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Stories About Police Brutality, "Racism" and Dehumanization

  • Broadcast in Psychology
Stories We Live By

Stories We Live By

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I will present an arguement that America's current attempts to deal with "racism" and police brutality are best understood as common elements of authoritarian political structures. Authoritarianism is the dominant  type of politics both in our world and the historical past. Authoritarian political structures are always hierarchical and maintained by convincing their citizens that those in the higher levels are inherently superior as human beings than those in the lower strata of society. The psychological mechanisms of control involve dehumanizing some individuals and demonizing those who would seek to rebel against their fixed position in the hierarchy. The police and the military usually represent the mechanisms to enforce compliance and punish rebellion among those dehumanized and demonized. The solution to the problems created by authoritarian heirarchies are found in democratic political structures adhering to the idea that all human beings are equal in their essential worth, have equal rights, privileges and responsibilities and that all its citizens are more human than otherwise. 

These ideas are explored in my book "Psycho'therapy' and the Stories We Live By" to be found on Amazon.com, BN.com, and store.bookbaby.com/book/psychotherapy-and-the-stories-we-live-by       

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