One pave stone at a time, our country now has the opportunity to repair the potholes in our path to a better future. It will take all of us–Democrats, Republicans, independents and all the remaining political parties who siphon votes off for causes that cannot succeed without broader appeal. It will take a concerted effort to, as Biden says, quit seeing people who disagree with us as the “enemy”.
We, all of us, have put the trash in our own path. We have done it for far too long. Politicians learned to simply say out loud what many of us were thinking, Trump being the most obvious example but far from the only one. Whenever we repeat a rumor or an unfounded suspicion, because it fits our internal narrative explaining why we are not happy, we are throwing litter on that road. Whenever we start calling people names, we are dehumanizing them so that it is easier to discard them from our concern and care. Name-calling, actually, is the most obvious indicator of having lost one’s objectivity and rationality. It is a means of exerting control over others’ behavior, and it is learned before we reach puberty.
In his seminal book on detection of threats and how to prevent personal harm, “The Gift of Fear”, Gavin De Becker accurately identifies name-calling as a manipulative device that can cause people to respond in ways beneficial to a predator. The act of applying a derogatory name to a person places them in a category that others don’t want to be a part of. It causes the recipient of the label to want to behave in a way that counters the label, thereby being predictable and controllable. Name-calling has been used for centuries in wars to make it easier to treat human beings as mere things: “Raghead”, “Slopehead”, “Kraut”, “Slant-eye”. De Becker shows how rapists use name-calling to draw their victims closer: “Why are you so stuck-up?” says the predator, to which the targeted victim replies “I’m not!”, then proves their point by staying in contact with the predator until they are unable to flee.
So here is a clue for all of us: if we hear someone using derogatory name-calling, we know they are not interested in logic. They are simply dehumanizing their target for the purpose of being able to justify an assault on their character, or even their physical body. If we hear ourselves using name-calling, it is our clue that we have joined the perspective of labeling an enemy so that we can feel justified in our attack.
As Pogo rightly observes, if we continue to participate in such dehumanizing behavior, it’s equivalent to drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick. Dehumanizing other people only serves to strip away our own humanity. You can’t feel affinity, compassion and empathy unless you recognize and truly feel a common humanity. Each time we dehumanize someone else, we corrode our own self.
I am resolving to redouble my efforts to not label people, do no name-calling that demeans or insults. Sarcasm included. I’m also going to seek out people who didn’t vote the way I did and learn more about their concerns, their ideas, their hopes and fears. I have a hunch I will find nearly in every case that beneath the toxic rhetoric, there is someone who, like me, loves their family, wants a better future for their kids and grandchildren, enjoys the simple pleasures and would like more peace in their life.