The Respectful Majority

The Case for Common Decency in an Age of Contempt

Two events, one week apart, have weighed heavily on me.

In Belleville, Ontario, a man attacked a synagogue during Yom Kippur, targeting members of the Jewish community as they gathered for worship.

A week later in Kamloops, British Columbia, a group of masked men appeared near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. They later moved through the city and eventually stood on an overpass above the Trans-Canada Highway holding a banner that asked, “Got bones?”

The two events are very different. At the same time, I think they share an important connection.

I don't want to create a false equivalency between what happened in Belville and Kamloops, but I don't think we should ignore the question raised by placing them side by side.

How do banners eventually become bullets?

I'm not suggesting that the individuals involved in Kamloops will become violent. We don't know that, and it would be irresponsible to suggest otherwise.

What we do know is that hatred rarely begins with violence.

It begins with words, caricatures and contempt. It grows in communities where increasingly extreme language becomes increasingly normal.

Someone says something outrageous and others applaud. The next person goes a little further. The boundaries move. What once would have embarrassed us becomes acceptable, and what was once unacceptable can eventually become evidence of commitment to the cause.

At some point, the people on the other side are no longer simply wrong.

They become the enemy.

That's when things become dangerous.

When Disagreement Becomes Contempt

We are all entitled to our opinions. We are entitled to ask questions, challenge accepted narratives and disagree about history, politics, religion and public policy.

Those freedoms matter.

But how we exercise them matters too.

Tone and presentation aren't incidental to our message. They reveal what we believe about the people receiving them.

Legitimate questions surround the investigation at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Asking questions about evidence is not hatred.

Standing anonymously on an overpass holding a banner asking Indigenous people, “Got bones?” is something very different.

The presentation communicates something too.

A line exists between conviction and contempt, and I think we need to learn to recognize it again.

Contempt changes us. It lets us say things we once wouldn't have said, laugh at things we once wouldn't have found funny, and treat people in ways we once would have considered unacceptable.

Words create permission.

When contempt is repeated often enough, it becomes normal. That makes dehumanizing other people easier. Once we've convinced ourselves that another group of people is not merely wrong but contemptible, dangerous or somehow less deserving of dignity, things that once seemed unthinkable can begin to feel justified.

Is Condemnation Enough?

Our usual response to events like these is condemnation.

Political leaders condemn them. Community and religious leaders condemn them.

Organizations issue statements. Social media fills with outrage.

That's appropriate. These things should be condemned.

I'm just not convinced condemnation changes very much.

We condemn the attack. We condemn the demonstration. We reassure one another that this is not who we are.

A few days later, most of us return to our lives while the loudest voices retreat to their respective corners and continue talking to themselves.

Meanwhile, the temperature keeps rising.

I don't have a five-point strategy for fixing this. I wish I did.

But I am convinced of something.

The overwhelming majority of Canadians cannot simply surrender the public square to the loudest and angriest people among us.

The Respectful Majority

Most Canadians aren't extremists, and most of us don't hate our neighbours.

We may disagree profoundly about politics, faith, our history and the direction of our country, but we still work together and live beside one another. We coach each other's kids. We stand in the same grocery-store lines. We shovel each other's sidewalks and help push each other's cars out of the snow.

This country has a broad civic centre that is much larger than the extremes.

By “centre,” I don't mean a political position somewhere halfway between left and right. I mean Canadians across the political, religious, and cultural spectrum who still believe that people on the other side of our disagreements are human beings worthy of dignity and respect.

That majority needs to find its voice. The centre cannot merely be less extreme.

It has to become more courageous.

Not louder or angrier. Braver.

We need the courage to challenge hatred when it comes from people we otherwise agree with. The courage to defend the dignity of someone with whom we profoundly disagree. The courage to ask difficult questions without becoming cruel, and the courage to listen when we're convinced we already know the answer.

Perhaps most difficult of all, we need the courage to disappoint our own tribe.

Extremism thrives in echo chambers partly because belonging comes with conditions.

Certain things must be believed. Certain enemies must be identified. Certain language must be used. Eventually, questioning the group begins to feel like betraying the group.

Healthy communities make room for questions and disagreement. They don't demand contempt as the price of belonging.

Sometimes the most courageous thing we can say to people we otherwise agree with is, “No. That's too far.”

That doesn't mean every idea deserves equal respect. Some ideas should be challenged vigorously. Hatred should be confronted. Racism and antisemitism should be named.

Threats and violence should be dealt with appropriately.

But human dignity cannot depend upon ideological agreement.

For those of us who are Christians, there is an even deeper reason. The person I most profoundly disagree with still bears the image of God.

That doesn't require me to surrender my convictions. It should, however, shape how I treat that person while expressing them.

We Need Builders

Courage cannot only be reactive.

If all we do is condemn the extremes, we let them keep setting the agenda. They behave outrageously, and the rest of us respond. They turn up the volume, and we tell them to turn it down. They decide what everyone is talking about, and we spend our energy talking about them.

There has to be something more.

What would happen if the reasonable majority became as intentional about building relationships across our differences as extremists are about reinforcing their echo chambers?

What if we created more tables where people who don't vote alike, worship alike or think alike could actually get to know one another?

What if our churches, community organizations, businesses, schools and civic institutions became places where we learned how to disagree well?

What if we taught our children that changing someone's mind isn't the highest achievement of a conversation?

What if we became curious again?

Instead of only asking, “How do we stop extremism?” maybe we should be asking a much bigger question:

What kind of country do we want to build in its place?

I don't have a program to announce or a five-point strategy to offer. I'm not even sure yet what this all looks like.

But I am convinced that condemnation alone will not get us there.

We need something more powerful than strong words. We need people willing to enter difficult conversations with conviction, humility, and grace. We need people who can listen without surrendering what they believe and at the same time disagree without denying another person’s dignity and walking away. 

The alternative to outrage isn't disengagement.

There is another way.

Perhaps This Is Reconciliation Too

Maybe the best thing we can do on this National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is to commit ourselves to speaking and acting courageously—not simply in response to extreme voices and ideologies, but in the work of building a better Canada.

Creating a better Canada rests squarely on the shoulders of the respectful majority. We must create a country where difficult questions aren’t equated with hatred. A country where conviction doesn’t require contempt, truth can be expressed without cruelty, and the wounds of our past can be acknowledged without being weaponized. 

Healthy and respectful dialogue isn't weakness. It is essential if we are going to live together well in a diverse country.

Reconciliation asks more of us than remembering. It asks us to become courageous builders of the Canada we want to leave behind.

That doesn't mean pretending our differences don't exist. It doesn't require us to agree about everything that happened in our past or everything that should happen in our future. It doesn't even require settling every difficult question.

But it does require something both simpler and harder.

We cannot allow our disagreements to erase our neighbour.

I don't yet know what recovering this kind of common decency looks like at scale. But I believe a better way can—and must—be found.

The respectful majority in this Canada is much larger than its extremes.

It's time we remembered that and started acting like it.

Maybe that's where reconciliation begins.

Not with agreement, but with the courage to keep seeing one another as neighbours.

Common decency, it turns out, may require uncommon courage.