Depravity

As I often do with Holocaust novels, I have had to take a break from reading Master Slave Husband Wife, by Ilyon Woo. It is the true story of an enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, who, in 1848, escape from Macon, Georgia to the north disguised as a White man and his slave. I wanted relief from the descriptions of routine acts of torture perpetrated on the enslaved.    

I had already decided to write about the depravity of human beings when I saw this quote:  

When we demean, revile, and dehumanize any group of people – whether they are refugees fleeing poverty and violence, or LGBTQ+ people, or Muslims, or Asians, or people of color – we set the table for future acts of hideous brutality.

                                                                                                         Vickie Shufton                                                                                                       Posted on April 14, 2023                                                                                                       The Berkshire Edge

One glaring omission from her list is Jews. The Berkshire Edge is published in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where swastikas were recently drawn into the sand of a public beach area. Anti-Semitic tropes are becoming common among politicians and leaders around the world; shootings at or near synagogues are on the rise.  

I would also add women to the list. Isn’t it only by demeaning women that Florida can pass a law requiring proof of rape or incest in order to obtain an abortion? Because after all, a woman might falsely accuse a man of rape and incest and undeservedly ruin his reputation.   

 As Shufton notes, and is clear in Master Slave Husband Wife, people justify victimizing other people by convincing themselves that their victims are less human – less intelligent, less capable of family attachments, less capable of moral reasoning. What I still can’t understand is the depravity of human beings, the “acts of hideous brutality” they have shown themselves capable of throughout the ages. And I fear that this is not history or the future, but our current reality.