Recently, there has been a flurry of news about “name calling” in New Jersey. Although name-calling is often seen as harmless, such as in the saying “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” that is far from the truth.
As a licensed psychologist and president of the New Jersey Violence Prevention Institute, one of my life’s missions is to design programs to prevent aggression and murder in our society. Although it may be hard to believe from reading all the news reports, people have an inner prohibition or block against killing other people. That is to say that humans do not kill humans.
What happens in the first step of murder or aggression is that the person sees the victim as some kind of non-human entity through name-calling, such as scum, loser, jerk, etc. This allows a dehumanization of the other person preceding the issue of murder/aggression. As I stated, humans do not kill other humans; however, they first dehumanize through name-calling and then kill the thing that is identified by the name. The history of America is replete with name-calling of minorities, such as the Irish, Italians and blacks. This name-calling justified the aggressors’ actions against minorities who were seen as animals or non-humans.
Soldiers at war, since the dawn of time, have always referred to the enemy in pejorative terms to make them non-humans.
Therefore, by dehumanizing another such as was done to minorities in our country through name-calling, although seemingly harmless, is the first step in leading to aggression and murder. Programs should be encouraged in our society and by parents and community leaders to model no name-calling in light of the evidence that shows the dehumanization process that occurs through name-calling as the pathway to aggression/murder.
Ronald J. Coughlin, Ed.D. President The New Jersey Violence Prevention Institute Mercerville