Within the literature on public opinion, the mainstream framework is that in-group and out-group ... more Within the literature on public opinion, the mainstream framework is that in-group and out-group attitudes are distinct phenomena, especially with regard to racial attitudes. Elsewhere, in the literature on race and nationalism, scholars have concluded that the United States subscribes to cultural, color-blind racism, that has predominantly replaced biological racism. To explain the context in which white supremacy is again a viable political force in American politics, this paper argues that notions of biological racism that predate the Civil Rights Movement remain potent and continue to underlie cultural racism, and that that these out-group attitudes are not independent of in-group attitudes. This paper focuses on a form of dehumanization-simianization, or the depiction of racial groups (in this case African-Americans) as apes, tracing its origins in Enlightenment-era scientific racism, its historical role in shaping U.S. race and class relations, and as its role in defining American citizenship as hierarchical. Moreover, this paper presents evidence of simianization in contemporary political discourse surrounding African-Americans in the United States. The paper seeks to synthesize the literature on public opinion and that on race and nationalism in order to shed new theoretical light on our thinking about the relationship between in-group and out-group attitude formation.
Representing members of racial minorities as apes or monkeys is a special case of dehumanization ... more Representing members of racial minorities as apes or monkeys is a special case of dehumanization and cannot be properly understood outside of a general theory of dehumanization. We argue that to fully understand any particular case of dehumanization it is mandatory to consider the intersection of its psychological, cultural, and political determinants: the psychological component explains the distinctive form of dehumanizing thinking, the cultural component explains the significance of the choice of animal with which members of the dehumanized population are equated, and the political component explains the ideological function of particular cases of dehumanization. We apply this analysis to the special case of the simianization of people of African descent.
We are a supremely social species whose ecological success rests largely on our capacity for larg... more We are a supremely social species whose ecological success rests largely on our capacity for large-scale cooperation. This high degree of sociality is only possible against a background of immensely powerful inhibitions against performing acts of lethal violence against conspecifics. However, there are circumstances in which acts of lethal violence are individually or collectively advantageous and attractive. To perform such acts, we must override our inhibitions. We argue that this tension causes us to be ambivalent about killing other human beings, and that this is manifested in the widespread belief, found across cultures and historical epochs, that taking human life contaminates the killer and may pose a threat to the entire community unless rituals of purification are performed to counteract it. We present examples from the Old Testament, the Greco-Roman world, medieval Europe, Africa, and Native American cultures to substantiate this claim. Finally, we show that pre-modern beliefs about the consequences of killing are echoed in the symptoms of “moral injury” described by contemporary psychiatrists treating combat veterans, suggesting that in defying or disabling our inhibitions against performing acts of lethal violence we ultimately do violence to ourselves.
Within the literature on public opinion, the mainstream framework is that in-group and out-group ... more Within the literature on public opinion, the mainstream framework is that in-group and out-group attitudes are distinct phenomena, especially with regard to racial attitudes. Elsewhere, in the literature on race and nationalism, scholars have concluded that the United States subscribes to cultural, color-blind racism, that has predominantly replaced biological racism. To explain the context in which white supremacy is again a viable political force in American politics, this paper argues that notions of biological racism that predate the Civil Rights Movement remain potent and continue to underlie cultural racism, and that that these out-group attitudes are not independent of in-group attitudes. This paper focuses on a form of dehumanization-simianization, or the depiction of racial groups (in this case African-Americans) as apes, tracing its origins in Enlightenment-era scientific racism, its historical role in shaping U.S. race and class relations, and as its role in defining American citizenship as hierarchical. Moreover, this paper presents evidence of simianization in contemporary political discourse surrounding African-Americans in the United States. The paper seeks to synthesize the literature on public opinion and that on race and nationalism in order to shed new theoretical light on our thinking about the relationship between in-group and out-group attitude formation.
Representing members of racial minorities as apes or monkeys is a special case of dehumanization ... more Representing members of racial minorities as apes or monkeys is a special case of dehumanization and cannot be properly understood outside of a general theory of dehumanization. We argue that to fully understand any particular case of dehumanization it is mandatory to consider the intersection of its psychological, cultural, and political determinants: the psychological component explains the distinctive form of dehumanizing thinking, the cultural component explains the significance of the choice of animal with which members of the dehumanized population are equated, and the political component explains the ideological function of particular cases of dehumanization. We apply this analysis to the special case of the simianization of people of African descent.
We are a supremely social species whose ecological success rests largely on our capacity for larg... more We are a supremely social species whose ecological success rests largely on our capacity for large-scale cooperation. This high degree of sociality is only possible against a background of immensely powerful inhibitions against performing acts of lethal violence against conspecifics. However, there are circumstances in which acts of lethal violence are individually or collectively advantageous and attractive. To perform such acts, we must override our inhibitions. We argue that this tension causes us to be ambivalent about killing other human beings, and that this is manifested in the widespread belief, found across cultures and historical epochs, that taking human life contaminates the killer and may pose a threat to the entire community unless rituals of purification are performed to counteract it. We present examples from the Old Testament, the Greco-Roman world, medieval Europe, Africa, and Native American cultures to substantiate this claim. Finally, we show that pre-modern beliefs about the consequences of killing are echoed in the symptoms of “moral injury” described by contemporary psychiatrists treating combat veterans, suggesting that in defying or disabling our inhibitions against performing acts of lethal violence we ultimately do violence to ourselves.
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Papers by Ioana Hulbert