Scholars of 20th-century atrocities have wondered how brutality can spring up so easily when one group achieves domination over another. The philosopher Jonathan Glover has pointed to a downward spiral of dehumanization. People force a despised minority to live in squalor, which makes them seem animalistic and subhuman, which encourages the dominant group to mistreat them further, which degrades them still further, removing any remaining tug on the oppressors’ conscience.
