General viciousness seems to me to be on the rise. The problem is that viciousness is not seen as a negative in and of itself. People only recognize the viciousness in their political or ideological rivals, never in themselves or in people sharing their beliefs.
Trump in his 2016 campaign is a perfect example. He called Hillary a “nasty woman” every chance he got. He was viciously calling her vicious. And that hypocrisy got him elected to the nation’s highest office.
Since that very public example, and seeing that it was so massively rewarded, lots of people have adopted the same behavior. Ironically, it was employed a lot against Trump, Trump supporters, and anyone who might appear to be a Trump supporter. So much so, that Ivanka Trump started a whole anti-bullying campaign to try to stem the tide.
But there is no real movement against viciousness in and of itself in this country. Some specific embodiments of viciousness are being worked on, but not overall viciousness itself.
Other than myself, I’ve seen maybe one other person stand up against viciousness in my entire life, and even that was questionable. Some woman was complaining about not getting the right change and viciously insulting the cashier, and some guy shouted accusations at her of being racist. That did not hit the mark because she wasn’t being racist, she was being vicious. He wasn’t rewarded for it. And I certainly never have been either.
Standing up to viciousness is basically comic book fantasy as far as my real-world observations tell me. And It’s not because of a lack of viciousness in my life. Some people, that’s almost all that they do. Every third sentence is viciously ragging on someone.
I think this country would be a better place with a societal bias against viciousness. But I think that the major barricade to that is that too many people would prefer to have more of the place under their thumbs, rather than to live in a better place. “Better to rule in hell…” as they say. So they only preach their own ideology and try to gather more followers and power, and permit/encourage viciousness against perceived rivals.
