vermin

“…cleansing the Russian land of all vermin, of scoundrel fleas, the bedbug rich and so on. In one place they will put into prison a dozen rich men, a dozen scoundrels, half a dozen workers who shirk on the job…In another place they will be put to work cleaning latrines. In a third they will be given yellow tickets after a term in prison so that everyone will know they are harmful and can keep an eye on them. In a fourth one out of every ten idlers will be shot. The more variety the better…for only practice can devise the best methods of struggle.” V.I. Lenin from How to Organize Competition. 1917__________ Lenin’s title makes it sound somewhat harmless…but it is not…he certainly didn’t invent the process of dehumanizing enemies…that has a history that goes back well before 1917…i’ve never been a particular fan of lenin’s ( http://chemicalpariah.blogspot.com/2014/03/im-right-youre-wrong-why-are-you-still.html ) and surely without a lenin there never would have been a stalin…then again, perhaps there would have…only with another rname…it seems autocracy is a human habit…i am always struck by the “special” vocabulary used to distort and demonize the “other”…vermin figure heavily in this, “fleas” and “bedbugs” here…the Nazis were no strangers to vermin allegories…they seemed to fixate on rats as opposed to insects…memories of the plague perhaps…but all to the same effect…it still goes on today…have a look at the news…the world is full of new sub-humans…clerics and warlords denouncing “infidels” and “apostates”…vilifying, marginalizing, and beheading those who don’t share their brand of belief…on the other side late adolescent and early post-adolescent gamers firing missiles from drones at “terrorists” and “extremists”…all in a struggle to better the human condition…how ironic that they spread such misery…and it isn’t only on an international or even national scale…beyond religious, ethnic, and economic divisions some people in everyday life seem to work at expressing their own superiority by denigrating others…stereotypes…profiles...superficial judgments…humans have a habit of comparing themselves to others and finding others lacking…sorry sort of thing when we are far more alike than different…each with a set of strengths and weaknesses…each more complex than stereotypical thinking will allow…unique and yet the same…no “others”…just “us”…how do we get past that? the answer seems elegantly simple…everyone gets to tell their story and everyone has to really listen and find the commonalities, not the differences…the universals, not the specifics…how likely is that?