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Recognizing the humanity of others is the beginning of true dialogue

Last week I was driving back home when suddenly a car changed lanes and moved in front of my car. The other driver never used the blinker to signal he was about to change lanes. I have to confess I was upset not because of the sudden movement of the other car but because the driver decided there was no need to signal the change.

In other words, I was upset because the other driver did not acknowledge my presence on the road and did not recognize me as a fellow human being, because he did not even tried to community, however briefly, with me, not even with two or three blinks. After all, traffic laws are a kind of language we must learn to “speak” and respect.

I’m sure that if, instead of being me in my car, there had been a hippopotamus in the middle of the road, or even a trash container, the behavior and attitude of the other driver would have been the same.

That is to say, he didn’t see me as a person with whom he should have a dialogue for no more than two seconds, but he saw me as a hindrance, an obstruction, an obstacle to be overcome and left behind as soon as possible.

I decided that, instead of getting upset with the other driver, I should reflect on the incident. Almost immediately I discovered two things. First, you have to dehumanize yourself first in other to dehumanize others. You can treat others as “less than a person” unless you first treat yourself as “less than a person.”

Second, we all dehumanize others all the time (refusing to talk with others) when we see them not as “another one like me,” but as “buyer,” “tax payer,” “voter,” or even worst “human resource.”

We also feed and increase that dehumanizing process when we apply labels and categories to others, such as “minority,” “immigrant,” or “low-income,” or (from a different point of view) “legally in the country,” “with a college degree”, or “American.”
Reflecting further upon the issue I realized that, at the end, the driver who suddenly appeared in my lane was more honest that many of us, because he decided to totally ignore me, while we play manipulation games with people, labeling people according to what is only an expression of our own prejudice.

For Austrian-American psychologist and philosopher Paul Watzlawick, the dehumanizing attitude (including both myself and others) is “the art of living a bitter life” (The Situation is Hopeless, but not Serious, 1983). Watzlawick said a key mistake we make, leading to a bitter life, is to assume what we believe is the reality is the reality.

Watzlawick gives the example of the common attitude towards immigrants, whom are perceived to be –he says- “strange, ignorant, and mediocre,” and “not as us, because we are normal.” Because of such attitude, he adds, we become intolerant and, therefore, “we are happily bitter because things are not the way we want.”

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