America is being torn apart, but our problem isn’t that we’re too angry at each other. It’s not that we disagree too much. It’s not even incivility or intolerance. The heart of the problem is contempt—our habit of treating people who disagree with us not just as wrong or misguided in their views, but as worthless. You’ve probably noticed this, because we see contempt everywhere we look in public life. On TV. On social media. From public figures. It’s probably affecting your life, too: one in six Americans has stopped talking to close friends and family over politics. Contempt is making us miserable and keeping us from making progress as a society. How can we fight back?
What is contempt?
Think about the last time you were angry at someone—maybe you got in a fight with a friend, or your spouse, or a colleague. Were you hoping to erase that person from your life? Of course not. You wanted that person to right whatever wrong they’d done to you. That’s what anger is supposed to do—help us resolve conflicts.
Contempt is different. It involves anger, but it adds another emotional ingredient: disgust. The result of combining these two feelings is akin to what happens when you pour ammonia into bleach: you get a dangerous, toxic compound. Because while anger says “I care about this and want to fix our relationship,” contempt says, “You are beneath caring about.” It leads to permanent enemies, and it harms our happiness and our health.
A psychologist named John Gottman has spent 40 years studying marital reconciliation and is arguably the world’s leading expert in what makes relationships work. In fact, he can sit down with a couple for just one hour, and after listening to them talking about their relationship, he can predict with 94 percent accuracy whether they will divorce within three years. What’s the giveaway? Indicators of contempt: sarcasm, sneering, hostile humor, and especially eye-rolling.
So contempt is clearly bad for marriages. But aren’t there some people out there who deserve our contempt?
There are some pretty bad ideas out there, but contempt is always the wrong response for two reasons. The first is that dismissing voices on the fringes leaves those voices unchallenged by people of goodwill and excludes the possibility of getting them to reconsider their views. The second reason to say no to contempt is that it’s terrible for us as individuals. Experiencing contempt increases anxiety, depression, and jealousy. It harms our sleep quality. And it causes a comprehensive degradation of our immune systems. But this isn’t just the case when you are treated with contempt. It’s also the case when you treat others with contempt.
Practice Warmheartedness
So if contempt is so bad for us, what can we do to overcome its grip on our culture? To answer this question, I asked the wisest man I know, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His answer? Practice warm-heartedness. Now, that may sound soft or idealistic to you. But coming from the Dalai Lama, this is actually tough and bracing advice. You see, the Dalai Lama leads the Tibetan Buddhist people, who were driven into exile by the communist Chinese government when he was just a teenager. Nevertheless, he begins each day by praying that China’s leaders lead a good and happy life. If the Dalai Lama can practice warm-heartedness in the face of persecution and exile, we can practice warm-heartedness toward people we disagree with here at home. To get you started, here are a few practical suggestions that will help us fight contempt with warm-heartedness.
Contempt is different. It involves anger, but it adds another emotional ingredient: disgust.
Stand up for others
Number one: Follow the 5 to 1 rule. Offer five encouraging, positive comments for every one criticism, whether in person or on social media. You might be an outlier on Twitter or in your friend group, but you’ll be a magnetic force for warm-heartedness.
Number two: Stand up for people who aren’t in the room. Most of us don’t have many friends on the “other side” these days, which makes it easier to trash the people who aren’t around. But if you hear your friends who agree with you saying contemptuous things about the people you disagree with, speak up. Don’t be a jerk about it, but gently defend the people who aren’t represented.
Number three: Ask yourself who in your life you’ve treated with contempt—who you’ve mocked or dismissed when you disagreed. Maybe it’s a family member, maybe it’s a colleague. But gather up some courage and apologize. It’ll be scary—but it’s the right thing to do, and I'll tell you what, it'll set your heart on fire.
Moving Forward
If we can say no to contempt, and embrace warm-heartedness, our problems won’t disappear overnight. But if we’re willing to commit to a renewed national culture based in solidarity and love, we’ll be happier people, and can build a movement that will make America the country that we—and the world—need it to be.
Arthur C. Brooks is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Public and Nonprofit Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. He is also a columnist for The Atlantic, global speaker, and author. His latest book, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, is entitled Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier (Portfolio/Penguin, 2023).
This article is an excerpt from an American Enterprise Institute video (March 14, 2019) that discusses his book Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt, and is printed with permission. The full video can be found below.