In the world of customer service, businesses know full well that a negative experience takes a long time to be overcome in the eyes of the consumer. I remember hearing a Disney businessperson one-time state that it takes over 20 positive experiences to overcome a negative one. So, the choices are rather clear – do everything possible to avoid negative experiences or spend the all the time trying to mop up after something goes wrong. The world is not perfect so mistakes and missteps will be made. The ability to pivot from a “I’m right and you’re wrong” business perspective to a “I’m sorry that happened and this is what we are going to make up for it” business perspective defines successful businesses and warm consumer feelings going forward.
I see the dichotomy between hate (a negative experience) and kindness (a positive experience) very similarly. When hate is interjected into a conversation or interaction, its toxic effect is not easily overcome. An equal measure of hate and an equal measure of kindness still leads to a negative feeling and is not easily overcome. As a matter of fact, a bitter taste usually lingers in the recipient’s mind and the relationship is tainted.
Let me relate a recent commentary on kindness that I read. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir describes a speech given at her college graduation from Harvard.1(p. 166) The speaker’s address was titled “No More Insignificant Words.” The details follow –
- The story concentrated on a demolition expert, mastering his trade through apprenticeships. He was highly sought after around the world.
- Due to life circumstances, he never attended school as a child and never learned to read.
- He approached a local community college for assistance, but the front desk person laughed at him when he admitted to being illiterate and was seeking reading classes. He turned and left and at age 55 was still unable to read.
- The commencement speaker, Charles E. Roemer, stated “the lesson of this story is simple…It’s about kindness and attitude…With [the opportunity to attend Harvard] comes the responsibility of realizing that no longer are there any insignificant words…You see, we may not change the world for everyone. We may only change it for one person. But to that person, it will be the most important moment in their lives. That young woman in the community college could have changed a life forever by simply saying, ‘Fantastic.’…We must not choose harsh words that tear people down. We must choose kind words that lift people up.”
Justice Brown Jackson reflected back to her own experience as a child when she unknowingly made fun of her grandmother’s misspelling one time.2 As I read this passage, I also reflected back on some my errors in word usage (purposeful or inadvertent) and hoped that my subsequent actions have soothed those indiscretions. Yet, I do worry that my miscues have left some negative impressions even years later.
All of the above brings me to the crux of this writing – hate is a lingering toxin in our society.3 Hate evokes such a powerful emotion that its toxicity affects our own thoughts, our interpersonal relationships (partner, family, friends) and our social relationships. When we hate something or someone, we have actual visceral and emotional reactions that can affect our physical and emotional health – and, more often than not, in a negative way.
Hate has a toxic influence that is multigenerational. The collateral damage from using the word hate is passing that process of dealing with things on to our children. Children are not born with the capacity for hate, in my opinion. Quite the contrary, they are imbued with the capacity to love unconditionally as they are nurtured and sustained by a loving family and a caring society. We unfortunately have instilled the concept of hate in children and too often carried that forward from generation to generation.
Let me again highlight some thoughts about hate.
- It is too easy to say that we hate something. “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.” The list really goes on forever. But the use of the word hate in these contexts is more like an annoyance or a dislike. When we use the word hate 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 word hate. Instead of being more precise about our dislike of a behavior, we just hate 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 them.
- It is too easy to say you hate someone when you actually dislike the behavior. The 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. Parents can dislike a behavior (or set of behaviors) but they should NEVER state that they hate their children. I would argue the same for close family members or others.
- It is too easy to let hate 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. 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 to become a visceral reaction. Instead of listening and responding in a thoughtful way, we often state that we hate this or that or someone. Hate becomes a knee-jerk reaction and substitutes for reasoned and rational discourse. These types of reactions are toxic for children, families, communities and society. Emotional reactions to hate can lead to chronic disease and emotional distress. Hate becomes that “thorn in our side” that stays and is not easily removed. It erodes our emotional well-being over time.
- It is too easy to transition from hate 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 subsequently carry the banner to a malicious conclusion. Irrational behavior too often follows irrational rhetoric.
Some will argue that certain behaviors and people are indeed loathsome and deserving of hate. My concern with this approach is that it becomes a slippery slope to use the term for too many things. It then becomes a pervasive sentiment in all of our actions. When that happens, it is hard to take things back or to retreat from an entrenched position. I am still drawn to the words of Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address – “with malice toward none, with charity for all” as we seek to move forward in our lives and the lives of others.
My plea. Drop the word “hate” from our (and your) vocabulary and actions. This is not easy, and I slip up many times. But I pledge to do better. A concerted effort to embrace each other, recognizing our common humanity, allows for us to have targeted “dislikes.”
Let’s interject kindness into our interactions. When doing that, we submit to selflessness, not selfishness.4 We then look beyond ourselves. We can look on our dislikes as opportunities for improvement. When we hate, 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 out of the lives of our children and substitute it with multiple layers of kindness. Only then can we overcome hate’s caustic effect on us now and for generations to come.
- Brown Jackson K. Lovely One. Random House; 2024. 405 pp.
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/more-alike-than-different/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/the-toxicity-of-hate/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/selfishness/