Recent media attention has raised curiosity about the Dignity Index – our eight-point scale that measures how we treat each other when we disagree. Some people seem pleased with the project; others appear irritated. A typical social media post recently said that our call for dignity was “a slap in the face to people being deeply hurt right now.”
This is a common view in a culture of contempt – the conviction that if you don’t attack the other side, you’re enabling them. You’re “letting them get away with it.”
We believe this reflects the biggest blind spot in American politics today – the damage we do to our country when we treat each other with contempt.
Dr. John Gottman, drawing on more than fifty years of research into the psychology of relationships, says: “contempt is poisonous.” He calls it “a form of psychological abuse” and says “It never resolves things. It always leads to more conflict.”
Dr. Arthur Brooks, former head of the American Enterprise Institute, says in his book, Love Your Enemies, “When somebody around you treats you with contempt, you never quite forget it. So, if we want to solve the problem of polarization today, we have to solve the contempt problem.”
Dr. Donna Hicks, an international conflict resolution specialist and author of the book Dignity, says that “Along with our survival instincts, the yearning to be treated with dignity is the single most powerful force motivating our behavior... If we violate someone’s dignity repeatedly, we will get a divorce or a war or a revolution — because a desire for revenge is an instant response to a dignity violation.”
We all know what contempt is – it’s looking down on someone else, calling them names, attacking their character, blaming them for what’s wrong.
We are wholeheartedly opposed to contempt – but not because it’s impolite. We’re opposed to it because it leads to hostility, anger, division, and violence. We’re against it because it leads us to hate each other – and a country whose citizens hate each other does not have a bright future.
Honoring people’s dignity does not mean softening our passions on any matter of principle. It doesn’t call on us to drop any conviction, but to add one: that everyone should be treated with dignity and no one should be treated with contempt.
And treating people with dignity is a much more effective way of holding people accountable. Instead of calling them names or attacking their character, we focus narrowly on facts, actions, decisions, and outcomes. It puts attention on the issue, not the individual. If we truly want to fix a problem, we have to find its cause, and the cause will always be found in facts. Contempt starts a fight that distracts us from the facts, and that serves the cause of people who don’t want to be held accountable.
Even if your cause is just, even if what you say is true, if you express it with contempt for the other side, it increases divisions, makes enemies, and undercuts your cause.
We all use contempt. It’s a natural response to pain and frustration. But most everyone thinks their contempt is good contempt, a virtuous response to the evil of the other side. So, we don’t see the damage we do to our country when we use contempt.
That’s the point of scoring with the Dignity Index – to pierce the blind spot. When people first hear about the Index, they think it’s a tool for judging others, but when they use it, they find it’s a mirror for seeing themselves. Contempt is easy to recognize when we see it from the other side, but it’s shocking when we suddenly see it in ourselves. When we see it, we don’t like it, and many of us begin to use more dignity and less contempt – then we start to expect the same from people around us. That’s how the culture begins to change.
It’s a long, hard path. But there is growing attention on the issue of dignity, and this gives us a chance to create a revolution in the way we treat each other. It’s not a crazy hope.
There is nothing that Americans love more than a redemption story. A person who’s fallen and risen is far more beloved in our country than someone who’s never fallen before. This is good news – because millions of us have fallen for the false promise of contempt, and now we all have a chance to rise.
