P. Lynn Ouellette, MD, is a psychiatrist practicing in Brunswick.

Many Americans sense that public conversation has become angrier, harsher and less forgiving in recent years. If you read this website’s online comment section, you often see sarcasm, shaming and outrage converted into personal attacks.

Hostile language is widespread in social media, online and in other public discussions, especially on political and social issues, and angry content tends to spread faster and farther than voices of reason. And, most especially, being anonymous enables contempt to be voiced with less restraint and lowers the social cost of being cruel.

On the national political stage, cruelty earns much attention, sometimes in the form of laughter or praise, sometimes in outrage, but it earns attention. Kindness has come to be portrayed as weakness. But kindness involves simply recognizing the humanity of the person in front of you even when you disagree. It means criticizing ideas without humiliating people and choosing not to escalate conflict simply because you can, or because it temporarily helps you to feel superior.

Civility can lower defensiveness, making real conversation possible and keeping disagreements from turning into permanent divisions. Civility is not silence, fake political correctness or avoiding conflict. It is choosing restraint over ridicule and clarity of expression over cruelty and contempt. It creates an opportunity for disagreement without turning every conflict into a personal attack. We can recognize each other’s differences without attacking each other’s humanity.

How we talk to each other influences how we treat each other. When cruelty earns public attention, empathy starts to look like weakness. It becomes difficult for a society to solve real problems when people no longer see the humanity in one another. In the context of economic stress and political polarization, so many conversations easily can become reactive, and even cruel.

Sadly, some of our political leaders seem to take pride in regularly engaging in these kinds of contemptuous conversations.

So how can we each play a role in changing the tone of public discourse? We cannot change how our leaders act, but we can be mindful of what we model — how we respond when we’re irritated, how we talk about people with whom we disagree, how willing we are to pause before reacting, how we talk to our children and each other.

We can engage with each other by modeling civil disagreement, especially when emotions are high. We can speak up to one another in public in respectful ways and intervene when conversations become abusive. We can teach emotional regulation and respectful disagreement as life skills in schools and within families, and model kindness and civility for children.

The goal is not to eliminate conflict or protest, or to not call out injustices. Healthy societies argue, debate and challenge one another, and change absolutely depends on this. But we do not have to ridicule each other in the process. The culture of tomorrow, the one that our children will inherit, is shaped by how we interact today.

Every comment, post, conversation and reaction contributes either to a climate of hostility or a climate of civility. Even if leaders are modeling something quite different, we can choose behavior that reflects disagreement with civility.

Civility can help a diverse and divided society achieve progress; it is not a bygone ideal. No progress is made when vitriol and contempt are the loudest voices and no one can listen. But if enough of us intentionally raise the level of everyday respect, while still absolutely calling out injustices, we contribute toward building a public culture and supporting a society that is strong enough to handle disagreement without destroying its humanity.