Description

Comments? Send me a text message.

Dehumanization is one of the oldest tools of political control. And it follows a recognizable pattern.

In this episode, I identify and name what I call the Political Dehumanization Template — a five-component framework for understanding how those in power manufacture enemies, redirect legitimate grievances onto scapegoats, and license violence against targeted groups. The template is ancient. It is deliberate. And it is operating in American public life right now.

The five components are:

•  the manufactured threat, 
• the erasure of individuality, 
• two emotional weapons — disgust and existential terror — calibrated to produce either exclusion or extermination, 
• a self-sealing feedback loop immune to rational correction, 
• and the political function that serves those in power. 

Drawing on Timothy Snyder's Leib and Körper (living body vs. dead body) distinction and Isabel Wilkerson's work on caste, the episode traces the template from the European witch trials to the present moment — and offers three specific antidotes for those who want to resist it.

Support the show

If you want to support this work, click above, subscribe to the MINDRAMP  Podcast, or sign up for the free Flourish As You Age newsletter for reviews of current research, reflections, updates, and special extras from my book-in-progress