Words are a powerful way to tear down an enemy, and they also lead to centuries of derogatory words used against people. In the article From Ancient Greece to Iraq, The Power of Words in Wartime, Robin Lakoff describes the history of how words are used to reduce the worth of other humans during periods of war. It dehumanizes people so the soldiers that are battling them feel less guilty for killing them, as opposed to normal circumstances; “Human beings are social animals, genetically hard wired to feel compassion towards others” (Lakoff 1). Seeing as most humans don’t go about their day killing people, soldiers are subject to feeling sympathetic towards the enemy and therefore, need persuading that it is okay to kill, especially during times …show more content…
An ethologist, Konrad Lorenz stated that the more similarities we see, to something like us, the harder we as humans find to kill it (Lakoff 1). This validates the argument that words are a psychological tool of war, along with weapons. On a personal level, being called names is degrading and in fact, does make a person feel as though they are outsiders in a community. An example of this is the Holocaust, where millions of people died because they had different beliefs and Hitler was trying to make a “perfect” society. Often, people were called nicknames, and derogatory things were said to them to make them feel less than the people around them. This went along with the murder and homicide of millions of people, but the nicknames from the past are still used today, whereas the torture aspect is not. In our society, there are still frequently heard words or nicknames that are negative and demeaning towards certain groups of people. Take the “n-word” for example, it came about when it was common to have slaves, slave owners would typically call their slaves that word when they were talking to them and it is still heard today with a negative