6 Quotes by David Livingstone Smith

Dehumanization isn’t a way of talking. It’s a way of thinking—a way of thinking that, sadly, comes all too easily to us. Dehumanization is a scourge, and has been so for millennia. It acts as a psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions. As such, it empowers us to perform acts that would, under other circumstances, be unthinkable.

Rather than looking for explanations for why all people deserve to be treated with compassion and respect, we ought to be working at creating a world in which people are treated with compassion and respect. Human rights aren’t lying around waiting to be discovered. They’re made, not found.

The universe is made of stories, not atoms.

Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts. – Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand.

Dehumanization isn’t a way of talking. It’s a way of thinking – a way of thinking that, sadly, comes all too easily to us. Dehumanization is a scourge, and has been so for millennia. It acts as a psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions. As such, it empowers us to perform acts that would, under other circumstances, be unthinkable.

Before dehumanizing a population, we set them apart as a “race.” That is, a variety of people who are fundamentally different from “us.” The folk notion of race is very much an artificial construction.