Western anthropology (2. ed.): democracy and dehumanization

Abstract

The special kind of freedom of homo sapiens includes both, abiding by – normative – ethics of Humanity and contrasting ethics by using the – empirical – ability to dehumanize others. We humans are able to switch rather easily between both. The grammar of our Western languages indicates that, and Western political philosophy defines dignity of man by a similar formula. Regarding punishment and crime, our psyche is working with techniques of neutralizing brutal acts. Even we “good ones” suppress acting inhumanely towards others by the method of neutralizing or better by collectivizing ourselves. We democrats submit blindly to the Rule of Law and the mightiness of our own Justice. Justifying easily lifelong incarceration without accepting a bit of personal responsibility for our own decisions is a kind of a collective ritual of de- individuation, sovereign democrats should be aware of. In order to define humanity as well as its negation, inhumanity, the simple Democratic Trinity of “Freedom, Equity and Solidarity” is to be picked up. With a set of four theses I’ll try reducing the complexity: (1) Jurisprudence and Political Science: There might be “Three Democratic Steps of Punishment”. (2) Linguistics and Culture: Grammar of Western languages indicate we are prepared for both Democracy in a We-group and for its Negation. Therefore Freedom might be defined as “status communicativus”, too. (3) Psychology and Ethics: Milgram et al. prove that the majority of us cannot avoid “obedience and submission”. Therefore we have to develop both strong collective ethics and at least for leaders a “Personal Democratic Identity”. (4) Finally Philosophical Anthropology: The favored “Rule of Weighing Political Acts Democratically” means harmonizing for each important individual case “freedom, equity and solidarity”.