We should distinguish between two things: humanity naturally reverting to its brutish mean, and some people spending extra effort to make this happen faster. The former does not disprove the latter.
I sort of agree, but would reformulate it as naturally staying brutish and people spending extra effort to make it harder to “humanize”.
While I agree this distinction is important, and would make some people reflect upon their actions, I think that heuristics and social network dynamics strongly dominate what actually happens.
In the end, many times the “deshumanization” doesnt require extra effort, but its rather the result of automatic rationalizations / cognitive dissonance
about 90% of humans just follow their instincts—they copy what people around them do, they are nice towards people who are attractive or could be useful allies, they single out someone unattractive or weird for bullying
about 5% actively try to make the world a better place
about 5% actively try to make the world a worse place
If those 90% were left alone, the society would probably converge to isolated tribes who fight each other when they meet but usually avoid each other, and each tribe is like a high school.
Civilized society happens when the good 5% succeed to push their ideas on others, because they spend a lot of effort on giving speeches, writing books, etc., and sometimes they succeed to convert a high-status person, and then the 90% will copy the high-status person. Meanwhile the bad 5% do some petty crime that does not disrupt the civilization in general. It can be nice while it lasts; the neutral 90% can be good citizens and good neighbors when they are reminded to be so.
For the bad 5% the best strategy is often to do their own thing, avoid attention, and be hypocritical when in spotlight. They usually do not cooperate with each other. But sometimes “let’s all do a bad thing” becomes a popular banner, and many of the 90% join—I don’t have a coherent theory when precisely this happens, but sometimes it does. Media seem to be often involved.
So, on one hand there is the natural tendency of humans to revert to the brutish state, but there is also an equilibrium where the actively good people try to improve the society while the actively bad people mind their own business, so in result the society is better than we might predict based on average person.
We should distinguish between two things: humanity naturally reverting to its brutish mean, and some people spending extra effort to make this happen faster. The former does not disprove the latter.
I sort of agree, but would reformulate it as naturally staying brutish and people spending extra effort to make it harder to “humanize”.
While I agree this distinction is important, and would make some people reflect upon their actions, I think that heuristics and social network dynamics strongly dominate what actually happens.
In the end, many times the “deshumanization” doesnt require extra effort, but its rather the result of automatic rationalizations / cognitive dissonance
My simple model how humans work is like this:
about 90% of humans just follow their instincts—they copy what people around them do, they are nice towards people who are attractive or could be useful allies, they single out someone unattractive or weird for bullying
about 5% actively try to make the world a better place
about 5% actively try to make the world a worse place
If those 90% were left alone, the society would probably converge to isolated tribes who fight each other when they meet but usually avoid each other, and each tribe is like a high school.
Civilized society happens when the good 5% succeed to push their ideas on others, because they spend a lot of effort on giving speeches, writing books, etc., and sometimes they succeed to convert a high-status person, and then the 90% will copy the high-status person. Meanwhile the bad 5% do some petty crime that does not disrupt the civilization in general. It can be nice while it lasts; the neutral 90% can be good citizens and good neighbors when they are reminded to be so.
For the bad 5% the best strategy is often to do their own thing, avoid attention, and be hypocritical when in spotlight. They usually do not cooperate with each other. But sometimes “let’s all do a bad thing” becomes a popular banner, and many of the 90% join—I don’t have a coherent theory when precisely this happens, but sometimes it does. Media seem to be often involved.
So, on one hand there is the natural tendency of humans to revert to the brutish state, but there is also an equilibrium where the actively good people try to improve the society while the actively bad people mind their own business, so in result the society is better than we might predict based on average person.