Keeping It Human

"How can people be so mean to each other?"  If you have never heard that question or asked it, you probably live under a rock.  I have heard it over and over as I have worked with churches in conflict.  And it is a question worth answering.

In his article, "Hope on the Battlefield," Dave Grossman reviews the studies of battlefield kill rates in the history of western warfare.  In the wake of World War II, studies revealed that the majority of American soldiers did not fire at the enemy.  In fact, it appeared that only about fifteen to twenty percent of the soldiers did actually shoot to kill anyone.  What caused this phenomenon was "the simple and demonstrable fact that there is, within most men and women, an intense resistance to killing other people--a resistance so strong that in many circumstances, soldiers on the battlefield will die before they can overcome it."

This created problems for the military--problems that have been overcome through intentional training. According to Grossman, that training involves three elements: desensitization, psychological conditioning and denial.  This triad makes up what one expert described as "manufactured contempt."

How can people be so mean to each other?  I was struck by the presence of contempt as the determining factor.  John Gottman points to the same attitude as one of the coffin nails of a marriage in trouble. Gottman refers to contempt as the second horseman of the marital apocalypse.  Contempt leads to disgust.  These emotions permit us to regard another person as less than human.  That is the basic requirement for meanness on the part of most people.

In marital breakdowns, the same elements exist as in warfare.  Couples gradually lose their sensitivity to one another's pain.  They train one another through repeated dysfunctional exchanges to treat each other badly and to respond in kind.  And they begin to deny the humanity of the other person.  Once that happens, the end of the marriage is clearly in sight.

I see this in high conflict divorce situations.  When one of the parties curls an upper lip in disgust and derision, I know that we probably need to call for a brief recess in the process.  Once contempt is unleashed and disgust is expressed, it can be very difficult to pull the conversation back on to a civilized basis.  People who are disgusted with one another will say things that they would not say to other people even on their worst days.  Of course, if you are disgusted with someone then you believe you aren't dealing with people at all.

That's the point.

The same thing happens in church conflicts.  Perfectly reasonable people begin to describe each other as monsters, freaks and demons. That is the necessary condition for treating another human inhumanely.  Think about how the victims of genocide have been described.  The Nazis described the Jews as dangerous vermin needing to be exterminated.  Hutus referred to Tutsis as inyenzi, a Kinyarwanda word meaning "cockroach."  Couples in disintegrating marriages will use dehumanizing terms for one another as well.  It's easier to squasha cockroach than it is to hurt another person.

So in high conflict situations, it is always necessary to pull people back from the depths of disgust.  It can help in some mediations to ask--in private caucus--each parent if the other party is a relatively good parent.  That can restore some humanity to the perceptual mix.  Sometimes parties will become vulnerable enough through tears and frustration to allow the other to connect to them again as people. In church conflicts, I fight doggedly against ever allowing any conflictor to describe the other as demonic. A frenzy to kill is never far from any such description.

So, let's keep each other as human as we can.  Then it's not so easy for people to be so mean to each other.