A Study In Irony As Prison Bars
Keeping Us From Being Free
When we demonize our subjects, we rob them of the very humanity that made them so monstrous in the first place.
When we take care to humanize them, we begin the painstaking process of isolating, and therefore possibly removing, that which has the potential to become demonic in us.
By refusing to humanize murderers, tyrants, and despots—we set up the circumstances by which their histories become repeated.
This refusal to face and accept humanity's dark side is what I consider to be the apotheosis of the "demonic" itself, for it is the very foundation which allows the demonic in us to grow.
It is the very force which allows the cycle to repeat itself, unhindered.
The day we humanize our most notorious evildoers is the very day we put our demons on trial. So long as they remain demonized—they are free to cycle through us eternally.
Those demons would vanish into thin air if we owned up to our humanity, making the need to punish or imprison them an entirely moot point.
Instead, they need to be banished—as any proper demon deserves.
But in order to do that, it would be necessary to do away with our superstition.
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