(Un)Justifiable Cruelty

Like many people of Russian descent, I suffer from the occasional temper.  Today I had a brush with my own dark side.  At work I lost my temper on a biller who had been making mistakes in her billing files.  After I calmed down, I wrote an email apologizing, and then I spoke to the liaison for the biller’s company.  I felt better after speaking to the liaison, who agreed with my concern, but as I hung up the phone I realized just how easy it is to transform into a monster.

Robots Lack Emotions & care not for people's feelings.

The monstrous thing is not that I lost my temper.  While losing my temper is hardly a good thing, the real frightening thing is how we as a society justify being rude, mean, or downright cruel to others.  Yelling at the biller accomplished nothing, and it certainly made her job all the more stressful.  The liaison helped remedy the situation, but in the end left me with a small feeling of vindication.  The problem is, it’s irrelevant whether we’re correct or incorrect; being “right” does not give us Carte Blanche to hurt other peoples’ feelings.

We live in a winning-obsessed culture.  Not only do we love being right and hate being wrong, but we believe that if we are factually correct that means we are in the right.  The internet has always been the playground where our argumentative nature comes out to play.  Facebook, in particular, has dragged out the worst in many of us.  I use Facebook as the example because unlike debating politics on a forum where your opponent is a stranger, on Facebook people debate politics with their friends, family, coworkers, and classmates. 

We get so caught up in proving our message that we forget the subtext and the impact on our relationship with others.  Unfortunately an argument may prove a point while being demeaning to others.  You may “win” an argument while successfully belittling someone you otherwise love and care about.  In this phenomenon our opinions become more important to us than people.  It’s not to say that our ideology lacks merit, or isn’t standing for the right thing, but our presentation of our ideology is harmful and disrespectful to others.

Differences of ideology are nothing new, but when we are not standing face to face with the people we break down with debate we forget their humanity.  We cannot always prevent others from taking offense.  Even words without an intent to harm can still be hurtful, but we must have the wisdom to recognize when we are in the wrong even if our facts or our ideology is correct.  Tone matters, as does the method by which we deliver our message.  We must have the courage to admit when we are in the wrong.  When we feel vindicated at hurting the feelings of someone around us because we were “right” then we become monsters.  We like to believe that evil is found in large actions, but frequently it is the small ways in which we try to justify cruelty that we create evil in the world.