Kindness as an expression of... anger?
21/06/18 16:34
This is in response to a Tumblr post: HERE
Posts like this misunderstand what anger and kindness really are, it's actually frightfully common in a lot of circles where people are increasingly talking about dealing with anger and sadness they experience as well as being "kind" to people. Let' me quote the piece (link above) with what I believe to be their thesis statement, this quote is their first full paragraph, I am trying to NOT take it out of context.
"ultimately i think kindness is the most radical thing you can do with your pain and your anger. it’s like, you take everything awful that’s ever been done to you, and you throw it back in the world’s teeth, and you say no, fuck you, i’m not going to take this. you say this is unacceptable. you say that shit stops with me."
So let's talk about what KINDNESS is, at the most basic level it is to be kind. Now I realize that's not a good definition so let's talk about what "kind" is. According to the dictionary (not always the best source but certainly one of the most widely available and understood sources):
1a : of a sympathetic or helpful nature
1b : of a forbearing nature
1c : arising from or characterized by sympathy or forbearance
2: to give pleasure or relief
3: chiefly dialectal : affectionate, loving
Of any of these definitions, the internal spiritual or mental state that precedes the giving of aid or relief, to forbear, to love or be sympathetic… these re all the opposite of hate or anger. The author wants to believe that somehow one can actively hate or be angry and somehow turn that into the exact polar opposite. There appears in the authors mind to be some sort of mental alchemy that can spin anger into kindness. They don't ever start to elaborate on the kind of cognitive dissonance that this would cause. In fact the obvious discrepancy there is why the author says this is "radical" because it goes so far against anger to be kind.
The problem here is that the anger still taints the entire thing here, you can see it in the quote above but let me include more of the original post as well here:
"i’ve seen a number of comments and tags where people feel that they must swallow or repress their anger in order to engage in kindness. that is not at all what i am recommending here. radical kindness is an expression of anger. it is not passive. it is not repressive. it does not require you, in any way, to forgive those that have fucked you up. it does not require you to be quiet.
it just requires that you be kind. viciously. vengefully. you fight back. you plant flowers. give to charity. play games. pet someone’s dog. scream into the dark. paint and write and dance, tell jokes, sing songs, bake cookies. you have been hurt and you don’t have to deny that hurt. you just have to recognize it in other people, and take their hand, and say: no more. enough. fuck this. no more. "
Kindness as a way of FIGHTING is impossible, it misunderstands the point of kindness. Kindness by it's nature is a divine thing in the classical sense. A brief aside for definition of "a divine thing" this comes from Plato mainly, though Socrates obviously had a hand here as well.
That which is divine requires 3 things. First is that you can never have too much of it. Second you cannot run out of it. Third and likely most difficult for people is the you cannot be ambitious about it. Let's take the divine virtue of JUSTICE. One can never have too much justice. However one could have too much policing, one could have too much litigiousness, but not too much justice. Being litigious and being policed are human (mortal) actions and they stray from justice in places, sometimes wildly, sometimes only a bit. The overbearing parent or the one who punishes too harshly could be overstepping Justice but maybe only slightly. That simply removes those actions from being the divine ideal of "just." One can also not run out of justice, there is no end or beginning to it, justice is a virtue that is inexhaustible. Lastly one cannot be ambitious about justice. As people want to use justice as an excuse to persecute people, as they hide behind the specter of justice to steal away liberties, these are human corruptions of the divine idea of justice.
Let's run that again with Kindness. One can never have too much kindness, while we might not always want help with something, having people willing to help us is a good thing. While a person may offer kindness or help or affection more than we need it, the sincere feeling of goodwill and honest kindness is seldom something we can have too much of. There is an exception here that kindness when we feel we are unworthy of it may induce guilt, that very human response to being in the presence of something divine that reminds us of our own mortal failings. But Kindness when we feel guilty is actually one way of overcoming guilt and driving us to be better, more deserving people. One cannot run out of kindness, you cannot run out of goodwill toward people who you feel deserve it. You may be too tired or too angry to engage in kind behavior, you may think a parson undeserving of kindness but your capacity for kindness and love aren't in question. Lastly one cannot be ambitious about being kind. Here is where the problem happens. The original author here is clearly being ambitious about kindness, they are trying to "viciously" be kind. That you "throw it back in the world's teeth." That's not kindness, that is not being forbearing or helpful or loving for the sake of it, that is performing an action that others might see as kind in order to prove something, to show someone up.
