, and hungry they are no longer rational beings and eventually will not be able to withstand a stable society.  People’s needs must be given to them or else they can not focus on other productive things to keep a community running efficiently.  Globally, people should be taking more caution to prevent and relieve dehumanization in the present and in the future in order to hinder the destruction of a community and the people who are within it.