Dehumanization as the Central Prerequisite for Slavery

Erik Enge

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Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Individual, Groups, Society, grade: 1,7, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (All...

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Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Individual, Groups, Society, grade: 1,7, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (Allgemeine und theoretische Soziologie), course: Sociology of Slavery, language: English, abstract: While attending the seminar on sociology of slavery, one question always came to my mind: What has to happen to a person, that he is able to enslave another person and does not find himself in a position of regarding oneself as immoral. I arrived at the conclusion, that maybe a process of dehumanization is required to make this maltreatment of the same kind possible. If dehumanization is required for slavery, the answer to the question of how anyone could not have sentiments of empathy and compassion towards another human being in a state of exploitation is easy: The slave is not considered human and cannot evoke any of these sensations. That assumption leads to the key hypothesis of this paper, which namely is, that dehumanization is the central prerequisite of slavery. To avoid any misunderstanding, in the following I will try to find out, if dehumanization can be seen as a cornerstone of slavery and not which economical circumstances lead to a slave system. In terms to figure out if my thesis is consistent, I will compare several theories of dehumanization and try to find a definition what it means to be human and what it means to be dehumanized. Afterwards I will introduce three central theories on slavery and will compare them concerning their central aspects. To clarify to what extent the theories of dehumanization can be applied to the theories of dehumanization, I will compare the aspects of dehumanization with the assertions of the three slavery theorists. By the help of this theoretical comparison, I will attempt to show which importance the mechanism of dehumanization has in theories of slavery and in the final analysis test if my thesis is sustainable.