Sports has become a proxy for life's deficiencies. We are the team for which we root, and its success is ours. Opponents must be tarnished and defiled so that we can feel better about our insignificant lives.

What baffles me most is how some Christians participate in online meanness and incivility. I'm not sure how people whose identifying characteristic is supposed to be love justify treating others with contempt because they disagree with them.

Treat one worker with sympathy and compassion, and he or she will treat five other co-workers the same way. Eventually that attractive energy ripples out to customers. If you make someone feel as if they actually matter to you they will surpass your expectations.

It may be that we're all more abrasive than we used to be. A 2014 poll by Weber Shandwick and Powell Tate in partnership with KRC Research found that most people think America has a raging civility problem.

It used to be that we heard negative speech and attack language only on talk radio the likes of Larry Elder and Rush Limbaugh. Now, that's the steady diet that the media doles out to Americans every day, from all news sources.

Professors may be among the most highly educated members of society, but when it comes to negotiating our daily professional relationships, we sometimes seem to check our intelligence at the door.