I am very concerned about the lack of civility and common decency in our social discourse. Any perusal of social media shows the venomous exchanges that easily spill over into our lives and interpersonal interactions. This is not healthy.
Now, some people will say that this environment can easily improve, and it always goes in cycles like this. I vehemently disagree on point #1 and lament the presence of point #2. Looking back into the days of my youth, the 1960s, I see the monumental struggle of the civil rights movement and truly sluggish change that followed. There was nothing easy about the positive changes that slowly evolved. Improvement is always one small step away from a painful regression to previous times. And yes, the cycles of to-and-fro improvement/decline are a sad reminder of our all-too-human trait of losing track of our better angels – to act in the best manner possible for the good of others.1
Some people “accuse” me of being too political or too outspoken regarding social matters. While I will not disagree about my political leanings, I would argue that my advocacy and frank opinions are pro-children based on over 53 years since college in science, medicine, medical genetics and pediatrics. I have earned my stripes and will proudly use them to promote an agenda that seeks to enhance the lives and well-being of children and families.2
Getting back to my point about social discourse, I note with dread that hate and fear are all too prominently used to argue for social programs these days. One could argue that is just adult talk and that is how adults debate and resolve their differences. That opinion completely misses the collateral damage that such exchanges affect – our children. Children see adults, children hear adults, children watch adults and children tend to emulate adults. When adults say “Do as I say but not as I do” they are ignoring their ethical and moral roots.
As we can learn kindness and empathy from adults, we can likewise learn how to spread hatred and fear from adults.3,4 This is the current sad state of affairs. We have become desensitized. We accept harmful rhetoric and gloss over its effect on us and our children. We often use the words ‘hate’ and ‘fear’ in superficial way, but their consequence is real. We poison the very environment, our social fabric, in which we hope to raise our children and for them to thrive.
It was too easy in the post-WWII era to hate Germans and Japanese. After all, they were our enemies and countless soldiers died in the European and Pacific theaters. Yet, as I was growing up years after the war, the heartless leaders of those warring nations were gone, and it was time to repair the wounds of war.
The same can be said for the civil rights movement. Too many folks in the South (and certainly elsewhere) could not accept the change in social order that was mandated by equal rights in a society that far too long purposely ignored those rights. A civil war was fought and 100 years later during my youth the toxins of that conflict still lingered, emphasizing that venomous exchanges can and do taint the future.
Using hate and fear to drive social agendas will not make America great. They will drive a wedge into our society, and the acrimony will fester like a chronic infection that is resistant to therapy. When things are resistant to therapy, divisions grow, resentments build, and chasms are created that cannot be healed. Bridge building is ignored while doubling down on hate and fear.
Let me again highlight some thoughts about hate and fear.
- It is too easy to say that we hate something and too easy to create fear about someone. “I hate [fill in the blank] football team.” “I hate that type of food.” “I hate it when you chew your food with your mouth open.” “You should fear those people.” The list really goes on forever. But the use of the words hate and fear in these contexts is more like an annoyance or a dislike. When we use the word hate or fear in a glib manner, it takes on a life of its own and an unintended meaning. And children hear these comments and internalize them because their parents or their peer group say them. The words now become part of their psyche and their reactions to often inconsequential things or actions.
- It is too easy to use the words hate and fear. Instead of being more precise about our dislike of a behavior, we just hate someone or fear someone. This process easily dehumanizes others and justifies subsequent actions. How else can we explain the lynching of blacks in the South, the concentration camps for Jews in Germany, and the detention camps for Japanese Americans in the 1940s? We actively hated these people. We demonized them. We dehumanized them. We easily justified our actions because we hated and feared them.
- It is too easy to say you hate or fear someone when you actually dislike the behavior or are unfamiliar with their ways. A prime example here is telling a close family member or even your children that you hate them. Children take this quite personally. They see that they are not worthy of the love and affection of their parents if a parent says that they hate them. Children do not understand the difference. And this pernicious influence over time has a devastating effect on children as they grow and transition into adulthood. Your fear of a neighboring community might blemish a children’s reaction to those people for years to come.
- It is too easy to let hate and fear creep into our activities. When we hate something, we assume that everything is black-or-white. Hate becomes all encompassing. You either hate it or you don’t. You are taught to fear it, often without cause. One of the strengths of maturing in adulthood is recognizing that almost everything is nuanced. You might dislike certain parts of something or certain traits of someone at the same time that you embrace certain other parts of something and certain other traits of someone. These differences are to be accepted as we learn how to improve ourselves, to seek to reach out to our fellow citizens, and to enrich our communities.
- It is too easy to let hate and fear to become a visceral reaction. Instead of listening and responding in a thoughtful way, we often state that we hate or fear this or that or someone. Hate becomes a knee-jerk reaction and substitutes for reasoned and rational discourse. We are taught to fear without good cause. Stoking fear generates hate. Emotions rise and reason fades. These types of reactions are toxic for children, families, communities and society. Emotional reactions to hate and fear can lead to chronic disease and emotional distress. Hate becomes that “thorn in our side” that stays and is not easily removed. Fear causes us to withdraw from engagement. They both erode our emotional well-being over time.
- It is too easy to transition from hate and fear to violence. Examples for this abound, especially in our current political climate. Too many people fall victim to those that fan the flames of hate and fear and subsequently carry the banner to a malicious conclusion. Irrational behavior too often follows irrational rhetoric.
Hate and fear can be evil. Hate and fear are how we have allowed genocide in the past. Hate and fear how we have allowed racism to exist so long. Hate and fear are how we dehumanize others and seek to dismiss them as subhuman. The perpetuation of hate and fear must stop but will only stop when we say “enough” and stop becoming desensitized. And, the role of forgiveness cannot be overemphasized.5 Without it, we are stuck.
Let’s interject kindness into our interactions. When doing that, we submit to selflessness, not selfishness.6 We then look beyond ourselves. We can look on our dislikes as opportunities for improvement. When we hate or fear, we are closed to rational discourse – we are right, and they are wrong. Let’s allow for room to improve how we interact and treat each other. Let’s take the toxicity of hate and fear out of the lives of our children and substitute it with multiple layers of kindness. Only then can we overcome the caustic effects of hate and fear on us now and for generations to come.
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/our-better-angels/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/hate-negates-kindness/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/fueled-by-hate-the-list-goes-on-and-on/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/how-to-move-forward/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/selfishness/