This dehumanization manifests itself in several different ways in this text, but one of the most glaringly obvious is the blatant promotion of eugenics. Eugenics is defined as the “science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed” (“Eugenics”). This practice is looked down on by today’s society as a brutal animalization of humanity, especially because of the atrocious acts that have been committed while employing eugenics, of which the Holocaust during World War II is one example (Klinger). While not all instances of eugenics contain acts of violence such as this, the fact that the concept itself could induce such appalling deeds is frightening. Although there is no aggression accompanying the eugenics advocated in the City of the Sun, it explicitly equates human being to animals when it mocks those “who exhibit a studious care for our breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings” (Campanella 1602). The very connotation of the word “breed” as associated with animals, not to mention the likening of human beings to “horses and dogs” is a direct degradation of their citizens, and to human nature
This dehumanization manifests itself in several different ways in this text, but one of the most glaringly obvious is the blatant promotion of eugenics. Eugenics is defined as the “science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed” (“Eugenics”). This practice is looked down on by today’s society as a brutal animalization of humanity, especially because of the atrocious acts that have been committed while employing eugenics, of which the Holocaust during World War II is one example (Klinger). While not all instances of eugenics contain acts of violence such as this, the fact that the concept itself could induce such appalling deeds is frightening. Although there is no aggression accompanying the eugenics advocated in the City of the Sun, it explicitly equates human being to animals when it mocks those “who exhibit a studious care for our breed of horses and dogs, but neglect the breeding of human beings” (Campanella 1602). The very connotation of the word “breed” as associated with animals, not to mention the likening of human beings to “horses and dogs” is a direct degradation of their citizens, and to human nature