Editor’s Letter: “a little bit more kindness”

When I was growing up, the one phrase I remember hearing the most was ‘if you can’t find anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’. Honestly, I rarely took it to heart. But as I’ve gotten older – and a little bit wiser – I’ve realised that this phrase isn’t always as dismissive as I thought it to be.

Now, I’m not saying that every occasion requires you to bite your tongue. Holding in your opinions is only going to get you so far: within two weeks of keeping quiet you’ll probably be a seething, bubbling mess of pure frustration. However, in a world where anonymous bullying over the Internet has become an international pastime, I have to wonder if we could do with becoming a little bit kinder.

Unfortunately, trolling has become a global phenomenon.

Unfortunately, trolling has become a global phenomenon. Look at the comments of any given news article published online and I guarantee that you will find at least two people spewing vitriolic, hateful garbage. This number increases when articles deal with issues surrounding racism, sexism and homophobia, and it is by no means limited to news sites. It’s everywhere: on YouTube videos, in the occasional ‘edit-war’ on Wikipedia and, of course, all over social media.

It is suddenly not only acceptable, but also easy, to take cheap shots at people based on their gender, religion, sexuality or their race, and this has spilled over into our behaviour in the real world, particularly the world of comedy. Racist, sexist and homophobic jokes are a common part of everyday life.

The problem I have with this kind of behaviour is that it’s completely disrespectful. Dark humour can be a way of coping with the most depraved aspects of humanity, but you don’t have the right to belittle someone else’s personal experiences just because you’re telling a joke.

Empathy and compassion have gone out of style. People no longer care about the negative impact their words can have if they know they’ll get a laugh out of it. When did we start to value a cleverly-constructed insult over the feelings of the person it is leveled at? I don’t pretend to be a saint.

I’ve been guilty of valuing my own pithy insults over the feelings of others in the past, and it’s something that I deeply regret. But as I move forward in life, I want to make sure that the one trait I value most of all – kindness – is something that I can find in myself, and that will always be much more important to me than some cheap joke.

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