More on Cruelty

So I'm still reading Kathleen Taylor's Cruelty (it's been a busy summer and it's not exactly light bedtime reading) and have come to the realization that political science's emphasis on understanding ethnic mobilization within the frames of primordialism, instrumentalism, and constructivism is rather limited. That political science is limited -- as any discipline must be -- is not the most interesting observation, I guess.

Taylor contributes a cognitive and biological layer to the social sciency conception of creating "others" and defending one's position. Her argument centers on the tendency for humans to dehumanize enemies, a process that opens the door to envisioning members of other groups as less than human and -- importantly -- dangerous to one's own group or existence. This insight is not particularly new (which Taylor concedes): one need only to see the use of the term "cockroaches" for Tutsi or "lice" and "vermin" for Jews in 1930's Germany to see this sort of thing in action.

The books' portrayal of patterns of human decisionmaking, especially the sort of shortcuts the brain makes in sifting information for accuracy, has considerable impact how social scientists understand instrumentalism, however. The brain, as amazing a machine as it is, makes errors when forced to adjust to stimuli quickly.

As such, according to Taylor, people are more prone to succumb to "othering" claims when such appeals are framed in terms of self-defense and especially if they have a time pressure and urgency attached. Small wonder that genocides and cleansings occur during conditions of war or ideology construction -- both political events that have much urgency attached. This also helps us understand how ethnic boundaries can literally develop overnight -- with mobilization by trusted political leaders amidst difficult and fraught political times. So a Hutu husband may indeed turn against his Tutsi wife who just a month ago he trusted. As long as he doesn't have too much time to think about it.