I’m noticing a disturbing trend online that only seems to be getting worse. Perhaps it’s always been this bad, but it really feels like it’s growing. The trend is people using words to dehumanize others that they don’t agree with.

The reason for this was explained nicely in Peter Bevelin’s book “Seeking Wisdom“:

“We tend to dislike people who have been dehumanized – for example, people who have been described as evil or animals.”

It’s a strong tactic to use, but it’s really a classless thing to do. While we see a variety of words aimed at politicians in order to make them seem less human, the most common I’ve noticed lately is calling undocumented immigrants “illegals”.

I have no desire to get into a debate about border control and immigration, as it’s a complicated issue that doesn’t have an easy answer. However, if you want to complain about those coming across the border and you want to make your stance look right, dehumanizing those people is a place where many people choose to start.

Ryan Eller, the executive director of the group Define American sees it this way:

“‘illegals’ is being used as a noun, which implies that a human being is perpetually illegal. There is no other classification that I’m aware of where the individual is being rendered as illegal as opposed to the actions of that individuals.”

I see this in politics quite a lot, but it can boil over into many different aspects of life. I think healthy debate on most political topics (including immigration) is a great thing, but when someone stoops down to dehumanization to try to make their point, I learn about their moral fiber very quickly.

Fight hard for what you believe, but choose your words carefully.

I tend to think I’m a rather even-keeled guy. I rarely raise my voice, and generally don’t let my emotions get too high or too low. Measuring the “worst” in someone is often a good benchmark of what to expect from them. It’s also why I very much dislike the phrase “if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best“, as I imagine the “worst” in folks like that is pretty rough.

In the book “The Black Swan“, author Nassim Nicholas Taleb puts it like this:

“If you want to get an idea of a friend’s temperament, ethics, and personal elegance, you need to look at him under the tests of severe circumstances, not under the regular rosy glow of daily life.”

Work to keep yourself in check under bad circumstances, and you’ll be a better person to be around for everyone that knows you.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen quite a few people express outrage at the media “taking our attention with the next big story”. It’s often framed as a way to hide “what’s really going on”, but I see it simply as media outlets doing their job.

A great example of this was the Russia-Ukraine war. As COVID coverage began to die down, coverage of that conflict ramped up. Of course it did. The media isn’t out to hide some big secret agenda; they just want your attention so they can make more money.

In “Fooled By Randomness“, author Nassim Nicholas Taleb says:

“People do not realize that the media is paid to get your attention. For a journalist, silence rarely surpasses any word.”

Tomorrow, next week, next year, the media will have a “big story” that you just can’t miss. It might really be a big story, it might not be, but they’ll be pushing it all the same. You may be wise to just ignore much of what the media pushes out, but either way it’s important to realize that the next big story is just the way they do their jobs.

We’re stuck in a weird place in our world right now, where people are feeling like they have to set up firm boundaries around their beliefs. There’s also the angle that if you take one position, like supporting gun rights, you are forced to take a particular position on a separate subject, like opposing abortion rights. Very rarely do people choose just one of those items.

Instead, I encourage people to soften those boundaries and tackle each issue as an independent idea, which is exactly what it is. As Gary Vaynerchuk would say, be more purple (not just a “red” or “blue” political supporter).

We also have the issue of considering both sides of an issue. Take gun rights, for example — most people think you’re either for or against, but there is a lot of middle ground. Shankar Vedantam calls this “integrated complexity“, and it’s a powerful idea to grasp.

In his book “The Black Swan“, author Nassim Nicholas Taleb puts it this way:

“Categorizing is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries.”

If you lean to one side politically on a variety of issues, that’s certainly fine, but be willing to cross to the “other side” on various issues if that’s what really makes more sense.