By: Camden Baucke MS LLP
Humanizing ourselves and others can put the world back together one piece at a time.
On a global scale, dehumanization has been used for generations to control, kill, and enslave.
On a personal level, dehumanization occurs all the time in relationships – causing schisms in families, hurting friends, and even damaging your sense of self.
If we can view others as human as we are, then we can start to treat people how they deserve.
In this article, I will cover what humanization is, what dehumanization is and has been, and how you can start humanizing one relationship at a time.
What is Humanization?
From my perspective, to humanize someone means to recognize another person’s innate value and unique experience.
Humanizing allows you to recognize the depth of emotions, thoughts, history, regrets, passions, and stories of people you barely know – simply because you recognize them as human.
When you humanize someone, you’re also putting yourself beside them – asserting that you are not “better” or “worse” than them, just as they are not better or worse than you.
It allows you to be compassionate for the experiences you share and open to experiences that are different from your own.
Humanizing is a wonderful and intentional action done inside your mind that manifests in how you treat others.
Unfortunately, there are also plenty of examples of dehumanizing behaviors and beliefs across the globe.
What is Dehumanization?
Dehumanization is the opposite process – you minimize the value of others and their unique experiences so you can remain above them and justify transgressions against them.
From a historical perspective, dehumanizing the enemy has been the tool of tyrants who needed their soldiers to kill without hesitation – if their enemy was perceived as an animal, then murder was normalized as different from killing a “real” human being.
Dehumanization has also been the foundation of oppression – it has allowed for the enslavement of other human beings as if they were lifeless property. The perspective of someone as a “lesser” state of being blurs the line between human life and inorganic tools.
Dehumanization was also inherent in the eugenics movement, leading to the extermination of those considered “mentally feeble” or “undesirable” throughout the 20th century. A false and pseudoscientific belief in dehumanizing others manifested in forced euthanasia in the United States from 1927 to the late 1970’s and the Holocaust.
All these historical examples of manifested dehumanization are just the chorus of individual beliefs and corresponding behaviors. Also, they are just the apex of a long trajectory of dehumanization.
While dehumanization is often discussed on a macroscopic level, its existence depends on individual stories.
In fact, those personal stories often tell the tale of how someone becomes motivated to dehumanize others.
How Dehumanization Damages Relationships
Dehumanization on a collective scale can affect the masses, but individually, it can destroy your relationships with those closest to you.
If you dehumanize your friends, you may treat them like means to an end.
If their only value to you is their usefulness, they become human-doings – their quality is then defined by how well they obey, appease, and give you what you desire.
If you dehumanize family, you might use your blood as a gateway to coercion. If your family are only tools to achieve an end, either with their money, time, or goodwill, then you aren’t treating them like family.
When they stop giving, you might treat them like a vending machine – beating and bashing them until they continue giving you what you want.
Family members who dehumanize you won’t allow you to protect yourself with boundaries or distance. They might even convince you that you’re inhumane by not allowing them to continue to dehumanize you.
if you dehumanize your partner, you restrict their value to only what they provide. They become a human-giving, only desired for what money they provide, chores they complete, or status they achieve. Love becomes so conditional, but only one way – the dehumanizing partner can be “entitled” to their partner’s love, yet cut down their partner for never doing “enough”.
Dehumanizing your partner means perceiving and treating them as a functional machine, rather than a human being deserving of support, love, and connection.
Additionally, dehumanizing your partner results in tearing down their self-esteem to the point they believe no one else would want them – an effective way to destroy any sense of self-advocacy and worth so your vending machine keeps on giving.
Either it be partner, friends, or family – dehumanization eliminates the value of someone’s personal experiences only for malevolent benefits – appeasement, control, and power.
But what would motivate someone to do something so devastating?
Why Do People Dehumanize Others?
As you might have seen, dehumanization primarily exists so that you can feel better using other humans as a means to an end – as lifeless tools you don’t regret abusing because they’re not “fully human“.
For the dehumanizer, this perspective allows them to avoid accountability. Someone can believe they’re not hurting people that aren’t “really” people – thus, they’re not breaking any rules they could feel guilty for.
Dehumanization also promotes direct power over others.
If a tyrant convinces their citizens to dehumanize themselves, it’s a sure way to eliminate resistance. If their citizens internalize the dehumanization they face, they will likely stop protecting themselves – someone won’t advocate for their needs if they believe they’re a lifeless tool.
Too often, people who commonly engage in dehumanization are narcissistic personalities.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is still commonly misunderstood – most likely, it is the cognitive and behavioral product of a low self-esteem. One low enough that ignites the need for grandiosity as compensation.
