Crazy Together

82. How Can We Be so Cruel (Part 2)?

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In this follow‑up to last week’s episode on cruelty and dehumanization, Marcus and Esme try to figure out what happens after people buy into systems built on division, fear, and the promise of in‑group protection. Spoiler alert: those systems almost always turn on the very people who empower them.

Drawing on historical examples from American slavery, the Confederacy, and Nazi Germany, the episode traces a pattern that repeats across eras and continents: political movements that rely on dehumanization don’t just brutalize their targets, they usually harm their own supporters. Or as Esme puts it, “when you vote for cruelty, don’t be too surprised when they turn that cruelty on you.”

Marcus and Esme also lay out a multi-tier strategy for fighting back against dehumanization that relies on collective action, humanizing victims, and pointing out the motivations of the powerful people who seek to divide us. 

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Sources for this episode include:

  • Smith, David Livingstone. Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. St. Martin's Press, 2011.
  • Smith, David Livingstone. On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It. Oxford University Press, 2020.
  • Merritt, Keri Leigh. “White Poverty and the Legacy of Slavery in the US South.” Tropics of Meta, 15 May 2017, https://tropicsofmeta.com/2017/05/15/white-poverty-and-the-legacy-of-slavery-in-the-us-south. 
  • Merritt, Keri Leigh. Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  • Helper, Hinton Rowan. The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It. Burdick Bros., 1857. 
  • Horton, James Oliver. “Confronting Slavery.” The Civil War: 150 Years, National Park Service, 11 Feb. 2011, https://www.nps.gov/features/waso/cw150th/reflections/confronting-slavery/index.html.  
  • Bouie, Jamelle, and Rebecca Onion. “Slavery Myths: Seven Lies, Half-Truths, and Irrelevancies People Trot Out about Slavery—Debunked.” Slate, 29 Sept. 2015, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/09/slavery-myths-seven-lies-half-truths-and-irrelevancies-people-trot-out-about-slavery-debunked.html. 

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      Crazy TogetherBy Marcus & Esme O’Kayvius