Sometimes I worry that the hearts of mankind are waxing icicle cold. Not waxing kinda cold, but a frozen-in-shape-about-to-fall-and-hurt-someone type of cold. It scares me. Maybe that’s not exactly accurate – it doesn’t actually scare me, but it saddens me. That’s probably a better way of putting it. It seems as though we are eager to pounce on one another to score points, and that just somehow doesn’t seem right.
I am blessed to work for amazing people. My employers look for every single possible way to find the good in people. When one of my bosses halfheartedly growled at someone who was verbally attacking him, me, another co-worker, our company, and more he immediately felt bad and apologized. I might think his reaction was justified, but it so refreshing to work for people who actually love all people and want to make the lives of everyone they come in contact with better.
That incident at work was juxtaposed with so much ugliness on social media. There was the now-viral case of a neurodiverse young man showing exuberant pride in his father. It was touching and heartwarming. The attacks on this young man were horrific.
This week I saw good people being publicly shamed on social media for political views that others within their religious traditions felt weren’t “faithful enough.” I talked to a person who felt judged when they attended church because they didn’t fit a certain mold of Christianity that was more political and less spiritual.
There was a letter I read penned by a young man who took his own life after he felt worthless for not trying to save a woman being raped on October 7th in Israel. He was scared for his own life – who wouldn’t have been, given the atrocities he bore witness to – and so he hid in the bushes while this woman was defiled and then murdered. He couldn’t live with what he felt was his shame, and so he took his life. The brutal responses to his obvious pain on social media broke my heart. How must his family have felt seeing the vitriol?
Reverend Raphael Warnock said the following this week: “I need the poor children of Israel and the poor children of Gaza, I need Israelis and Palestinians, I need those in the Congo, those in Haiti, those in Ukraine, I need American children on both sides of the track to be ok. We are all God’s children.” Oh, my goodness! You’d think he had suggested the most controversial belief, instead of putting in modern terms the answer Christ gave to the question, “who is my neighbor?” The prominent voices claiming that no, we aren’t all God’s children was quite chilling.
Recently an Olympic boxer who wasn’t aware she was intersex until she underwent mandated genetic testing was bullied mercilessly online by powerful people around the world. A female rugby player received threats because a rumor started that she was actually a male. Even the great swimmer Katie Ledecky was charged with being a male.
Golly gee willickers! We are just so darn anxious to fan the flames of controversy that we will relish and repeat almost any salacious story we hear. Democrats, Republicans, Independents are all anxious to believe the worst in those who disagree with them and then claim the most outlandish things to give support to their hatred. How unChristlike is that?!?
I get it. We live in a hyper-polarized political age, fueled by disinformation and click bait posts. Hype-politicization isn’t new to our era, and I’m not even suggesting that it is worse now than in any other time in history. I mean, during the presidential campaign of 1828, Rachel Jackson (Andrew Jackson’s wife) was so personally persecuted with venomous lies, that she reportedly said, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than live in that palace in Washington.” In 1856, Representative Preston Brooks went into the Senate and beat Charles Sumner with a cane until he was unconscious. He was treated as a hero by his constituents. We’ve had assassinations and wannabe assassinations. Sowing hatred is a time-honored tradition in the world.
What makes today different from any other time, however, is the rapid dissemination of cruelty. Someone posts something online and within minutes it is seen around the world. It feels as though there is sometimes a contest to see who can be the cruelest just so they can get the most “likes.” The more outrageous a person’s claims are, the more popular that person becomes. Cyber bullying has much further impacts than bullying did when I was a kid. Everything emotion is heightened in the online social media world. Now, instead of “mourning with those who mourn,” we are frequently off looking for conspiracies to blame the victims. Conspiracies are so much cooler than loving those who are hurting.
Let me state that it’s clearly okay to have differences of opinion, to not like everything everyone does, to have strong views. That is so incredibly healthy. What isn’t healthy is to mock others, to disregard people’s opinions without hearing them out, and to bully.
With that caveat, what can we do to stop the hatred? I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. I mean, I’m just one person, working for a small company, with a small number of co-workers and students. My influence is nigh unto infinitesimal. You might need a microscope to even find it. So again, what can I do?
I’d say the first step is to recognize that we are all children of God and to treat each other that way. Trust that the vast majority of people have good intentions. If a story or rumor sounds super insane, don’t repeat it until it has been verified by reliable sources. Speak kindly to and about other people. Look for ways to serve those who believe differently that you do. Stand up for those being bullied – whether the person being persecuted is someone you know or not.
Joseph Smith wrote, “whatsoever thing is virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” These are words to live by. Look for the good, not the bad, in people and I honestly believe that we will see a much better and happier world. I’d love it if we could become, “undivided.”
Look to God and Live... Joyfully! 