remember when being decent mattered

 

i remember when being decent mattered

Remember when kindness was a strength, not something people mistook for weakness?

I remember a time before Donald Trump started campaigning for president, when the world felt different. Not perfect. We had racism, violence, poverty, war and inequality long before Trump came along. I remember those things, too.

But something has changed.

Over the past decade, I have watched public conversations become increasingly rude, aggressive and hostile. Things that once might have caused public outrage are now shrugged off as just another day in politics. Insults become entertainment. Cruelty becomes a punchline. Racism gets defended as an opinion, and treating other people with basic respect somehow becomes a political statement.

I keep wondering how we got here.

When did being loud become more important than being thoughtful? When did humiliating another person become a show of strength? When did wealth and power start giving people the impression that ordinary rules no longer apply to them?

And what are we teaching our children?

Kids growing up today may not remember a world before this became so commonplace. They see politicians insulting people, wealthy individuals behaving as though they are entitled to everything, and public figures rewarded with attention for saying the most outrageous things. If that is what they see every day, how are they supposed to know that things can be different?

I remember when people could disagree without every disagreement becoming a war. I remember when you could have a conversation with someone who saw the world differently without necessarily treating them as an enemy. We didn't all agree, and we certainly weren't all kind, but there was still a sense that how you treated other people mattered.

At least, that is how I remember it.

Perhaps that is why this change feels so unsettling. It isn't simply about one politician or one country. It is about the example set by people who hold influence, and the way their behaviour can spread into everyday life.

When leaders repeatedly demean others, people can begin to see that behaviour as acceptable. When the wealthy appear insulated from consequences while ordinary people struggle to afford housing, food and the necessities of life, resentment grows. When people are divided into enemies and allies, compassion can disappear beneath the noise.

Donald Trump did not invent racism, greed, inequality or cruelty. Those things have been with us for centuries. But his rise to political power helped bring a particular style of aggressive, insulting and divisive behaviour into the centre of public life. His supporters may see his approach as speaking plainly or fighting an establishment they distrust. Others see it as normalizing conduct that damages public trust and encourages hostility.

We can acknowledge those differences without pretending that words and actions have no consequences.

And the disparity between rich and poor matters. There is something deeply wrong with a society in which some people accumulate fortunes beyond anything they could reasonably need, while others cannot find a safe, affordable place to live. Wealth does not make someone more deserving of dignity, and poverty does not make anyone less worthy of it.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about homelessness, inequality, the environment and the way we treat one another. These are not separate issues. They all ask us the same question: what kind of society are we building, and who gets left behind?

I don't want children to grow up believing that cruelty is confidence, that prejudice is courage, or that having money makes someone better than everyone else.

I want them to know that there is strength in kindness. There is courage in standing up for someone being mistreated. There is dignity in admitting when we are wrong. And there is nothing weak about treating another human being with respect.

We don't need to pretend the past was a golden age. Many people were excluded, silenced and mistreated, and their experiences deserve to be remembered honestly. But we can still recognize that the way we speak to one another, the behaviour we reward and the people we choose to honour all shape the world we leave behind.

Maybe that is what troubles me most about these strange times. We have extraordinary technology, more access to information than any generation before us, and the ability to communicate across the globe in seconds. Yet we seem to be struggling with some very basic questions about empathy, responsibility and fairness.

We can do better than this.

Being decent should not be controversial. Kindness should not be political. And no amount of wealth, fame or power should put anyone above the responsibility to treat others humanely.

I remember when I believed those things were understood by more people.

I want the next generation to know they are still worth believing in.

Because the world doesn't become better simply because time passes. It becomes better when we decide that some things are worth standing up for.

And decency is one of them.

— Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

I blog about nouns — people, places and things; even when negative I try to put a positive spin on it.

HumanDecency #KindnessMatters #SocialChange #PoliticalCulture #WealthInequality #Racism #Empathy #FutureGenerations #HumanRights #ChooseCompassion