Growing Dehumanization

Going through everyday news, one usually gets to read about unprecedented surge in grotesque, unheard-of crimes. Crimes that were once the stuff of horror films—bodies chopped into pieces and stored in refrigerators, strange thefts that defy logic and acts of extreme brutality—are now finding their way into our daily headlines. These are not just random incidents; they are symptoms of a deeper, more unsettling transformation in society that is drowning in wealth, technology and hyper-connectivity.

There was a time when crime had a pattern, a motive. It was typically envy, greed or vengeance. But today, we are entering an era where creepy crimes appear random, detached from conventional reasoning. Take the horrifying case of Shraddha Walkar, where a man allegedly murdered her, chopped her body into pieces and stored them in a refrigerator before disposing of them in a premeditated manner over weeks. Or the chilling crime where a woman’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase in Rohtak, abandoned near bus stand. These are not merely cases of murder; they reflect a psychological sickness and detachment so extreme that human lives are being reduced to disposable objects.

And this phenomenon is not confined to India. In US, the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, who preserved body parts of his victims, resurfaced in popular culture, terrifying a new generation. In Japan, the infamous ‘Twitter Killer’ lured victims with suicidal tendencies and dismembered their bodies. Such morbidly dreadful and deeply saddening crimes, occurring in different corners of the world, share a disturbing commonality: loss of empathy, growing disconnect from the value of human life and plunge into pure dehumanization.

The rise of such crimes is not coincidental. It is happening in a world increasingly defined by hyper-materialism, hyper-individualism, and the commodification of human relationships. We are conditioned to believe that success is measured by possessions, wealth and social status. Due to enormous self-indulgence and lack of genuine emotional anchors, the worth of individuals is often reduced to their economic utility, leading to an erosion of sincere human connections. Loneliness, alienation and the absence of deep human bonds create a psychological breeding ground for offensive behavior.

Besides, a society that consumes violence daily, soon finds itself indifferent to it. The more we consume violent content, the more desensitized we become, often called digital desensitization. The dissemination of gory, sensationalized crime dramas and real-life horror media content has numbed the people to the reality of brutality.

Platforms designed to connect people have instead manufactured an epidemic of detachment and deception. The rise of social media-fueled narcissism has led to a decline in real-life empathy. It promotes algorithm-driven engagement over truthful human interactions. When a generation is conditioned to value ‘likes’ over love and digital validation over real-world human connection, the fabric of society is fraught with disorder. People behave abnormal to the extent of nastiness.

In today’s world, human relationships are ever more transactional. Family structures are weakening and friendships are replaced by ‘networking opportunities’ or fickle feelings. When people are used (rather misused) and discarded based on their immediate utility or trophy value, is it any surprise that some individuals (psychopaths) start seeing others as objects to manipulate, hurt or harm?

We stand at a critical juncture. Either we continue on this path of normalizing psycho-sickness and escalating detachment, where crimes become more nauseating, more incomprehensible or we pause and re-evaluate the direction we are heading in. The rising brutality of unheard crimes is not just a failure of law enforcement or governance; it is a reflection of a society losing its grip on humanity.

The society needs to prioritize kindness and intellectual well-being over wealth and power. The solution will not come from strict laws alone but from a cultural reset—one that prioritizes empathy over ego, people over possessions and meaning over materialism. If we fail to act now, the headlines of today will become the nightmares of tomorrow. The choice, as always, remains ours.