We live in the day of shouting, name-calling, and rudeness. Such things make it a proper day to discuss respect.
Interrupting speech, also called talking over the speaker, was once considered discourteous but is now acceptable.
Intolerant disagreement is frequent. Civility has been under pressure since the end of the last century, correlated with the rise of the Internet.
Children mimic the trend, dismissive and contemptuous of classmates, reducing them in size, and bringing them to despair.
People work from home, and some stay there except for errands, walking the dog, and other necessities.
Making friends and going outside the fortress of one’s residence carries a risk in a world perceived as toxic.
No wonder so many sense that they are unseen and uncared for, with little experience of belonging.
Humans have become replacement parts. Their placement on the dumpster pile replaces their voice with a thud.
When the castle’s inhabitants peer down from on high, the faceless crowd below can be counted and considered for their utility. The palace’s inhabitants cheer on the unthinkable, and a surprising number of those considered underlings join in the carnage.
Why?
Hannah Arendt, philosopher and historian, remarked:
Before you can do the unthinkable to people, you have to make them superfluous, stripped of any place in the world where their existence matters to anyone.
Think about the implications of such a statement. It can apply to both those who will be victims and those who terrorize the vulnerable.
Let’s examine the latter.
People who are shunned, considered uneducated, and who work modest jobs in unfamiliar towns often have their ideas dismissed as worthless.
If Arendt is correct, when we ignore, reject, or belittle them, they are more likely to seek validation and attach to those in high places who appear to take their side.
To Arendt, “a person in that condition will reach for anything that restores a sense of significance, any movement that says ‘You are not nothing. You are part of something vast, something that is going to remake the world.'”
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Listening, ever since the last century, has become an act of kindness, and of community. A receptive ear is a sort of restorative potion and elixir for our tribalism. At least one step toward a worthwhile end.
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity,” wrote the French philosopher and activist Simone Weil.
In listening, we should observe our companion. Eye movements, tone of voice, changes in body position, smiles, tears, unstill hands and tremulous feet.
Weil offered suggestions on how best to listen.
Rather than an urgent preoccupation with what she would say to the one sitting near her, Weil tried to subtract herself, becoming both a sponge and mirror to absorb and reflect the other’s words and feelings.
She conveyed her regard for their value.
Mortals live to be afforded consideration as individuals of significance, not out of narcissism but out of necessity and the desire for companionship. Where this is lacking, they tend to welcome a place in any club that will applaud their membership—a spot for themselves.
Even better, to join a movement larger than life that offers self-esteem.
We search for logic in the troubling actions of others, assuming we are the logical ones. We call those who don’t side with us stupid, thinking them suckers when they cheer the grandiose and do their bidding.
Yet if the people one has depended on have failed you, perhaps it is not so illogical to believe in someone — anyone — who recognizes your pain. They offer you the attention you have longed for.
Hope supersedes despair. Being seen supersedes invisibility. Acceptance and stature supersede logic.
For many years, Industry and government have looked down their nose at those who cannot climb the lengthening rope up to the American Dream. The promise of a better life than their parents has been broken.
Ignored, they largely remained docile. Unquiet, the word “deplorables “ was attached to them by someone who should have known better. Others diminished the same group for clinging “to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them”
We, the people of the United States of America, rendered judgment. We, the people who were doing better, distanced ourselves from those who were not.
Perhaps we have begun to realize this.
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The top photo is of Simone Weil at age 13 in Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium, summer 1922. The final image is the logo of World Logic Day. It is the work of Jean-Yves Beziau. Both of these were sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
Thank you for another blog gem, Dr. Stein!
What you said here caught my eye: “For many years, Industry and government have looked down their nose at those who cannot climb the lengthening rope up to the American Dream. The promise of a better life than their parents has been broken.”
This reminded me of Dr. Helen Joy Policar’s (2010) article, “The Shadow of the American Dream: The Clash of Class Ascension and Shame” (DOI: 10.4298/REVN.31.1.19-31). Her article brought me to tears as she discussed her own personal accounts of shame as she began to upwardly mobilize. I stumbled on this article by accident over a decade ago, and it’s what got me through college as a nontraditional student (I was an undergrad in my 40s). I felt shame and fear as I upwardly mobilized through college as a disabled, middle-aged person. I never achieved the American Dream, but I strived for it – despite all of my adversities.
Not everyone can achieve the “American Dream”. Some become disabled. Some are discriminated against. Some had lived a hard life filled with unfortunate events.
And yet there are some who don’t believe the American Dream exists for all, or at least for them.
If the world feels unsafe, how can one engage with others? Given the loneliness epidemic, how can one safely connect on a deep enough level to feel belonged to some tribe that will accept them? If basic needs aren’t met, how can one achieve the American Dream let alone safety, love, and meaningful connections?
You have lived part of the experience I have written about, Gayle, so you know first hand what happens when trust is gone and injuries and disabilities make it more than difficult to attach to a group that might give one recognition and acceptance. I do not have absolute. and easy answers to your questions. That said, there are people who try to offer some of the quality that Simon Weil did in her short life. Such a person is essential. Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Gayle.
as painful as this is, looking inward and out at our current state of being, it speaks the truth and it speaks it loudly. any person who is not seen, heard, or validated in some way that helps to fill them, or feel good about themselves, will find it in any place that makes them feel like they belong. i’ve always thought it’s why people join a gang, just to be a part of something, or why they are vulnerable to cults, for the same reason. we all are in different circumstances, not one the same, and it’s so incredibly important to give affirmation to that, no matter how you might agree with it or not. sometimes if you get closer and listen, you hear why they are who they are, and an understanding blooms.
