The instinct to hurt those with whom one disagrees

It's long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible. - Donald Trump.

Never did I expect to write an article about the moderation of political communication that began with a quote from Donald Trump.

But here we are.

I saw the news about Charlie Kirk's murder while seated in a reception room at a Seattle hospital, awaiting a procedure. I audibly gasped when I read the awful headline.

A couple walked in a minute or two later, both on the other side of middle-aged. The woman, looking at her phone, had just seen the news too. She turned to her partner to tell him what had happened to "that piece of s#*&" of a man, whose views she caricatured in a way I shall not repeat since the caricature said nothing about Charlie and plenty about her.

My stomach churned to hear her do it. The woman did not know that I could hear her. Not wanting to be around her or create a scene in a hospital by challenging her, I got up to leave.

As I did so, a nurse walked in, all smiles and looking for me. It took me a moment and a great deal of concentration to hear what he was saying, as I was still processing what it means to share a country, a city, a room with such a human being as that woman, so breezily expounding on her hate in a place built for the express purpose of caring for people.

I couldn't shake the feeling. It was still with me when I came around from the sedation.

Coming home, I thought about a small incident about a year ago. I was on a bus taking me from a plane parked on the runway at Reykjavik Airport to the terminal building. The American woman next to me was talkative. She said something about Trump. I gave a non-committal, polite response. Not knowing me or my views, she thought it utterly fine to tell me with a smile that she hoped that the next shooter wouldn't miss him. I showed her my disgust.

These anecdotes matter only because these women are two among millions, representative of a profound and broad cultural phenomenon.

Two years ago, I enrolled in a philosophy PhD program at a well-respected university in the English-speaking world. My department does analytic philosophy, and my work is in the entirely non-political field of epistemology.

At the beginning of my second semester, an acquaintance at the department who was much further in his doctoral studies than I contacted me to suggest that I not come onto campus for the foreseeable future. I will call him Matthew. He wanted to let me know that he had been "invited to join a campaign of ostracism against" me.