The world needs less anger and meanness. It needs more kindness, compassion, and good manners.
We seem to have worked ourselves into a state of continuous political and social rage. News outlets fuel our negative emotions by feeding us stories about some bad thing a commentator, political leader, or public figure has done or said.
Instead of the perpetual peace Immanuel Kant envisioned,[1] we live in perpetual indignation, outrage, and fury.
This condition is not good for our individual mental health. Neither is it good for the body politic. Our public discourse, our democracy, is suffering.
Righteous anger is necessary in the moral lives of individuals and groups. Like the body’s immune system, our moral emotions help protect us against falling into or tolerating bad behavior. Groups could not function as groups if we did not quickly recognize and react to misconduct without having to engage in a lengthy analysis about why, say, maligning a co-worker is a bad thing. Our moral emotions help us do that.
Like the range of negative moral emotions (annoyance, indignation, anger, outrage, wrath, fury), our immune systems release hormones and other chemicals to fight viruses, bacteria, and toxins and help us ward off infections and serious illnesses.
Medical science has established, however, that lingering immune system activity can become chronic inflammation which may negatively affect the body’s tissues and organs. Some research indicates that chronic inflammation could enhance the likelihood of various diseases from cancer to asthma.[2]
Could it be that a constant diet of news featuring the outrageous deeds of people with opposing political views is having a similar effect on our mental health? Perhaps even our physical health as well?
Decades back, the great Jewish scholar, David Flusser,[3] reminded his Berlin audience, “Jesus said ‘relax.’” Nowhere in the New Testament does a statement attributed to Jesus contain the word “relax.” But those familiar with the moral message of the teacher from Galilee can see that word as part of his teaching.
Relax, step back, consider how the other person sees the world and why she might see it that way. Yes, you believe she is wrong, misguided, perhaps even malevolent. It does you no good to explode in fury over her mistakes or even bad behavior. And reactions of this sort do not help the relationship.
Try a little kindness. Consider compassion. Whatever she is doing, practice responding with good manners and constructive comments—or silence. As Aesop said, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
Kindness is contagious. Be a carrier.
[1] See Perpetual Peace, Wikipedia.
[2] See, e.g., Rossana Scrivo, Massimiliano Vasile, Izabella Bartosiewicz, and Guido Valesini, “Inflammation as “common soil” of the multifactorial diseases,” 10 Autoimmunity Reviews 369 (2011).
[3] See David Flusser, Wikipedia