Name Calling

Look, name calling, though seemingly benign, leads to a pattern of dehumanization. Over time and when utilized on the mass platforms of social media and nationally televised rallies, it creates sort of a normalization effect. People become accustomed to the behavior and even begin to feel as if they are part of the “in” crowd by cheering it on. It also gives people the false idea that they are disconnected from the ones they are belittling. Yep, the purpose of name calling is to belittle a person, to make them seem less valuable. It is that simple. We teach this in preschool. We need to remember that we are not safe from consequence. We are not as far from our fellow man as we might believe. When we speak of our “enemies” as a group it is easy to forget that they are not faceless. They are not …show more content…
Maybe we have devolved too much to understand the simple truths and connections we have with each other. Maybe we prefer anger and the power we feel when it overcomes us. What I do know is this-when you only surround yourself with ideas and people that bolster your beliefs, you are choosing to be ignorant. It becomes easy to walk into that valley of intolerance. When we call those that disagree with us an enemy, traitor, terrorist or whatever the Slam Du Jour is, we are willfully and purposefully removing the responsibility of truth from the conversation. We have become unpatriotic in our patriotism. We have become lost in our own beguilement, incessant in our need to snare our prey in half-truths in order to perpetuate a war without spoils. There is no winner here. It is time to put down the pitch forks and goddamn torches. It is time we clear the smoke so we can see our "enemies" as the actual people they are, not the demonic caricatures that prop up our preferred narratives. If we can begin to even just think about doing that, we can move much closer to something that resembles unity and the America I pine