@Thalassa You misunderstand me. It was never my meaning that one should put themselves in the shoes of people who have no empathy. Empathy is my world. I could never personally identify with someone who does not have it. I can't even relate to most characters in books who do not show what I consider true kindness. My perspective that we should identify people as human has little to do with empathy to me and more with just recognizing that they are people and do not deserve to be treated as they may have treated us. I understand that many people disagree with me here for their personal views, but I still go by the principle that one should not "fight fire with fire".
What's more, as someone who has been literally nearly killed and tortured by people who got pleasure from my pain, I can never empathize with those people. They are bad people. Truly bad people. But I personally would not want to ever treat them as they treated me. They deserve punishment. And at this time I am sad to say that I truly, truly hate them. It's very sad to me, as a person who hates hatred, but hatred for these people is something I am currently suffering from. They are bad, and I will never, ever be able to put myself in their shoes and justify what they did to me. It is impossible. But my recognition of their humanity, what I mean here (I think perhaps we could have different concepts of what it means to identify someone as human) is not that we should empathize with them, but rather give them what all humans deserve. That we should give them what they did not give us. (I understand that you might not agree with this, very possibly due to your own experiences, but with my experiences this is how I feel on the matter.)
@AmandaLee I never meant to offend you, and I apologize that I did. I am not saying that what your abusers did to you was right. My saying that the people you refer to as "psychopaths" are human does not mean they they are good people and not deserving of punishment. I hope with all my heart that you receive justice for what they did wrong to you, and I am sorry you had to experience it.
You say you hope that I am only young. The fact is I am not only young. My insistence that we recognize first that all people are people in any situation, however drastic, comes from my own extremely traumatic experiences of being abused by people who gained pleasure from my pain. Before then, I had grown up watching my family members be nearly killed by people who also gained pleasure from their pain in domestically violent situations. I know firsthand what happens when someone removes the humanity of another person. While my abusers did that to me, and I would spit on their graves if I happened to come across them, I do not find it fitting to take their humanity from them. They did that to me. But they were not right to do it. My doing that does not make me right either, regardless of how they treated me and how I might think they deserve that. Perhaps you deal with it differently, but from what I have experienced I have emerged with the view that dehumanization is never the answer. Because that is what I see as one of the roots of all evil at human hands in our world. You have emerged from your experiences differently and while I do hope your different perspective does not hurt people I can respect it. As survivors, I think we should be allowed to cope with it however we can. I apologize if I came across as not respectful to your experiences; I can assure you that was not at all my intention and, as I did you on the topic about Asexuality, you completely misunderstood what I was implying. However, I recognize that was my fault for not being clearer about it.
I would also like to not that with this described, dehumanization is obviously a very personal issue for me. I get very heated when discussing it - and yes, perhaps irrational to those who do not agree with me due to their own experiences. To be honest, this entire discussion has been very triggering to me. I would appreciate it greatly if I was no longer involved in it, but I did want to clarify what I meant and try to alleviate the offense that I unintentionally caused the two of you. You may still misunderstand me, and I can not really do much about that beyond this post, but I hope that this perhaps gave you more understanding in what I meant and why this issue of dehumanization is so important to me as a trauma survivor and lifelong witness to abuse.
(To reiterate - please do not tag me or quote me after this message. Please stop responding to my posts here. This topic has brought great distress to me, as defending the humanity of people and this concept of universal humanity for every member of the human species is my core coping mechanism for my trauma. This topic brought me so many flashbacks, so many tears, so much crying. You did not know that, either of you, but I would appreciate it if you did me the kindness of not contacting me further with more of this debating with me now that you have the understanding that this issue is very personal to me and discussion of it is very harmful to my health. I also apologize if the misunderstandings my words evoked within you caused any of these same symptoms within you. That is mainly why I did choose to respond again. I want you to know that in no way do I think your abusers were in the right, and while I do not know your situations I hope dearly that those who abused you are brought to justice and never hurt you again. I may regard them as human, but I know already from what you are described that they are truly Bad People. I hope their immeasurably terrible karma finds them and reflects that. I apologize very much that I did not make this clear and seemed to be defending your abusers in no way was that my intent.)
(I'm sorry for what to you I'm sure seemed like my irrationality here. It was more than that, but... I am leaving now. I hope that you both take care.)