ESSAY: A turning point
On Charlie Kirk, civic contempt, and the endangered idea at democracy's heart
1. Couples therapists will tell you it’s not fighting that worries them. It’s contempt that often proves fatal to a relationship.
2. What America is living through is not just disagreement, division, polarization; it is, above all, swelling civic contempt.
3. Disagreement, division, polarization are in the territory of “I think this way; you think that.” Civic contempt is different. It brings in attitudes of dismissal, fatalism; it imagines the adversary to be nothing more and nothing less than the views they hold in contrast to yours; it denies to the other the complexity we know in ourselves; it is built on a sense that people can’t change.
4. The assassination of Charlie Kirk, or before that of Melissa and Mark Hortman, or before that of Brian Thompson, or the attempts on the lives of Donald Trump and Paul Pelosi and Gretchen Whitmer — these acts are invariably committed by individuals with idiosyncratic stories and beliefs. But they are the magmic core of an entire culture losing its faith in the democratic method of changing things.
5. We must say, again and again, that this is not how you get the world you want. Never like this. It’s not right, and it doesn’t work. It achieves nothing. It simply pushes the country one step further down the road so that one day soon it will be someone you like instead of loathe meeting their own bullet in their own neck.
6. But we must show more than tell. When the society feels to so many like a giant conspiracy not to help them, not to see their pain and fix their problems, when that feeling festers day after hour, decade after year, something curdles in the blood. A sense of being cosmically uncared for spreads. A sense that no one is coming, that you are on your own. And very quickly on the heels of these feelings comes the feeling that, if you want it done, you better do it. Because no one hears and nothing works, there is a dangerous descent into cheering somebody, anybody, who does something.
7. The moment when the gun goes off is when we pay attention, but it always begins long before. And not in the extreme act itself but in the encircling culture that fosters it, that is causing these things to happen more and more. And it is a culture we all participate in. Few of us would ever contemplate barbarism like this. But most of us participate in the ways of looking, the ways of judging, the ways of writing off, the ways of civic contempt, that make barbarism more probable, that give it permission.
8. We dehumanize; we demonize; we essentialize; we confuse victims with perpetrators; we deny people the dignity of complexity. We imagine there can be no good reason to think differently. We cut people off instead of remembering that the person we have loved for decades is still in there somewhere, right behind their opinions. We confuse our own discomfort with danger, imagining that people who need help are a menace to us. We roll our eyes at each other’s fears, instead of taking those fears seriously, which is not the same as validating the claims inflaming it.
9. There are so many places and junctures to intervene to stop carnage like this: where guns are sold or not, where mental healthcare is given or not, where security is properly orchestrated or not, where leaders encourage violence or don’t. But you don’t need to know a thing about who did this one, or that one, or the other one, to know that no one is safe until we address the chronic illness in our body politic itself.
10. Democracy is, in the beginning and in the end, a belief that we can live together despite difference and choose the future together. It is a beautifully reckless idea, because it is hard enough for a family to decide what to have for dinner. But it works; in fact, it works better than all the other systems. It is built on the idea that the way to change the world around you is to try to change others’ minds. This would have surprised some of our ancestors, who found it easier to draw a sword. What is at stake now is whether we can defend the idea, and the lived belief, that you change things by changing people. We must tell this to people. More importantly, we must show it.
This is brilliant. Brilliant. I can feel the care and empathy radiating from this piece like the early morning September sun. I can feel the truth of this in my own world of insufficient empathy and care for those who don't share my "evolved" views of the politics of this time. Contempt is everywhere, ready to burst into flame on every street corner, at every dining table. I was one of those couples therapists. For years, I waded into deep currents of contempt and tried to change the dynamic with empathy and deep understanding of the other. It worked. I watched shoulders relax, bodies soften, love return. It was divine work. People came to me for help and I was there. But there is no one knocking on my door now. I believe care is the one thing that I can offer right now to this moment of burning. But I confess, I don't know how to spread that care far or wide enough. I must reach beyond my circles into circles where I would find discomfort and disagreement and my own contempt would rise. How to do this? Where to do this? I don't see a clear path for myself. No shingle to hang out. But your piece helps me so much to confirm that this is the work ahead that counts. Thank you.
Thank you so much for this. Our societal forest is parched and brittle, and this toss of a lit cigarette of assassination is terrifying. Thank you for continuing to be a bit of rain that nourishes. Your wise, calm guidance is vital as we try to navigate the chaos and fear.