Indirect Power: Dehumanization as Social Control
Dehumanization is often imagined as extreme. It is associated with atrocity, violence, or explicit hatred. Because of this, it is commonly treated as an exceptional condition rather than a routine social mechanism. In everyday life, however, dehumanization rarely announces itself in dramatic terms. It operates quietly, through abstraction, distance, and moral thinning.
This quietness is what makes dehumanization one of the most consequential forms of indirect social control.
Dehumanization governs not by denying humanity outright, but by eroding the conditions under which humanity is recognized. It does not require slurs, cruelty, or explicit contempt. It functions through reduction. People are rendered as functions, categories, risks, or problems to be managed.
Unlike exclusion, which operates through absence, dehumanization operates through presence without recognition. Individuals remain visible, but their interiority no longer matters. They are seen, but not encountered.
One of the earliest signals of dehumanization is abstraction. People are referred to in collective terms rather than as individuals. Complexity is compressed into labels. Motives are assumed rather than explored. The person becomes an instance of a type.
This abstraction is often justified as efficiency. Categories allow systems to function. Generalization simplifies coordination. Yet abstraction also removes friction. When people are reduced to categories, moral regard thins.
Dehumanization also operates through instrumental framing. Individuals are evaluated primarily by their utility. Their worth is measured by productivity, compliance, or impact on outcomes. When utility becomes the dominant lens, intrinsic value fades.
This shift has regulatory effects. Once a person is framed instrumentally, their needs become secondary. Their suffering becomes collateral. Their removal becomes justifiable.
Dehumanization also governs through distance. Physical distance, social distance, and psychological distance all weaken moral response. The further removed a person feels, the easier it becomes to disregard their experience.
Distance does not require separation. It can be created rhetorically. Technical language, bureaucratic process, and statistical framing all create distance while maintaining proximity.
Dehumanization also restructures empathy. Empathy is selective. It flows toward those recognized as fully human. When recognition erodes, empathy follows.
This erosion is rarely total. It is partial and situational. People may be human in some contexts and abstracted in others. This inconsistency allows dehumanization to persist without appearing absolute.
Dehumanization also governs accountability. When harm occurs, responsibility diffuses. No one intended harm. The system required it. The process dictated it. Individuals disappear behind structure.
This diffusion matters. Without a recognized human subject, moral responsibility becomes abstract. Accountability weakens.
Dehumanization also interacts with moral framing. Groups may be framed as threats, burdens, or moral failures. Once framed this way, diminished regard appears justified. Compassion becomes conditional.
Similarly, dehumanization pairs with normalization. Practices that would once have provoked moral alarm become routine. Distance increases. Reaction dulls.
Dehumanization also governs affect. Emotional responses toward dehumanized groups are regulated. Anger toward them is permitted. Grief for them is minimized. Their suffering appears less salient.
This regulation is subtle. It often appears as realism rather than cruelty.
In institutional contexts, dehumanization often emerges through scale. Systems designed to manage large numbers rely on abstraction. Individuals become cases, files, metrics, or risks.
This abstraction is often necessary. Yet without countervailing practices of recognition, it becomes dehumanizing. People are processed rather than engaged.
Dehumanization also reshapes subjectivity. Those subjected to persistent abstraction may begin to internalize it. They may feel unseen, interchangeable, or disposable. This internalization erodes agency and voice.
This erosion is rarely dramatic. It accumulates quietly. Expectations lower. Aspirations shrink. Resistance feels futile.
Recognizing dehumanization as indirect power does not require equating everyday abstraction with extreme violence. The mechanisms differ in degree, not kind. Routine dehumanization lays the groundwork for more explicit forms.
When dehumanization becomes patterned, it stops being incidental and becomes regulatory. It determines whose suffering matters, whose voices count, and whose removal is tolerated.
Dehumanization governs quietly. It does not announce hostility. It thins moral regard until exclusion, harm, or neglect appear acceptable.
And because it often appears as efficiency or necessity, it is among the hardest forms of power to confront.
