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This week on 'In Conversation': Why are we so mean to each other?

Jef Poskanzer | Wikimedia Commons

Turn on cable news or open any social media app, and you'll see example after example of awful public behavior. People are throwing hands on airplanes, serving up knuckle sandwiches in restaurants and bullying each other online. Public civility seems like a quaint concept. 

Did the pandemic shut downs make us all forget how to act around other people? Does economic uncertainty, political sniping and COVID-19 fear have us all ready to rage at a moment’s notice ? And what’s going to happen as holiday stress is thrown on the fire?

On this week’s “In Conversation,” we talk about how our social norms and behaviors have changed in 2021—and not for the better.

We’ll learn how to be less reactive, and to disengage rather than escalate when situations get heated. And since we can’t control the behavior of cranky customers, salty students or crotchety colleagues, we’ll talk about how to make the parts of our lives we can control as mentally healthy as possible.

Note: This episode of "In Conversation" will be rescheduled, and this post will be updated with the new date.

Michelle Tyrene Johnson is the lead producer of LPM’s talk shows, and she is also the host and producer of LPM’s podcast Race Unwrapped. Email Michelle at mjohnson@lpm.org.