Demonize and dehumanize
How human systems of power sustain themselves
This essay is about power, and the various ways that systems of power protect themselves. The primary mechanism used to sustain human systems of power is othering. Let’s define what that is.
“Othering” refers to the process whereby an individual or groups of people attribute negative characteristics to other individuals or groups of people that set them apart as representing that which is opposite to them.1
Power, and those who have it, are intentionally covert and duplicitous. As an example of how this works, billionaires are an obscenity. In a rational and sane society, no single human would be permitted to have control over such a vast amount of resources while a large percentage of the society barely scrapes by and lives paycheck to paycheck, often working multiple jobs to get by.
Let’s unpack this a little further. On average, the billionaire class collectively makes about $3 billion every day. That class of humans, on average, pays an overall …
