Dehumanizing

People have a way of dehumanizing people who have any form of celebrity (for lack of a better word for being well known) There is a sense that once a person is well known they no longer have any feeling, any necessity of kindness. They become a thing, rather than a person.

We think its fine to say cruel and terrible things about them.  As though they won’t see it?

We think its fine to say cruel and terrible things TO them on social media.  As though this won’t be painful to them?

We think its OK that their privacy is invaded, that people follow them around to take pictures of them, that people interrupt their daily lives just to say hello, get a picture or a photograph, that their love life, their mistakes and their tragedies are written about in gruesome detail.

WHY?

Why do we dehumanize people that are well known?  Very often we are doing this to people we claim to love.  Some actor or model or singer will lose most of their private life because the people who love them have deemed that it belongs to them now.  We think that is OK.

And I just don’t understand WHY we think this is OK.  Its wrong.  I can’t think of one valid ethical reason why someone who is well known has no right to privacy.  No right to emotional well being and general kindness.

When Princess Diana died, I thought we would all have a “oh shit, we did this” moment and we would recognize that this cultural behavior is WRONG.  But no.  We just keep rolling along removing the human from celebrities.

And I just do NOT understand why.