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You likely have heard about this popular new slogan, “Make America Kind Again,” which has been a recent variation on Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.” The sentiment is a reaction to the remarkable meanness, rancor, and base insults that have been commonplace in our current political environment and most especially with the recent Republican primary debates and elections.
When you reflect on this saying, perhaps it speaks volumes regarding the need for all of us to do our part in making our country and communities more kind. We live in a highly competitive environment with a high tolerance for rudeness and debasement. Politics provide only one obvious example of how it has become increasingly acceptable to behave in venomous and degrading ways towards others. We certainly see models of this in the popular media, sports, politics, business, and so forth. And in fact, the more outrageous and unkind some people are the more they seem rewarded and reinforced. They certainly get plenty of attention. This appears true in politics, talk radio, cable news reporting, celebrity culture, and even among many high tech business leaders.
Yet, in the deepest parts of our psyche I do believe that we recoil from this new normal way of interacting with each other. At the end of the day we value and appreciate kindness, civility, integrity, and wish to live in a community that also values these qualities. While our culture, community, and politics might atrophy and gravitate towards meanness we really must do all that we can to push back and push back hard by demanding kindness, civility, and integrity, and not allow the rudest in the room to get too much air time, attention, and reinforcement. After all, these are behaviors we would never tolerate or encourage in our children, neighbors, friends, or colleagues.
We can certainly make America kind again if we demand that we and others maintain a level of civility in our interactions. Both speaking up against this growing boorishness and holding ourselves to these higher standards of communicating with others can positively contribute to this civil fabric of our society, while pushing back against the rising tide of "in your face" politics.
I often say that we must let respect and kindness be an organizing and centering principle for all that we say and do. If we try to always base our interactions on these important and fundamental qualities then we will do our small part in making America kind again. And if America is kind again, then America will get closer to the goal of being great again too.
Can you do your part? Will you?
So, what do you think?
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Copyright 2016 Thomas G. Plante, PhD, ABPP
