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Security, Peace & Conflict Workshop: Aliza Luft (UCLA)

SPC Flyer
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Aliza Luft
Security, Peace & Conflict

Talk title: "Moral Shifting: Social Perception, Dehumanization, and The Plasticity of Moral Judgments About Violence"

Summary: In a number of western democracies, dehumanizing rhetoric characterizes modern political discourse. The Trump Administration in the United States has referred to countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, and in all of Africa as "shitholes" and conflated undocumented immigrants-even those fleeing violence to seek asylum-with gang members, rapists, and criminals. "These aren't people. These are animals," the President said. This sort of dehumanizing language is, for many scholars, a major red-flag. Yet few studies actually examine the relationship between dehumanizing discourse and participation in violence; of those that do, rarely are the perspectives of violent actors considered. In contrast, this study examines interviews with participants in the Rwandan genocide at three different time periods: before, at the start of, and later in the genocide.