“Those fuckers injured our quarterback! Their fans gloated about the injury. We’ll kick their asses!”

Thus spoke my then seventeen-year-old stepson as his team prepared for the first round of the Missouri high school football playoffs.

My stepson’s rant is a fine example of trash talk: trying to make us feel better about ourselves by demeaning others.

Four principles guide trash talk. The best defense is a good offense. We’re the victim, you’re the victimizer. Our intentions are holy, yours are evil. We’re awesome, you suck.

All’s fair in trash talk, but some connection with truth and the others’ weaknesses strengthen its power. In my stepson’s case, the other team had indeed injured his team’s quarterback, but I’m pretty sure that every one of their fans gloated. But exaggeration is part of the game.

While sports trash-talking can be extremely effective at rallying a team, coaches become irritable if the other team finds out about the insults being used because they understand that opposing coaches and team leaders will use these insults as fodder to influence the other team to play harder.

Which doesn’t always mean playing better, but often does.

You also hear trash talk on playgrounds.

“Your mother is so … that …

You hear trash talk on the job.

Our boss is so …. that …

You hear trash talk while driving, usually accompanied by horn honks and the middle finger salute.

You hear trash talk in bars where the volume of noise is so loud that people can only decipher snippets of what’s being said.

Which might or might not be good.

Jesus used trash talk to great effect against the religious pooh-bahs of the time.

“You hypocrites!”

“You decomposing corpses!”

“You blind guides!”

In politics, campaign rallies are examples of trash talk with varying mixtures of why we’re awesome and they’re not. Talking heads, often with ecstatic horror, comb through the trash as we political junkies watch with horrified glee.

While the saner among us tune out.

Then there’s trust talk: trying to strengthen relationships to promote something positive. Trust talk requires a listening, empathic heart. It requires being willing to expose some of our imperfections, experiences, dreams, and ideas and supporting others to do the same. It requires affirming similarities, respecting differences, and finding ways to work together towards common goals.

Athletes from competing teams often leverage trust talk to improve something important to them. On playgrounds, children, often without adult assistance, learn how to trust talk by engaging in friendly competition, building something solid, or creating a fantasy world. Cars and bars can be hubs for trust talk. Jesus, through his actions and questions, tried to influence those pooh-bahs to move in a better direction. Trust talk was crucial to Civil Rights movements and forging peace in violence-ridden areas.
Even local and state politicians sometimes use trust talk to work across differences to accomplish something worthwhile.

As for those federal politicians?

Trust talk can be dangerous, as it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between trust and trash talk based on individual quirks and the strength of the relationship. Sometimes, others only pretend to reciprocate or refuse outright to engage, contributing to frayed relationships, domestic abuse, and escalating violence.

Trash talk has its benefits. My stepson’s football team thrashed the team with all of those gloating fans. It can also assist with overcoming obstacles, solving intractable problems, and winning wars. More often, it leads to fraying relationships and escalating threats, contributing to desperation, addiction, suicide, mass shootings, and worse.

Sometimes, we divide through trash talk and unify through trust talk. Sometimes, we unify through trash talk and divide through trust talk. Sometimes, allies morph to opponents and back to allies. It’s easier to tear down than build up; to nurse grudges rather than forgive; and to fortify instead of welcome.

Yet we need to trend towards trust, even though trusting is harder than trashing.

For trusting often builds up while trashing far more often destroys.