“Why they are and who they are.” Perfect, Beth. You are ahead of me in understanding something essential about the human condition. You have my applause and appreciation.
I’ve always some innate feel for the human condition and it’s gotten stronger over time with life experiences and challenges. I know it might be a simple statement, but I just love people, interacting and learning from them, and teaching and helping them.
I tend to be an empath, so I have to keep my balance –
The world is lucky to have you, Beth. Thanks!
An incredibly powerful essay, Dr. Stein. The power of listening, the slippery slope of other-ing people, and the need to belong. Wow, you have touched on so many important issues of today and made me see things in new light. Thank you!
Thank you, Wynne. I don’t think you have been alone in trying to understand how people come to at act in unimaginable ways under pressure. Many need a sense of belonging. It probably isn’t coincidental that religion affirming a movement can combine with it to create a trancendant belief in the righteousness of the cause. Please let me know if you have any other thoughts on the subject.
Ah. This post. It made me think of Nancy Schlossberg’s “marginality vs. mattering” and the importance of belonging needs. Universal, I’d say but in peril in so many ways – as you’ve described. Thank you so much for this nudge today, dear Dr. Stein. 💝
Thank you, Vicki. I am not acquainted with Schlossberg and her ideas. Thank you for your guidance regarding her work. Until a substantial number of people understand what is going on in the relational world, the “heaven sent” tribalism isn’t likely to go away, at least as I see it.
Agree, agree. Thank you, my friend.
An excellent post, Dr. Stein, and spot on about the poor state of human relationships across our nation. This is not by accident, as Hannah Arendt indicated in the statement cited in your article. In rendering the 95/99 Percent of us as superfluous or disposable, the minority power elite maintains its dominance.
Yes, some are already rendered superfluous and, as I see it, no single movement has caused it or let it happen. Your kudos are much appreciated, Rosaliene, all the more because I know you are concerned about the subject and thoughtful as view all our lives in this moment in history.
🙂 <3
Excellent, Dr. Stein! This sentence—”If Arendt is correct, when we ignore, reject, or belittle them, they are more likely to seek validation and attach to those in high places who appear to take their side”—highlights the main cause of the current problems we are facing as a country. As we witnessed in 2016 and 2024, when we don’t listen to the issues that people are raising—such as immigration, housing shortages, jobs, and healthcare, to name a few—people will listen to and follow whoever comes up with an “answer” to those issues, even if they are just talking points with no intention of solving the problems. We cut healthcare to save money, but we are asking congress for $1.5 trillion to cover Department of Defense expenses. We are also talking about $600 million for a ballroom, $16 million for the reflecting pool, and the Obama Presidential Center cost about $850 million. All of this seems irrational. People see this level of spending while they are living paycheck to paycheck and find it unbelievable. As a result, they will continue to raise their concerns with anyone willing to listen. And of course, I watched the Hannah Arendt video, and she is spot on.
Thank you, Edward. I agree with everything you said, but for one item. While the Obama Center is the 850 million you mentioned, it is reportedly already a big draw in Chicago and provides experiences that those who have attended, including their children, are more than pleased with. Additionally, the Obama Center was funded entirely by donations to the Obama Foundation.
The defense expenses will be funded by the America people. I wonder who is funding the ballroom and the reflecting pool, not to mention the destruction of portions of the White House, long believed to be “the people’s house.”? In any case, thanks again for your always thoughtful comments.
Sorry for the delay, but for some reason, I’m not getting notifications about new comments. I completely agree about the goodness of the new library. I think the problem is how citizens of this country see this big spending while so many are struggling. Clearly, it is not for a lack of resources, but where they are being allocated. I’m sure the current president will want to top what Obama did and will come up with a billion-dollar library. I just think that people with money should be pouring their millions into food banks, childcare support, housing, etc.
I am not a tech. person, Edward. Very sorry. Perhaps the best solution is to subscribe once more and see if that changes things.
I, too, am sensitive to the struggles of those who are jobless, unable to afford health insurance, and others who are working two or more jobs to make a living. My dad, who survived the depression, fell into the last of the group.
I don’t think Obama has much to do with what our president does. Moreover, it is possible that the Obama Presidential Center will draw enough people to fuel businesses like restaurants that will change the nature of the community in which it resides.
When it comes to helping others, we all have a responsibility. I donate to the food banks you mention and was the President of a college scholarship fund at Mather High School in Chicago, now an inner city school and my alma mater, created to help those who couldn’t easily afford to go to college.
At the time that we closed the scholarship in 2016, we had donated more money than all the other classes in the schools history, a history that began in 1959.
Well, now you’ve heard enough from me. Your comments are always thoughtful, even when I don’t agree with every detail. I am pleased we have made contact, Edward. Thank you again.
Thank you, Dr. Stein. I will definitely work on the subscription issue, and hopefully, that will fix the notification problem. Great feedback on the scholarship fund! I’m focusing on food banks and support for women who have escaped sex trafficking or sexual exploitation to help them find a way forward. I also donate to the universities I graduated from, though definitely not on a monthly basis. I think disagreements are good—relationships where people agree on everything are boring, in my view.