Nonperson
Encyclopedia
A nonperson is a citizen or a member of a group who lacks, loses, or is forcibly denied social or legal status, especially basic human rights
, or who effectively ceases to have a record of their existence within a society (damnatio memoriae
), from a point of view of traceability, documentation, or existence. The term also refers to people whose death is unverifiable and about which inquiries result in a "blank wall" of "nobody knows". The phrase was coined by George Orwell
in his dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-four
.
statement; by doing so, it is implied simultaneously that the person referred to is entitled to the rights that any person should have. Who is a person and what every person is entitled to depends on context and social norms
. For example, wards that are under the authority of a legal guardian
due to infancy, incapacity, or disability
are not usually considered nonpersons.
these "unwanted elements", use them where possible, and dispose of them efficiently. "Nonperson" status was required because it removed the moral and social obstacles for committing otherwise objectionable acts of violence
, crime
, abuse
, and murder
.
ial regimes such as Chile
under Pinochet
, the USSR
, and fascist Spain. To dodge pointed questions regarding supposedly democratically controlled governments covertly holding people or employing torture
, plausible deniability
of knowledge might be used. The existence of ghost detainee
s in a secret CIA prison system
is an example of this.
To an extent, this is made both easier and harder by technology
– easier because reliance upon technology is such that if a person's information is electronically deleted or was never stored in that manner they effectively cease to exist; harder because during every stage of a person's life from birth to death the accumulation of bureaucratic transactions makes it more and more likely that they will leave an official record somewhere.
" or "organized society
" could be classified as a nonperson. This is often the case of homeless and marginalized people in general.
Also, some legally detained prisoners can be considered to be in a quasi-nonperson status, temporarily or indefinitely, to different extents depending on the reasons for and conditions of their detention. For example, in most countries, ordinary prisoners are denied political rights such as voting
; in the most severe cases, total or partial isolation from the outside world can be inflicted.
) by their surrounding society. This can be extended and applied to an entire nation or ethnic group
, as often happens in wars or other conflicts.
This was the situation in the Nazi
state with regard to Jews, and in most societies with regard to gypsies, and it is often applied in times of war
to the entire enemy nation; its people are stripped of their "person status" and demonized, making them appear to be monsters (not humans), and thus indirectly rationalizing any excess or abuse committed against them. Similar cases, concerning contra-revolutionaries, are found in most socialist states.
It can be argued that the "nonperson" status, apart from the German deathcamps, can be found in its most literal form when considering certain prisoners of war, especially if they are or are considered to be illegal combatants. An example is the
Guantanamo bay prison in which several people have been held without public precise charges being brought against them, are denied any form of access to the outside world (and vice versa), and are in an unclear and controversial legal status.
's Nineteen Eighty-Four
as people who were erased from existence by alteration of records. The Newspeak
word for such a person was unperson.
In the real-time strategy game Red Alert 2
, Yuri names General Vladimir as a nonperson, and orders the player
to apprehend him.
In the novel The Smallest Island, several immortal mermaids are declared nonpersons because they lack sufficient documentation of ever having existed or because the records they have do not corroborate their physical ages.
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, or who effectively ceases to have a record of their existence within a society (damnatio memoriae
Damnatio memoriae
Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning "condemnation of memory" in the sense of a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State...
), from a point of view of traceability, documentation, or existence. The term also refers to people whose death is unverifiable and about which inquiries result in a "blank wall" of "nobody knows". The phrase was coined by George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
in his dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
.
Ways to become nonpersons
Some common ways in which people become nonpersons are:- Never having been sufficiently documented as existing
- Loss or deletion of the trail of documentation so that the specific person can no longer easily be linked to a documentary record or cannot be shown officially to have existed
- Covert abduction by government or other bodies combined with plausible deniabilityPlausible deniabilityPlausible deniability is, at root, credible ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible,...
- Long-term absence or other circumstances leading to an incorrect belief and legal documentation that they have died
- Death, when it is unverifiable and left as an open case as to what happened
- FraudFraudIn criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
ulent reporting of a person as having died when they have not (which can happen for economic reasons in India and other countries, a form of fraudFraudIn criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
) - Marginalized or homeless people who live without cash or formal abode and do not appear on official records
Legal status
Asserting that someone is a nonperson is implicitly a normativeNorm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
statement; by doing so, it is implied simultaneously that the person referred to is entitled to the rights that any person should have. Who is a person and what every person is entitled to depends on context and social norms
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
. For example, wards that are under the authority of a legal guardian
Legal guardian
A legal guardian is a person who has the legal authority to care for the personal and property interests of another person, called a ward. Usually, a person has the status of guardian because the ward is incapable of caring for his or her own interests due to infancy, incapacity, or disability...
due to infancy, incapacity, or disability
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
are not usually considered nonpersons.
