There's Nothing Brave About Retaliatory Hate

Retaliatory hate isn't boldness, and civility isn't weakness.

I spoke to a friend recently who has a reputation for being unkind towards people of the other political party. I asked him why he hated them. He told me a story about how one of them did something pretty awful to him.

You can guess whether this story describes a Democrat or a Republican, a DEI advocate or a member of the anti-woke. It doesn't matter. The truth is that this cycle has played out too many times to count. Members of X tribe do something terrible to a person in Y tribe, who then retaliates by doing terrible things to other members of X tribe, who then retaliate by….

We're stuck in a cycle of what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called "retaliatory hate." I think the only way out is a return to civility.

A lot of people today think that civility is the way of the coward. If a man insults you, then you should insult him back. You should stand up for yourself, rather than meekly taking whatever he dishes out. But King saw that this was backwards. For King, the foundation of the civil rights movement was nonviolent love. By 'nonviolence' he didn't just mean a refusal to punch a man who punched you; he meant a refusal to insult or tear down another man in any way. As King described it in Stride Toward Freedom, nonviolent love "avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent but he also refuses to hate him. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love."

King stressed that this is "not a method for cowards." When a person hits you, the easiest thing in the world is to hit them back. If you hit them hard enough, you can incapacitate them such that they can't ever hit you again. Even if you can't, the very act of hitting them involves armoring your own psychology against their accusation. If I call someone a terrible enough person, then they lose status in my eyes. If they lose enough status, then their insults towards me lose their sting.

By contrast, it takes immense courage when a person insults you to respond with love and kindness. It requires laying down your armor and baring your breast to their next strike. It involves admitting to yourself that they're a fellow human being and that you care about them, and therefore you care what they say to you; and further, it requires granting them the leverage of knowing this fact too.

This is not a method for cowards.

Indeed, King's call for nonviolent love was such a high standard that not all men were able to rise to meet it. Civil rights leader John Lewis describes the training required to develop the self-discipline to take a man's verbal (and even physical) abuse and not strike back. As Lewis said, "There were even people who would say, 'I cannot go on the sit-ins. I cannot go on the freedom ride. I may not be disciplined enough.'"

If civility demands so much of us, then the logical next question is: is it worth it? I think the answer is a resounding yes. When it comes to enacting political change, civility is a potent weapon. Listening to people on the other side with love and empathy can thaw their hearts, which is the crucial first step to changing their minds. As my friend Mónica Guzmán, senior fellow at Braver Angels, told me in an interview:

"People can hear best when they're heard. The kindness of receiving people's ideas openly, of listening to them and trying to understand them before jumping in to judge them or react to them, tends to unlock people. We feel more comfortable speaking up, taking risks, and opening up our own minds. Research into intellectual humility and receptiveness in conversation shows this over and over. Listening is kind, and it works."

As David McRaney puts it in his book How Minds Change, "An engaged, curious, and compassionate listener is far more persuasive than any fact or figure."

Civility doesn't mean meek acceptance or passivity towards evil. Instead, it represents resistance using the most profound weapon at our disposal. It represents a weapon so powerful that it doesn't merely beat the opposition but destroys it utterly. As Abraham Lincoln said, "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

One reason that civility works so well is that it holds up a mirror to our political opponents. If someone insults me on Twitter and I insult them back, then suddenly my behavior becomes a post-hoc justification for their own: "Of course I was justified in insulting Julian, look how bad he is." Even worse, "Look how bad Julian is" can morph in my interlocutor's head into "Look how bad every member of Julian's tribe is" via the psychological process known as generalization. By contrast, if I stay civil, then I hold up a mirror to my opponent's viciousness. They have to seriously ask themselves why they were so comfortable attacking someone who's clearly not interested in fighting back. I've seen this lead to soul-searching and even renewed curiosity about the political beliefs of mine that my interlocutor was attacking.

The second benefit of being civil is that it helps me sleep at night. Partly this is because, as a Christian, I'm always cognizant of Jesus' command to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). When I take an action that's in line with what I hear God calling me to do, I find more peace and joy. But I think another reason is that fear has dominated my life for decades (seriously, in my 20s I was scared to go on water slides). I don't think I'm alone in experiencing high levels of fear, especially around politics (A 2016 poll found that 70 percent of highly-engaged Democrats and 62 percent of highly-engaged Republicans felt "afraid" of the other party). But the best way to combat our fear is to do the thing that we're afraid of. When we take an act of courage, the voice of fear in our heads becomes a little bit less loud. 

So here's our action item this week, as a community of practice. The next time someone from the other side attacks you or insults you, turn the other cheek. You might be surprised at what happens next.

And then let us know how it went.

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