Frequent readers of my blog posts will hopefully detect a recurring theme – that to help our children, it is imperative that adults lead the way. Negative influences seem to take greater hold of us than positive ones. Negative influences are processed through the deep recesses of our brains and are often interpreted as things to avoid or confront in a verbal or physical way. This processing is usually fairly quick. Positive influences have to make their way through our brain wiring through a filtering mechanism that is not hardwired into us but rather developed over time. This processing is not very quick usually. So, if adults are to lead the way, we must develop ways to tamp down our knee-jerk reactions to irksome things and seek to respond in calm and nurturing ways to potentially negative influences and turn them into positive factors in our lives.
Oh, if it was that simple! Our humanity all too often gets in the way. We tend to make snap judgments, and we tend to hold grudges about past indiscretions. Forgiveness is so hard at times.1,2 It is too easy to become enraged and let that turn into hate. I have argued that hate has such a toxic impact on our lives that we must make every attempt to eliminate that word and its harmful influence so we can move forward.3,4 Indeed, I have been on a now 25-year journey since the events at Columbine High School in 1999 to see how I help change the narrative.
In a recent blog post, I quoted Marilynne Robinson on the erosion of civility (the antithesis of hate) in our society.5 Before I revisit the entirety of that quote, there was one small snippet that really rings out.
“Resentment displaces hope and purpose the way carbon monoxide displaces air.”
Let’s reflect on resentment for a minute. “Bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly” or “a negative emotional reaction to being mistreated” are two definitions that pop up on the internet. I can see how resentment very easily transitions to hate and its cascade of emotional turmoil. When we let resentment pervade our atmosphere of discourse, hope and purpose are displaced by the noxious (and potentially lethal) equivalent of carbon monoxide in the air that we share with each other. We will have poisoned our common breeze and replaced it with a tempest and its accompanying ill wind.
The full quote provides more context. “Over the past few years, [there has been] promoted the belief that a large share of the American people are endlessly productive of plots, frauds and hoaxes, that they are not to be heard out in good faith, not to be acknowledged as enjoying the freedoms of the First Amendment. This is the aspersion, the fraud, the hoax most corrosive to democracy. Once a significant part of the population takes it to be true that other groups or classes do not participate legitimately in the political life of the country, democracy is in trouble. The public has no way to legitimize authority, which then becomes mere power… Resentment displaces hope and purpose the way carbon monoxide displaces air. This fact has been reflected in the policies of any number of tyrants and demagogues. Resentment is insatiable. It thrives on deprivation, sustaining itself by magnifying grievances it will, by its nature, never resolve.”
What is proper course forward? Are we are committed to positive change? Are we committed to being positive role models for our children? Are we committed to ways of eliminating resentment and hate from our interactions?
Well, civility is key to our social interactions. I previously mentioned that trust is the currency of social interactions, but civility provides the interweaving fabric that keep us together. Without civility, social discourse completely deteriorates.6 Without social discourse being civil, we accept and perpetuate name-calling and demeaning language that belittles our fellow citizens and fellow humans. We let resentment and hate infect our very being and pervade our thoughts and actions.
When civility is allowed to be degraded, people are belittled, demeaned and/or demonized, and we all suffer. We can disagree with folks, but when we treat them in an uncivil manner, we set ourselves up as the arbiters of right and wrong and can easily see others as not worthy of our attention. We can therefore feel that any “power” that accrues from our righteous stand allows us subjugate others. A further consequence of the lack of civility is that we can easily see others as our enemy. We do not seek consensus or a common purpose. We see ourselves as right and we see others as wrong. We use labels that do nothing to advance our common goals. For civility to pack any punch, truthfulness is critical.7 Lies feed into the work of tyrants, demagogues, and conspiracy theorists and provide the fuel for continued incivility.
Maintaining civility in our other relationships is equally important to maintaining trust in our interactions. Those interactions can be in almost any social setting (at work, at a place of business, at a store, at a school, at a restaurant, over the phone, on a virtual internet connection) and immediately set the tone for the ongoing dialogue that defines social interaction. Social interactions are a back-and-forth, give-and-take proposition during which we exchange information and hopefully seek some common solution to a given question or situation. Our ability to maintain civility will often define our ability to be understood, to be trusted and to be effective. It is a process involving education.
Education is not only the acquisition of facts but the acquisition of the skills to lead a life of consequence. These are not separate processes but should be combined as we seek to prepare our children for their roles as parents and citizens in the years ahead. When these processes are not melded with civil discourse, the messages get blurred or totally lost and are thereby ineffective. I view education a critical piece of this civility fabric of our society and argue that education with civility makes progress and education without civility takes us backward and erodes public trust.
Our ability to maintain civility needs constant attention. Treating each other as we want others to treat us is so important. How did we lose track of this basic principle of a civil society? I contend that we know better but have gotten caught up in the heat of rhetoric (resentment and hate) that does not serve us well. Those of faith can never let themselves be so swayed. Complicity (being an accomplice in uncivil behavior or wrong-doing by turning the other way or quiet acceptance) is as bad as being the primary wrong doer. Disagreement is ok but never, ever, lose the integrity of engaging each other in a civil manner.
Before closing, let’s revisit the quote above – Resentment displaces hope and purpose the way carbon monoxide displaces air. Resentment leads to bitterness and quickly deteriorates from there. Hope and purpose deserve their fair share of interpersonal energy if we are to maintain civility for the common good. Clean air is critical to our respiration and civil exchanges. We cannot breathe when carbon monoxide is in our lives. Resentment needs to be dispersed and ultimately extinguished. Civility is the anecdote to resentment and hate.
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/forgiveness-are-we-there-yet/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/communal-forgiveness-2/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/hate-negates-kindness/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/fueled-by-hate-the-list-goes-on-and-on/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/opinion/sunday/america-patriotism.html
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/trust-is-the-currency-of-social-interaction-2/
- https://mychildrenschildren.com/the-cost-of-lies-2/