What Does subhuman Mean
In order to know the meaning of the infrahuman term that concerns us, it is necessary, first of all, to discover its etymological origin. In this case, it should be noted that it derives from Latin, that it can be translated as "not worthy of people" and that it is the result of the union of two lexical components of that language, such as these:
-The prefix "infra-", which is equivalent to "below".
-The noun “humanus”, which is synonymous with “man”.
The adjective infrahuman refers to what is inferior to what is considered to be proper to the human being . The subhuman, therefore, belongs to a lower category than that which is indicated as appropriate for people.
Among the synonyms of the term we are dealing with, we can highlight inhuman, cruel, ruthless, heartless, atrocious, brutal or miserable. On the contrary, among its antonyms we come across words like humane, compassionate, sensitive, kind, or even charitable.
For example: "Due to economic necessity, many individuals are forced to accept subhuman jobs that put their health at risk" , "Millions of children live in subhuman conditions around the world and no political leader seems to care too much" , "In the prisons in this country, prisoners suffer infra-human treatment by the guards ” .
Take the case of patients in a neuropsychiatric hospital who find themselves locked in a gloomy environment. These subjects are poorly nourished, suffer from various diseases without treatment, and are mistreated by doctors and nurses. For all these issues, these individuals are in a subhuman state , being forced to live in an unworthy way.
It is common for the subhuman to be associated with poor living conditions. In an irregular settlement such as a shanty town, a favela, a cantegril or a shack, where the inhabitants do not have sewers, drinking water, electricity or natural gas, the streets are not paved and there is no security , people subsist in an environment subhuman .
In the field of fiction , sometimes subhuman beings appear : creatures with certain characteristics that resemble humans, but with others that place them at a lower level or step. HG Wells , to cite one case, presents the Morlocks , an inhuman race , in his novel "The Time Machine . "
In the field of culture, we find different works that have the word in question in their titles. This would be the case, for example, of the book "Humanize the subhuman." Its subtitle is "The formation of the integral human being: evolutionary homo, praxis and solidarity economy", it was published in 2005 and is written by Marcos Arruda Sattamini.
Likewise, we cannot forget the film entitled "Infrahuman". It is a film of Canadian origin that was officially released in 2004. It takes as its protagonist a strange man, with problems with alcohol, who has escaped from a mental hospital and who has a great power of conviction, so much so that is able to convince others of the existence of vampires.