From person to nonperson : mapping guilt, adiaphora, and austerity

Abstract

As we learn from our political history, we can withdraw from our ability to empathize with other individuals’ pain and suffering. At the same time, we can get back to this ability – yet this doesn’t say a thing about our capability to be equally sensitive and compassionate about all troubled walks of life, situations, nations, and individuals. We are able to reduce human beings to things or non-persons so that they awaken only when we ourselves or our fellow countrymen are hit by the same kind of calamity or aggression. This withdrawal-and-return mechanism only shows how vulnerable, fragile, unpredictable, and universally valid human dignity and life are. This article is an attempt to map this mechanism theoretically through the concepts of guilt, adiaphora, and austerity.