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The fictional Dr. Frankenstein may have patched together parts from corpses to create his monster, but we’re capable of creating monsters using little more than technology and selective perception. In the last few years of political upheaval in the United States, I began to notice that there is a particular strategy used to do this.
It’s as easy as selecting a distorted image. You’ll see this in news stories, in politics, and even in tabloid and magazine covers. If you want to sell a story with a villain, you need an unflattering image of the enemy. It could be a photograph that portrays anger or stupidity or anything in between, as long as it is effective in delivering a negative message. It doesn’t even take a special photography program to create the image—it’s just a matter of only selecting the one that makes the person seem inhuman. After all, it’s so much easier to hate a monster than a person.
This is how hate groups sustain themselves. It’s how racism and misogyny proliferates. It’s how a country can divide itself by party lines. Members will choose a way to conceptualize that other party in a way that aligns with their preconceived notions of their character, and they won’t see anything else. It becomes a battle of good versus evil, and on the front lines of that battle are photographs that will prove “our” side is good, and “theirs” is the enemy.
It’s effective, too. But I’m wondering if it’s worth it. After all, we’re dehumanizing actual human beings. Even when those humans have done terrible things, it seems like a manipulative way to operate. Shouldn’t we be able to show a normal photograph and let their actions demonstrate their moral character? Perhaps it’s easier to just use the image that conveys what we think of them. After all, it works. But it works for the other side just as easily. It’s enough to make you think that they are more the same than different.
If we can create a monster, simply from the images we select, does this mean that we can destroy it as easily? Is there room for redemption, or are these perceptions terminal? If we’re the monsters, do we ever get to say we’re not?
I don’t have the answers. I have a lot of questions. Questions about integrity. Questions about those invisible lines we draw between us that make us think we are more different than the same. Questions about whether the ends ever really justify the means.
I would like to wake up in a world where we don’t find it necessary to create monsters because we all have the ability to see them just by watching the actions of others. We won’t need an unflattering photo to recognize evil, nor will we need a beautiful photograph to recognize humanity and good intentions. We won’t need to put ourselves into an us vs. them mentality because we’ll realize that all people have the capacity to make good and bad choices, which means that no one group of people can ever be all bad (or all good).
But that’s not going to happen. Because each side feels justified in vilifying the other. I understand it. Of course, I do. Each side feels like they represent righteousness, which includes righteous anger. I’m not saying that there aren’t right and wrong choices or a right or wrong side to be on in a conflict. But I wish that the ones in the right didn’t have to resort to using the same strategies as the ones in the wrong to create their monsters. There are monsters enough in this world.
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This post was originally published on medium.com, and is republished here with the author’s permission.
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