Stop Clinging to Your Human Identity

It is important to be very careful about this. We call the conceptual move that precedes violent oppression “dehumanization.” It’s what slave owners did to slaves and it is what Nazis did to their many targets.

That is not what we are on about here. Just the opposite.

The Buddha told us that a human birth is precious. We should be glad to have it and make the most of it. To “dehumanize” is to treat other people as if they were less than human, more like animals, freely available for violent, brutal punishment, degradation, and murder.