Dehumanization- taking the "man" out of human

"Dehumanization is the process of slowly moving people out. So here’s a group of people that we want to harm. It’s a group of people that we hate, a group of people that a leader has told us here, is the cause of all your pain and suffering. So we hate these people and we want to hurt them and we want to see them diminished. But they’re within this moral, protective zone that we have as humans.  So slowly over time we start using words and images of them that dehumanize them, that move them lowly and slowly and slowly into what we call moral exclusion. They no longer are protected by what we believe is human basic rights. And we see the process of dehumanization at the core of every genocide recorded in history." Brene Brown

Every fan of Star Wars knows to love to hate the Empire's armor-clad stormtroopers. But one mystery that comes up from time to time is why do they wear all that armor? It doesn't seem to protect them from blasters- they die just fine with a single hit. So what good is it? It makes them less agile as warriors- adding extra weight and restricting their vision. Warriors need to be quick and flexible, and these guys are anything but.

I believe that George Lucas created the armor of the stormtroopers to hide their humanity and make them easier to hate and easier to watch get blown away by the Jedi warriors (the good guys). According to Star Wars legend, most of these stormtroopers were abducted as children and raised to be disposable warriors by the evil empire. Inside of that armor they are just as human as the ones shooting at them, which somehow makes the battle scenes seem less fun. Almost tragic.

Hollywood producers know that violence appeals to many moviegoers, especially men. Somebody has to die, and they have to be the bad guys. So they do everything they can to make the bad guys anonymous, less human, and less relatable. This process of dehumanization takes place in the real world too. Tribal instincts in human behavior lead many seeking stronger group identity to look for outside groups to demonize.

Almost any identifiable group can be dehumanized using race, religion, gender, political affiliation, or which hand they write with. And once dehumanized, they are ripe for abuse by the "superior" humans who rule over them. Jews have faced this tragic fate for centuries, culminating in the Holocaust. African-Americans were dehumanized as savages and condemned to slavery for centuries. Today's sub-humans are more subtle but still identifiable and subject to abuse. Atheists, fat people, liberals, immigrants, transexuals, vegetarians- they can all be targets of abuse because they are deemed inferior or defective in some way.

Who we are as human individuals makes us hard to hate. Once people know us and see us as equals, the fear and hate can go away. Or it can explode if we're seen as a threat. Even the act of naming a dog, cat, or other animal transforms them from a random animal to a being with a soul. Joseph Stalin is quoted as saying "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic". Statistics are numbers, not humans, and much easier to ignore than one person dying right in front of you.

Oscar winner Lord of the Rings - Return of the King is the record holder for most on-screen deaths, but most of those are nasty looking Orcs, so no one cared. The most violent television show was the popular Game of Thrones, where over 1,200 mostly anonymous characters died. It's almost easy to go from that to the simulated bloodshed on many video games like Call of Duty or Mortal Kombat.

It's not that much of a stretch from dehumanizing fictional deaths to dehumanizing real ones once you get inoculated to the violence. Nearly a million people have died in the war in Ukraine the last three years, but it is hard to feel anything for that statistic. But to read the story of Volodymyr Rakov, the Ukrainian choreographer and dancer who died during the fighting makes it feel much more real. Palestinian journalist Duaa Sharaf was killed along with her daughter by an Israelian airstrike in Gaza, though most Israeli's will have never heard of her or the hundreds of journalists killed so far.

War is the most dehumanizing things that humans can ever endure. Why else would soldiers be robbed of their individuality as soon as they join an army? Capitalism can rob people of individuality as well- converting workers and consumers into cogs of a machine. Our individuality is our soul and our reason to be alive. Once someone tries to take that away, we become nothing to them. We must protect that spark with everything we have, and we must search for that spark in others.

In the seventh Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, one of the stormtroopers finally rebels and removes his armor to become a part of the resistance. Trooper FN-2187 claims a new identity, Finn, and becomes an integral part of the third Star Wars trilogy. I was glad to see that a stormtrooper could have thoughts of their own and that were actual humans under all that armor. Here is the first scene of the movie where John Boyega, playing Finn, emerges from his armor.