Author and Philosopher David Livingstone Smith joins host Karen Long to explore how ordinary people come to see others as less than human. Smith, winner of the 2012 Nonfiction Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for “Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others,” reads from his work and discusses the psychological mechanisms — essentializing, hierarchical thinking, propaganda, and racialization — that make dehumanization possible, from the Holocaust to present-day conflicts.
The conversation also touches on his 2020 book, “On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It,” his own family history and what he sees as the growing risks posed by political instability and climate-driven displacement.
