Bob Schwartz

Thinking and acting according to any of the classifications—gender, nationality, religion, ethnicity, generation, etc.—may have utility and value for limited purposes. Abolishing the slavery of black people focused on two distinct identities that mattered profoundly. The same can be said for other situations.

But even those applications of identity, as essentially humane as they may be, risk not seeing each person as a person, not as an identity. To lump people together for some analytical or active purpose—marketing is one example, war and conflict a less benign one—is to ignore or avoid the individual joys and sufferings, abilities and shortcomings. Personhood and personality.

Every time we think or say, “all _____ do _____ or believe _____ or say _____ or are _____ is dehumanizing. Dehumanizing doesn’t just mean treating people as less than human. It means treating any individual person as less than individual.

© 2024 by Bob Schwartz