Chapter Four: The Human Experiment

This chapter starts from the notorious Milgram experiment to find the historical and sociocultural origins of dehumanization described in the previous chapter. Delving into the unsteady edifice of simplexes on primitiveness and progress brings us to a default frame called ‘normality’ with neolithic origins and discriminating potential. We explore the genealogy of morbid energy condensed and transmitted across generations, from civilizational demonization to cultural essentialism and the superiority of the WEIRD. If we compare the usual suspect, enemy or witch in various societies, modern and premodern, it appears that the one we have to thank our life or welfare for comes to mind first as the cause of evil. The victim of simplication and exclusion is the very one on whose existence the ‘simplicator’ depends.