Forget about civility, Dear Reader. 

In the present scrimmage of ghastliness, mere civility gets trampled underfoot. 

Instead, let us speak of forbearance. 

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It’s an old word, a good word, the kind of word you might see in a Jane Austen novel. 

I don’t recall its ever being spoken in my growing up. Mother never sat me on her knee and said, “Now, Son, remember to forbear.”

My New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary claims that many of the word’s meanings are “Now rare” or “Now chiefly Sc[ottish].” I put it to you, Gentle Reader: If “forbear” is being shipped off, bit by bit, to Scotland, how much longer can it last?

It would be a crying shame to lose the word “forbearance”; if we lose the word, we shall nearly have lost the thing itself.

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Forbearance has nothing to do with any of those bears who went before us (“My forebears came over on the Mayflower”). It has much to do with our bearing—with what we bear and how we bear ourselves. 

Better to be forbearing than overbearing.

Kindness, care, tact, decency, empathy, compassion are rough synonyms—but forbearance beats them all. Why? Because it includes instructions for its use. You can unpack it to mean: Back off a little. Restrain yourself. Cease bearing down with all your might. 

To bear is to carry or hold something, perhaps a weight, as in “I don’t know how I can bear this.” But it can also mean to press, to be the weight, as in “Bear down hard on it.” 

The for- at the beginning of “forbear” does not mean “fore,” nor does it mean “for.” Rather, it is a prefix of its own that means “against, out of, away from” or “abstain, neglect, renounce,” as in forgo, forgive, forget, forsake, forswear. 

To forbear is to abstain from pressing. It is to relent, to have patience, to wait and see. It is the opposite of maximum pressure; it is the relief valve in society. 

True, some definitions of the verb have become rare—or even Scottish—but it gives us a very useful noun, “forbearance.”

1 Abstinence from enforcing what is due, esp. the payment of a debt 2 The action or habit of forbearing; an instance of this 3 Forbearing conduct or spirit; patient endurance, lenity

Forbearance automatically includes a regard for the needs and interests of others. To hold yourself back is to give them space. 

Forbearance is the willingness to go a little easier, to have patience with others. Not to make a federal case out of everything.

Life is too short.

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Forbearance seems the opposite of politics. I don’t mean garden-variety, small-town politics, in which forbearance may still play a useful part. 

But I’m thinking of big-name, national, every-night-on-TV politicians. And, even more, their acolytes—poor, lost souls who have allowed politics to become their religion. They talk of nothing else, they think of nothing else. It is all-consuming. 

You may know a few such people. They never let up, never relent. They bear down, then bear down more. They press each point to its unimaginable limit. They honor no boundaries. If you disagree, or even if you do agree but without enough totality, you are past all hope of redemption. 

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Yes, O New Favorite Writer—granted, their conduct is despicable.But we must do the same, don’t you see, or they will win! If I show forbearance, they will use that weakness, ride roughshod over my concerns, and win by the simple force of their absolutism.

Now, Dear Reader, in case  you have been wondering for years whether I would ever say anything truly subversive, listen up: 

Please try forbearance. 

Let them have their precious triumph; it will turn to dust and ashes in their mouths. 

Those who forbear, on the other hand, will gain something of far greater worth.

Gain? Gain what, precisely? 

They gain self-respect as well as the respect of others. 

They gain the infinite satisfaction of sponsoring calm. They become wholesome exemplars of sanity for our world. 

Those who make a habit of forbearance, and all who come within their orbits, gain a larger perspective: a glimpse of the fat upland where those things dwell that are more important than politics. 

They win the argument by moving beyond it. They rest on eternals, while others remain mired in temporalities.

These are the fruits that come from reclaiming the happy ground of forbearance.

Blessings,

Larry F. Sommers

Your New Favorite Writer