Briefly

I couldn’t care less who plays the part of Ariel in Disney’s remake of “The Little Mermaid.” I probably won’t see it no matter who’s in it or how good it is. But if you’re one of those who is smugly screaming about racism because some people disagree with the casting of a black actress to play Ariel, you’ve succumbed to a bizarre tendency today to brand anything you don’t understand as racist if it even slightly involves race. A tiny minority of those who are unhappy with the casting decision might be racists, but the vast majority are those who simply know the character in a particular way, which happens to be a red-headed white girl. If Star Trek were remade and Uhura was cast as white or Asian, I would be upset, not because I’m racist, but simply because she’s an established character who’s black. This seems like the same thing. Stop screaming about racism when people simply disagree with you for reasons that have nothing to do with racism.

Humans go to a lot of trouble to find partners who are compatible with us in every possible way, but a new study of relationship happiness says that having a “conscientious and nice partner” matters more than the things we’re so eager to screen for. Dr. Bill Chopik of Michigan State University said the most striking finding of his study is that two people having similar personalities had almost no effect on how satisfied they felt, either with the relationship or with their lives. The bottom line seems to be that two people who are kind and decent — regardless of their personalities — should be happier together than two perfectly matched people who simply aren’t very kind to one another. Most of the criteria we use in real life for choosing partners produces unhappy relationships and miserable marriages. Maybe we ought to prioritize someone who’s going to treat us kindly and conscientiously instead.

Almost none of the angry people shouting at each other online — about politics, social issues, religion, whatever — seem to have even the slightest interest in understanding the people they hate. They often even claim they don’t hate the others, but their actions say otherwise. Almost everything they say is for their allies, because what they’re saying is complete nonsense to their enemies. If you profoundly misunderstand your opponent — and if he profoundly misunderstands you — is it any wonder you each end up wanting to kill the other? If each group understood the other, things could be so different, because it’s hard to hate people you truly understand. We might even find solutions which allow people with radically different views of the world to live in peace, separate from one another but each with honest understanding of the other. But none of that is possible if you won’t even try to understand the people with whom you disagree.