When did Cruelty become entertainment?

I grew up in a household where the saying “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” ruled. It seems quaint and very antiquated these days, but the reality is there were boundaries around the way we treated each other. There was an expectation at home, in schools and in the workplace that we as a civilized society held the standard of common courtesy, civility and kindness toward one another. There has always been what we called the “bully.” The person who makes fun of someone who had a difficult time defending themselves. But over the past few years this style of cruelty has escalated to a level I have never seen in my lifetime.

When reality TV began back in the late 1950s it was around celebrities on shows such as, What’s My Line? It was benign fun and a glimpse into the world of the rich and famous. Fast forward 50 years and reality shows of the last 20 years have catapulted us into an arena of unhealthy competitiveness, voyeurism and a witness to verbal cruelty that glorifies our darkest nature.

It feeds off our inadvertent comparison of our own lives to that of our favorite people to watch on TV. It can leave us feeling not good enough, physically, emotionally, and financially.

Then enters social media, where again 24/7 we can watch a video based, not on our own desires to work on ourselves from a place of healthy empowerment, but a comparison of never being able to “be like them.”

But something has happened in the world of comparison I did not see coming. There is now a level of cruelty that has become entertainment. People mocking others both privately and publicly in a way that is cringe worthy. That doubletake of “did I just hear that right?” I have found myself using the term Emotional Whiplash. It is a term that describes a feeling that in a flash, we are hit with some situation or an unkind or cruel comment or action that we did not see coming.

As a life and empowerment coach, I work in the arena of language. One of the first things I learned during my training was language is the precursor to action. It is language that enables us to communicate what emotions and physical sensations we are feeling. Language is a powerful weapon. Although a cruel comment leaves no visible physical harm, that does not mean there are not black and blue marks on the soul. The true darkness that follows that statement is often the shame that is felt after. For the realty at what was just leveled at us, that form of emotional and spiritual cruelty was just too much to acknowledge.

One would hope that the person delivering the cruel remark or action would feel the embarrassment and shame from such an act. Some sense of uneasiness that this is not how we treat each other in a civilized society. Yet the shame is often held by the person it was aimed at. Part of my training over the past 10 years has been with a woman named Brené Brown. Through her curriculum of Rising Strong™ and Dare to Lead™ she has brought the areas of shame and vulnerability into the mainstream of our culture. She taught us through our own shame shields, we either move toward, move away, or stand planted in our shame.

There are six ways in which we deal with our feelings of shame and inadequacies from her book Dare to Lead.

Stockpiling: I keep firmly packing down the pain until finally the wisest part of me-my body decides that enough is enough.

High Centered: I can’t move forward or back. If I recognize my hurt or fear, it will be too much.

Umbrage: If I am just overly accommodating, saying yes when I mean no, things will get better.

Chandlering: If I stuff it so far down it cannot possibly resurface.

Numbing: I do whatever it takes to not feel the pain.

Bouncing Hurt: Using anger, blame and avoidance when getting too close to the emotion.

When someone is cruel to another person it often comes as an offloading of their own feelings of inadequacy. We try to fault others for our mistakes because it makes us feel like we’re in control. But Brown says “Here’s what we know from the research,” “blame is simply the discharging of discomfort and pain. It has an inverse relationship with accountability. Blaming is a way that we discharge fear and anger.”

So, what is the solution? The first step may need to come from the person on the other end of the cruel comments by bringing accountability into the conversation. It means putting courage over comfort. It means observing ourselves when we slip into any of the six ways of reacting to our feelings of vulnerability and shame. It means calling the person out who was being cruel and letting them know how their comment made us feel. It is having the courage to say, “I would like to talk it through.” This may not often feel safe. It might feel easier to walk away. But the reality is we pay a price for cruelty, as an individual, a family, a team and as a society.

Accountability can take courage. Getting well at someone else’s expense is never OK. It is never OK to mock or humiliate another person for the shear fun of it. Cruelty is never entertainment. I believe we are better than that. It takes vulnerability to challenge someone who is being unkind. It takes clarity from a place of grounded confidence to say, “Did you just hear what you just said?” It takes a level of courage to say, “Help me understand why you would say that to me.” Learning to hold the space for another person to be wrong is never easy, but it is a beginning. Silence only allows this way of being to become acceptable. And cruelty never has and never will be acceptable.

Roxanne Erdahl PCC is a Certified Empowerment Coach and Dare to Lead™ Facilitator. She practices through her business Erdahl Coaching. www.erdahlcoaching.com