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'NPR' commentary on Manchester terror attack quotes UNE鈥檚 David Livingstone Smith

David Livingstone Smith
David Livingstone Smith

A commentary published on the website of WBUR, Boston鈥檚 National Public Radio news station, quoted David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., professor of philosophy, from his 2011 Book, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. The piece, titled 鈥淭he Way Forward: Trying to See The Human Face Behind Terror,鈥 discusses the motivation of people who commit atrocities, such as the recent terrorist attack in Manchester, England.

The quotation from Smith explains that the first step in becoming capable of atrocities against others is to view them as less than human. 鈥淲hen people dehumanize others, they actually conceive of them as subhuman creatures,鈥 said Smith. The subsequent process, he explained, will 鈥渓iberate aggression and exclude the target of aggression from the moral community.鈥

The commentary continues with an examination of the forces that propel people to dehumanize their fellow humans: a combination of rage and a desire to serve a higher calling in which they believe.

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