The Death of One Man is a Tragedy, the Death of Millions is a Statistic

So I just finished watching another Hollywood violence filled adrenaline pumping blockbuster and it got me thinking about how impersonal everyone has become (or naturally is). The film began with prisoners being let out of their cells and beating guards. However, it only showed above their torsos as they wailed on him, all the while a main character jokes from a distance.

I realized how many times I've seen some scene like this where people perpetrate insane brutality while breezing over the consequences. That guard would probably die from having his face beat into a pulp, yet the movie kept rolling without ever stopping to think about this man's well-being, let alone his pain, or dreams, or family, or all those things we like to pretend 'bad guys' don't have.

I'm not surprised by this movie as it's a known psychological phenomena that people of 'out-groups' are perceived as carbon copied sub-humans. However, the problem arises when any other person can be placed into an out-group at will. Culture classifies people into race, nationality, language, accent, religion, class, job...... all the way down to hair colour (think 'gingers').

Don't get me wrong, most of the time people don't classify everyone else and beat them horrendously, but the problem arises because we can if we want to. If we need to dehumanize other people to maintain our own self-worth we will. People have been accustomed to dividing everything into polar opposites when the stakes get high (right/wrong, ally/enemy)

These habits of dehumanization and polarization become apparent when people start to get hurt, namely in relationships. I've been on the receiving end of this method before, when people fight or things no longer are going as well as before people stop treating people with the basic dignity they deserve. Yet, ask the perpetrators how they feel and usually (not always) their hurtful actions make them dislike the person they hurt even more. Person A (the perpetrator) has two options, either they themselves are terrible people or person B deserves it. Thus, they choose the second option and feel great about themselves while hating person B even more, causing a self-inducing destructive cycle.

This is where these classifications come in, if we can easily turn anyone into a member of an out-group then the slowly escalating cycle of hate begins. Now I will link this into the digital age of impersonal communication. Take a look at any forum to see how faceless individuals treat each other. Things like ignoring texts, or phone calls has become socially acceptable (if slightly frowned upon), ignoring others' dignity has become a matter of convenience. Slowly we are beginning to classify everyone else as faceless and inhuman whenever the need arises.

And it scares the living shit out of me.