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Dehumanization
Dehumanization is the attitude of conceiving of others as less-than-human creatures.
In Part 3 of this podcast series Understanding Dehumanization with author and philosopher David Livingstone Smith, we learn how to resist dehumanizing others by first knowing ourselves.
Here are Parts 1 & 2:
And here is a print version of Part 1, with Parts 2 & 3 to come.
In Part 3, he asks us to turn inward and check our biases and where we might have vulnerabilities, in order to self-inoculate against dehumanization.
He explains:
“We certainly can resist, and we must resist if we are at all concerned with not having history repeat itself, and not being guilty of allowing it to repeat, but this is a very formidable challenge. There is no vaccine, it requires vigilance, and it requires a kind of honesty with ourselves.
We shouldn't think of dehumanization as simply perpetrated by what we might characterize as bad or deranged people — we are all potentially vulnerable to dehumanizing propaganda. We are all potential dehumanizers, just as we are all potential victims of dehumanization. So we need to approach this topic with a little bit of humility, a little bit of understanding.
I would say that the first step, if we're going to think about resisting, is to follow the advice of the ancient Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece, know thyself. Know certain aspects of oneself, know that, like all human beings, you and those who you care about have psychological tendencies, let's say, psychological vulnerabilities, which may, under the right circumstances, lead you down the dehumanizing path. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person — it means you’re human.”—David Livingston Smith, Understanding Dehumanization, Part 3, Bette Dangerous Podcast Ep96
Another of his quotes from Part 3:
“The regime leaders will try to cultivate and exacerbate feelings of helplessness in you, and then offer you magical solutions to that helplessness, then offer you salvation from that helplessness, and those are illusions,”—DLS, BDP Ep96
And Smith said, supporting the journalism that supports truth is a big part of resistance:
“There’s the vital role of journalism, when people need to be called out. We must be intolerant. We must shout it from the rooftops when there is this dehumanizing propaganda put out. So stuff like you're doing is so important and so vital.
"Fascists succeed because of the consumers of their rhetoric. If you just think about it, without the consumers of Hitler's rhetoric, Hitler would have spent his life as a third-rate painter. Without the consumers of his rhetoric, Mussolini would have spent his life as an inflammatory journalist. They need the populace. This is very, very important. We outnumber them, right? So it's really up to us here.”—DLS, BDP Ep96
In addition to the podcast series, you’ll find David’s commentary in my upcoming Hot Type column, which focuses on the fascist machinery of the NSPM-7 directive.
You can read my first report featuring David’s work in my recent Hot Type column, which reports on the White House’s cruel and malicious ‘They Walk Amons Us’ propaganda video.
Thank you to the thousands of Bette community members who took the time to listen to this podcast series and for sharing the series with your networks.
And save the date: Smith will be our guest at Bette’s Happy Hour on June 30, 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern. Look for that invite in coming days.
Guest Bio:
Described as “a philosopher seeking not just to interpret the world, but to change it” by the Times Literary Supplement, Smith is the author of 10 books. He won the 2012 Anisfield-Wolf Prize for nonfiction (awarded jointly with Yale historian David Blight), the 2023 Joseph B. Gittler Prize awarded by the American Philosophical Association for outstanding contributions to philosophy of the social sciences, the 2024 Dr. Martin R. Lebowitz and Eve Lewellis Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement and Contribution, awarded by Phi Beta Kappa and the American Philosophical Association (awarded jointly with Cornell philosopher Kate Manne), and was shortlisted for the Nayaf Al-Rodhan Prize for Transdisciplinary Philosophy, awarded by the Royal Institute of Philosophy in the UK.
All of these awards were for his work on dehumanization. He is frequently interviewed in the national and international media on dehumanization, race, racism, national and international affairs, and related topics. He has given presentations at such venues as the 2012 G20 economic summit, where he spoke on dehumanization and mass violence.
Before transitioning to philosophy, Smith was a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and Freud scholar, and director of the MA program in psychotherapy at Regent’s College in London, England. Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of New England in Maine, and he will be spending the 2026/27 academic year as the Tage Danielsson Professor at Linköping University, in Sweden.
You can find links to his books and published works here and for his Substack, go to Dehumanization Matters.
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