The Illusion of Superiority: Empathy, Hierarchy, and Harm Anonymous College

Imagine the scene at the Kit Kat Klub during the second act of the musical Cabaret. The Emcee takes the stage with an actor in a gorilla costume wearing a dress and pearls. The song is "If You Could See Her." At first, the audience laughs as the Emcee sings a love song about a woman rejected by society and how their relationship is constantly criticized, while the gorilla, who represents her, appears to be a harmless comic gag. The chorus repeats, “If you could see her through my eyes, you wouldn't wonder at all.” (Kander and Ebb). This playful tone creates a sense of comfort, but the mood shifts dramatically with the final, devastating line: "If you could see her through my eyes... she wouldn't look Jewish at all" (Kander and Ebb). The laughter instantly stops. This transformation from humor to horror forces the audience to confront the discrimination and antisemitism of Weimar Germany, portraying the growing threat of Nazism with a single punchline.

The Emcee’s performance reveals how easily societies justify violence by portraying their victims as something less than human and undeserving of respect. This process of animalization has been used throughout history to discriminate against culturally or racially distinct...