Adam Burt
We live in an age of toxic polarisation. It’s easy to feel angry at those on the “other side” of politics – but how can we tell when ordinary disagreement has crossed into something darker?
The clearest warning sign is when either side begins to speak about their opponents with contempt or disgust. Contempt is not just anger. It’s anger mixed with disgust – the sense that another person is worthless, dirty, or somehow less human.
Once our language shifts from disagreement to dehumanisation – calling others “filthy,” “nazi,” or“garbage”- we’ve crossed a moral line. Anger still assumes the other person can change. Disgust assumes they are beyond redemption. That’s when both the left and the right have gone too far.
History shows the danger. Nazi propagandists called Jews rats and parasites; Rwandan extremists called Tutsis cockroaches. Words of disgust prepared the way for violence. Contempt is never just rude – it’s corrosive. It seeps into hearts and imaginations until opponents no longer seem human at all.
When Passion Turns to Poison
No political tribe is immune. On parts of the left, moral conviction has at times hardened into moral superiority. Passion for causes like Palestinian justice, which begins from compassion, can slide into language that echoes hatred – describing people as “nazis,”“zionists” or “parasites.”
Once we start speaking of whole groups as contaminants, we’ve replaced advocacy with dehumanisation.
The same spirit appears when opponents are called “pigs,” “trash,” or “deplorables.” Even when the target is a figure as divisive as Donald Trump, contempt for him or his followers – all people with their own fears and hopes – betrays a loss of empathy. We can challenge ideas and behaviour without denying the image of God in those who hold them.
And the right is equally prone to contempt. In Australia, we’ve heard Muslim communities described as “diseases” to be vaccinated against. In the United States, political opponents have been branded “vermin.”
This isn’t strength – it’s surrender. To call another person a pest to be eradicated is to forfeit any moral claim to righteousness.
When disgust becomes a political strategy, violence is never far behind.
The Human Cost of Dehumanisation
Why does language matter so much? Because it shapes what we believe about others. When we call someone “scum, ” we begin to act as though they truly are. Contempt breaks the possibility of dialogue. Once we see our opponents as tainted or dangerous, cruelty can start to feel justified – even virtuous.
Both the left and right fall into the same trap: each convinced that its motives are pure, each assuming the other ‘s are hateful. This “motive blindness” fuels an endless cycle – my anger feels righteous, yours feels evil. From there, contempt becomes a badge of loyalty. But it’s a poison that eventually infects everyone.
A Christian Vision of the Person
The Christian story offers an antidote. It begins with the belief that every human being is made in the image of God – endowed with inherent worth, no matter how wrong, offensive, or lost they may seem.
Abraham Kuyper called this the “sovereignty of the individual”: each person stands accountable before God, never reducible to a tribe or label. That means no one is disposable. Every time we sneer at “those people,” we mock the image of God in them.
Jesus embodied this truth. He touched lepers when others recoiled. He shared meals with tax collectors and prostitutes. He treated the despised Samaritan woman as a person worthy of truth, not contempt. When others saw moral filth, Jesus saw a face.
He even warned that to call someone “raca” – an Aramaic insult meaning “worthless” – puts one in danger of judgment. Contempt is not just bad manners; it’s a spiritual failure.
Imagine if we applied that lens to our politics. It would mean refusing to assume the worst about our opponents, resisting the impulse to humiliate or cancel, and remembering that most people, left or right, genuinely want what they believe is good for society. We can still disagree passionately – but we must never deny another person’s humanity.
The Humility to Love the “Contemptible”
The Christian faith also humbles us. We are not the pure ones pointing at sinners; we are sinners loved beyond measure. G.K. Chesterton once answered the question “What’s wrong with the world?” with just two words: “I am.” That’s the death of contempt.
When we remember how much grace we’ve been shown, it becomes harder to withhold it from others. Jesus, hanging on the cross, prayed for the very people who mocked and killed Him:
“Father, forgive them. ” That is the ultimate act of loving the contemptible.
Choosing Respect Over Revulsion
So when do the left or right go too far? When their words drip with revulsion for other human beings. When righteous anger turns to moral disgust. When any group or individual is described as less than human.
The Christian response is not silence – truth still matters, justice still matters – but we must speak truth in love, not in hate. Critique ideas, yes, but do not crush people.
A healthier public life begins when we purge contempt from our own hearts and speech. No political cause or ideology is pure; none deserves our worship. Only Christ is Lord. And He calls us to see every person, even our fiercest opponent, as an image-bearer of God – someone of infinite worth.
That’s the surest guardrail against the extremes of both left and right. Because when we recover respect for every human soul, the language of disgust loses its power, and the path to a more civil, compassionate politics begins to open again.