A mask of grandiosity is the superficial belief that one is “better” than most people. To elevate the image of themselves, a narcissistic personality might seek to discriminate against those who are “lesser” than them. The more grandiose an individual needs to be, the more likely they will push others down to get there.
Because narcissistic individuals are likely to see themselves as “superior“, they would then believe they are “entitled to” the status and lifestyle of someone who’s better.
To achieve their “superior” lifestyle they “deserve“, narcissistic individuals might seek to build it on the backs of those they deem lesser, which is mostly everyone but themselves.
Achieving power over others, by means of dehumanization, might seem necessary to actualize the false greatness they see in themselves.
Narcissistic individuals usually struggle with two consequential facts:
(1) They are not inherently better than other people – no matter how productive, smart, strong, or capable they are.
(2) Dehumanizing others to achieve a maladaptive self-image to compensate for low self-esteem is malevolent and hurtful – as much as if someone did it to them.
Nonetheless, it is a narcissistic individual’s responsibility to come to terms with their self-esteem and take accountability for their actions.
It will be difficult, because acknowledging misdeeds could break the illusion of grandiosity that hides low self-esteem.
While these individuals are charged with taking accountability and restraining their dehumanizing tendencies, you can start helping the world by humanizing others.
You have the power to humanize others in your mind and manifest their value in your behavior.
The Power of Humanizing Others
One of the best parts of humanizing others is the reciprocity of recognizing innate value.
The more you realize the depth and value of people, the more you can recognize your own.
Humanizing marginalized groups can help heal centuries of pain brought on by dehumanization.
Humanizing your friends can allow you to develop reciprocal relationships based on love, trust, and appreciation.
Humanizing your family can allow you to create an atmosphere of empathy, care, and loving accountability.
Humanizing your partner can allow you to develop a deeply-meaningful relationship based on mutual appreciation and unconditional love.
Humanizing just one more person a day can provide more depth to your worldview, providing you freedom to think critically and take on healthy perspectives.
The Sounds of Humanization
With Yourself
- “What could be the reason I reacted like that?”
- “Part of me is really struggling with this right now, and that’s okay”
- “I’m trying to figure this out, and it’s okay if I’m not there yet”
- “I made that choice with the knowledge I had at the time”
- “I’m allowed to grow beyond the thoughts I used to have”
With your Friends
- “They’re responsible, but they’re doing the best they can”
- “They’re probably going through more than what I can see right now”
- “They’ve been generous with me”
- “They’re allowed to have days off, just like me”
- “I don’t know the full depth of their story”
- “They’re still learning, just like me”
- “They’re probably stressed, but that’s okay”
With your Family
- “They grew up in a completely different world than me”
- “They went through things I couldn’t imagine”
- “They’ve messed up plenty, but they’ve also been kind to me”
- “They’re more than the role they play in my life”
- “They still have a chance to correct their course, just like me”
With your Partner
- “They’re trying to be understood, but it can be frustrating sometimes”
- “There must be a true feeling underneath their reaction”
- “They want connection and safety, just like I do”
- “They’re allowed to feel and express their emotions, just like me”
- “I might be missing what they’re actually saying”
- “We both love each other and are trying to overcome barriers to do so”
With a Coworker
- “They might be under pressure I can’t see right now”
- “They are allowed to manage their work in their own way”
- “They’re doing a good job, even if it is different than how I do it”
- “There must be some context I’m missing”
- “They have a life outside of work, just like me”
- “They’re not just the sum of their performances, just like me”
- “We’re on the same team, even if we disagree”
With a Stranger
- “They have a whole life I know nothing about”
- “Something bad might have happened to them today”
- “They’re likely important to plenty of other people”
- “They have good days and bad days, just like me”
- “I’m only seeing a snapshot of their day, not the whole picture of their life”
- “They decide to live their life in their own way, just as I do”
- “They’re a whole person with history, passions, and loved ones.”
With a Group/Culture/Community
- “There’s a diversity here that is new for me, but it’s probably just normal for them”
- “Their personal experiences have shaped their perspective, just like mine did”
- “I’m curious about their full history, which I don’t understand yet”
- “They value things that make sense to them, just like I do”
- “They’re made up of individuals and personal stories, not labels”
- “There’s pain, joy, and complexity in each person, group, culture, and community.”
- “I can be respectfully curious of other ways of life”
Final Thoughts
Humanizing yourself and others is a critical piece of mental health, but also vital to healing a world that has suffered through centuries of dehumanization and discrimination.
I encourage you to practice humanizing with the people you personally know, and the groups of folks you know nearly nothing about.
Over time, I believe you might see the value in yourself as well as most people who inhabit this world with us.
Reflections 
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