Prison camps
In Nazi extermination camps, Jewish people, Roma, homosexuals, and individual political prisoners were treated as nonpersons. The purpose of these camps was to systematically dehumaniseDehumanization
Dehumanization is to make somebody less human by taking away his or her individuality, the creative and interesting aspects of his or her personality, or his or her compassion and sensitivity towards others. Dehumanization may be directed by an organization or may be the composite of individual...
these "unwanted elements", use them where possible, and dispose of them efficiently. "Nonperson" status was required because it removed the moral and social obstacles for committing otherwise objectionable acts of violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
, crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
, abuse
Abuse
Abuse is the improper usage or treatment for a bad purpose, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, sexual assault, violation, rape, unjust practices; wrongful practice or custom; offense; crime, or otherwise...
, and murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
.
Unofficially missing people
Some people are covertly held by governments or other bodies, and effectively cease to exist. This has happened in dictatorDictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...
ial regimes such as Chile
Chile under Pinochet
Chile was ruled by a military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet from 1973 when Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d'etat until 1990 when the Chilean transition to democracy began. The authoritarian military government was characterized by systematic suppression of political parties and...
under Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
, the USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and fascist Spain. To dodge pointed questions regarding supposedly democratically controlled governments covertly holding people or employing torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, plausible deniability
Plausible deniability
Plausible deniability is, at root, credible ability to deny a fact or allegation, or to deny previous knowledge of a fact. The term most often refers to the denial of blame in chains of command, where upper rungs quarantine the blame to the lower rungs, and the lower rungs are often inaccessible,...
of knowledge might be used. The existence of ghost detainee
Ghost detainee
Ghost detainee is an official term used by the U.S. Government to designate a person held in a detention center, whose identity has been hidden by keeping them unregistered and therefore anonymous. It was also used in the same manner by the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at the Abu...
s in a secret CIA prison system
Black site
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black project is conducted. Recently, the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons operated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , generally outside of U.S. territory and legal jurisdiction. It...
is an example of this.
To an extent, this is made both easier and harder by technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
– easier because reliance upon technology is such that if a person's information is electronically deleted or was never stored in that manner they effectively cease to exist; harder because during every stage of a person's life from birth to death the accumulation of bureaucratic transactions makes it more and more likely that they will leave an official record somewhere.
Industrialized countries
A person that does not appear on any official documents, is economically or socially inactive, or lives outside of what is defined as the "productive systemSystem
System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
" or "organized society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
" could be classified as a nonperson. This is often the case of homeless and marginalized people in general.
Also, some legally detained prisoners can be considered to be in a quasi-nonperson status, temporarily or indefinitely, to different extents depending on the reasons for and conditions of their detention. For example, in most countries, ordinary prisoners are denied political rights such as voting
Voting
Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. It is often found in democracies and republics.- Reasons for voting :...
; in the most severe cases, total or partial isolation from the outside world can be inflicted.
Demonization
A "nonperson" status can also be consciously or unconsciously applied to unwanted persons (demonizationDemonization
Demonization is the reinterpretation of polytheistic deities as evil, lying demons by other religions, generally monotheistic and henotheistic ones...
) by their surrounding society. This can be extended and applied to an entire nation or ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
, as often happens in wars or other conflicts.
This was the situation in the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
state with regard to Jews, and in most societies with regard to gypsies, and it is often applied in times of war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
to the entire enemy nation; its people are stripped of their "person status" and demonized, making them appear to be monsters (not humans), and thus indirectly rationalizing any excess or abuse committed against them. Similar cases, concerning contra-revolutionaries, are found in most socialist states.
It can be argued that the "nonperson" status, apart from the German deathcamps, can be found in its most literal form when considering certain prisoners of war, especially if they are or are considered to be illegal combatants. An example is the
Guantanamo bay prison in which several people have been held without public precise charges being brought against them, are denied any form of access to the outside world (and vice versa), and are in an unclear and controversial legal status.
In fantasy and fiction
Nonpersons are described in George OrwellGeorge Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
's Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
as people who were erased from existence by alteration of records. The Newspeak
Newspeak
Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it refers to the deliberately impoverished language promoted by the state. Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix in which the basic principles of the language are explained...
word for such a person was unperson.
In the real-time strategy game Red Alert 2
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is a 2.5D real-time strategy computer game by Westwood Studios, which was released for Microsoft Windows on October 23, 2000 as the follow-up to Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Set in the early 1970s, Red Alert 2 supposedly picks up at the conclusion of the Allied...
, Yuri names General Vladimir as a nonperson, and orders the player
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
to apprehend him.
In the novel The Smallest Island, several immortal mermaids are declared nonpersons because they lack sufficient documentation of ever having existed or because the records they have do not corroborate their physical ages.
See also
- Damnatio memoriaeDamnatio memoriaeDamnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning "condemnation of memory" in the sense of a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State...
- Homo sacerHomo sacerHomo sacer is a figure of Roman law: a person who is banned, may be killed by anybody, but may not be sacrificed in a religious ritual....
- Personhood theory
- Stateless person