The Art of Overcoming Resentment

Nearly eight years ago, at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Michelle Obama uttered seven words that quickly became something of a catchphrase: “When they go low, we go high.”

Obama was referring to the power of restraint in the face of rage and frustration; the value of composure; the importance of resisting the urge to treat a bully the way a bully treats you. 

“Going high is the only thing that works, because when we go low, when we use those same tactics of degrading and dehumanizing others, we just become part of the ugly noise that’s drowning out everything else,” she explained a few years later. “We degrade ourselves. We degrade the very causes for which we fight.”

Naturally, not everyone liked the idea. Arguments circulated online about the one-sidedness of her summons: questions about whose job it was to be the bigger person and who could get away with “going low.” Race and gender no doubt play a role here, and there’s certainly a thin line between “going high”—as Obama intended it—and failing to hold people who promote abhorrently offensive views to account.

But, unpacked a little, the idea of “going high” doesn’t only have to mean taking giant steps to moral superiority. It can also be seeing past differences and recognizing common values. It can be a determination to explore whatever unites, rather than focusing only on what divides. It can be treating fellow humans as fundamentally decent, and looking beyond a person’s politics or past. 

Often (though not always) it’s women who take the lead—something that might be attributable to research showing that women demonstrate higher levels of empathy than men.

History is littered with examples of people who have gone high by setting aside political differences to foster friendships and even marriages.