Inhumanity

Lack of humanity
Lack of humaneness
Loss of essential humanity
Nonhumanity
Subjugation of humanity to the material world

Nature

Inhumanity refers to the absence or denial of compassion, empathy, and respect for others, often resulting in cruel, degrading, or violent behavior. As a problem, inhumanity manifests in acts such as discrimination, torture, genocide, and neglect, undermining social cohesion and human rights. It erodes trust, perpetuates suffering, and impedes progress toward justice and equality. Addressing inhumanity requires fostering ethical values, legal protections, and education to promote understanding and dignity for all individuals. Recognizing and combating inhumanity is essential for building peaceful, just, and inclusive societies.

Background

The global significance of inhumanity emerged starkly during the atrocities of the 20th century, notably the Holocaust and other genocides, prompting international scrutiny and the establishment of human rights frameworks. Subsequent conflicts, mass displacements, and systemic abuses have continually highlighted the persistence of inhumanity worldwide. Its recognition has evolved through documentation by organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations, which have chronicled patterns of cruelty and galvanized efforts to confront and prevent such acts globally.

Incidence

Inhumanity manifests globally through acts of cruelty, neglect, and violence, affecting millions across diverse societies. Incidents range from systemic abuses in conflict zones and prisons to everyday occurrences such as hate crimes and social exclusion. The persistence of inhumanity is evident in both state-sanctioned actions and interpersonal relationships, contributing to cycles of trauma and social fragmentation. Its scale is reflected in international reports documenting torture, forced displacement, and discrimination, underscoring its pervasive impact.
In 2022, reports emerged from Myanmar detailing widespread inhumanity against the Rohingya population, including mass killings, sexual violence, and forced displacement, as documented by the United Nations and human rights organizations.

Claim

Indeed there is already a real perceptible danger that, while man's dominion over the world of things is making enormous advances, he should lose the essential threads of his dominion and in various ways let his humanity be subjected to the world and become himself something subject to manipulation in many ways – even if the manipulation is often not perceptible directly – through the whole of the organization of community life, through the production system and through pressure from the means of social communication. Man cannot relinquish himself or the place in the visible world that belongs to him; he cannot become the slave of things, the slave of economic systems, the slave of production, the slave of his own products. A civilization purely materialistic in outline condemns man to such slavery, even if at times, no doubt, this occurs contrary to the intentions and the very premises of its pioneers. The present solicitude for man certainly has at its root this problem. It is not a matter here merely of giving an abstract answer to the question: Who is man? It is a matter of the whole of the dynamism of life and civilization. It is a matter of the meaningfulness of the various initiatives of everyday life and also of the premises for many civilization programmes, political programmes, economic ones, social ones, state ones, and many others. (Papal Encyclical, Redemptor hominis, 4 March 1979).

Counter-claim

Frankly, the issue of inhumanity is vastly overblown. People exaggerate its significance, ignoring the fact that society has always functioned with a certain level of harshness. Focusing on inhumanity distracts from more pressing concerns like economic growth or technological advancement. Human history is full of tough decisions and actions—calling them “inhumane” is just emotional rhetoric. Inhumanity simply isn’t the critical problem people make it out to be.