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[lichifruit]

You know, studying history, I have to wonder what it is psychologically that allowed so many people in history to, upon 'discovering' another country met life there that was quite clearly humans, even if they had different features, languages, ways of life and skin colors, and so easily dehumanize them

Comments

[drcanadianninja]

Classic Us. vs. Them, yeah. Manifests in so many ways. That's just one of the obvious ones. If you're the civilized ones and you were blessed by God to become the great power you are today, clearly they aren't blessed because they turned out different and live off the land and don't even use the same technology, they're clearly beneath us.

It's mainly the skin color and ways of life, I think. Once it clashes suddenly with another culture and it hits that they are Not Like Us, it's easier to say they aren't human.

What's worse, though, is that it's not just history. Just now, with the advent of civil rights and feminism and a global community that tries to bring these cultures together, it manifests more as classism. Still the same Us vs. Them, Like Us vs. Not Like Us.

[lichifruit]

Oh yes, it still, unfortunately, goes on today, but it's not quite as, well... extreme as it was once, at least.

It's almost comical to read accounts where people are debating whether the dark skinned people have souls and can be saved.

[drcanadianninja]

Almost. And then you read the founder of the Boy Scouts writing about how it's the white man's burden to spread true culture to these heathens.

[lichifruit]

Oh really? I did not hear about that. When was this?

Boy Scouts... true culture.