Dehumanization Makes Conflict Harder to Resolve
Conflict does not require us to agree that every side is equally right. It does require us to decide what kind of being we think we are dealing with.
Dehumanization narrows that answer. The other side becomes vermin, monsters, animals, a disease, or an undifferentiated mass whose individual lives matter less.
Treating people as less than human can make violence and abuse easier to excuse and conflict harder to resolve. Recognizing shared humanity does not settle political, territorial, security, or legal disputes. It does not erase accountability or require neutrality about atrocities.
The opponent remains a human being capable of fear, loyalty, injury, memory, calculation, grief, and choice. That recognition can be difficult precisely when harm is severe.
Removing humanity from the other side does not make facts clearer. It changes what forms of violence become thinkable.
Durable conflict resolution requires institutions, incentives, security, law, negotiation, and sometimes force. A shared-humanity frame cannot replace those. It keeps us from making resolution harder by treating the people involved as less than people.