When I say that the mindset required for one to be kind excludes this kind of "kindness" that's what I am aiming at. If you are kind to someone, if you help them or ease their hardship that action you take is only kind if you do it because you want to be kind. At the point where you have a mental tallysheet going of how fucking kind you can be so this miserable world sees you as a light in the motherfucking darkness…. You've missed the point.
Now I am reminded of another quote from a guy named Will Durant in his 1926 book "The Story of Philosophy" (I mention that because it is often mis attributed to Aristotle, it is a summation of Aritotle's ideas that Durant gives new words to)
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by doing his actions; we are we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
Now if we take the having of virtue (Kindness) to mean simply that we have done things that are kind… perhaps we stop being angry and become kind if we continue to do kind things regardless of our purpose for doing them. But until there is a change in our internal self, we are not kind. What I mean is this: while you can perform acts of kindness as a form of rebellion, the outcomes maybe seines kind but you are not kind until your heart changes. If I have a competition with a friend to see who can do more for the homeless community, neither of us are kind. Our actions may be seen by others as kind but our ambition to win strips out the spirit of kindness.
For some people that may be a distinction without meaning. After all if the homeless are helped and the recipient feels like they were treated kindly… who cares? As a practical matter I might prefer people do the right thing for the wrong reason than not do the right thing because they don't "feel" the right way. However in a world where people want to banish the dark from their hearts, people want to feel better, people want to make the world better not just on the surface but better at a deeper spiritual level…. The distinction makes a huge difference.
Posts like this misunderstand what anger and kindness really are, it's actually frightfully common in a lot of circles where people are increasingly talking about dealing with anger and sadness they experience as well as being "kind" to people. Let' me quote the piece (link above) with what I believe to be their thesis statement, this quote is their first full paragraph, I am trying to NOT take it out of context.
"ultimately i think kindness is the most radical thing you can do with your pain and your anger. it’s like, you take everything awful that’s ever been done to you, and you throw it back in the world’s teeth, and you say no, fuck you, i’m not going to take this. you say this is unacceptable. you say that shit stops with me."
So let's talk about what KINDNESS is, at the most basic level it is to be kind. Now I realize that's not a good definition so let's talk about what "kind" is. According to the dictionary (not always the best source but certainly one of the most widely available and understood sources):
1a : of a sympathetic or helpful nature
1b : of a forbearing nature
1c : arising from or characterized by sympathy or forbearance
2: to give pleasure or relief
3: chiefly dialectal : affectionate, loving
Of any of these definitions, the internal spiritual or mental state that precedes the giving of aid or relief, to forbear, to love or be sympathetic… these re all the opposite of hate or anger. The author wants to believe that somehow one can actively hate or be angry and somehow turn that into the exact polar opposite. There appears in the authors mind to be some sort of mental alchemy that can spin anger into kindness. They don't ever start to elaborate on the kind of cognitive dissonance that this would cause. In fact the obvious discrepancy there is why the author says this is "radical" because it goes so far against anger to be kind.
The problem here is that the anger still taints the entire thing here, you can see it in the quote above but let me include more of the original post as well here:
"i’ve seen a number of comments and tags where people feel that they must swallow or repress their anger in order to engage in kindness. that is not at all what i am recommending here. radical kindness is an expression of anger. it is not passive. it is not repressive. it does not require you, in any way, to forgive those that have fucked you up. it does not require you to be quiet.
it just requires that you be kind. viciously. vengefully. you fight back. you plant flowers. give to charity. play games. pet someone’s dog. scream into the dark. paint and write and dance, tell jokes, sing songs, bake cookies. you have been hurt and you don’t have to deny that hurt. you just have to recognize it in other people, and take their hand, and say: no more. enough. fuck this. no more. "
Kindness as a way of FIGHTING is impossible, it misunderstands the point of kindness. Kindness by it's nature is a divine thing in the classical sense. A brief aside for definition of "a divine thing" this comes from Plato mainly, though Socrates obviously had a hand here as well.
That which is divine requires 3 things. First is that you can never have too much of it. Second you cannot run out of it. Third and likely most difficult for people is the you cannot be ambitious about it. Let's take the divine virtue of JUSTICE. One can never have too much justice. However one could have too much policing, one could have too much litigiousness, but not too much justice. Being litigious and being policed are human (mortal) actions and they stray from justice in places, sometimes wildly, sometimes only a bit. The overbearing parent or the one who punishes too harshly could be overstepping Justice but maybe only slightly. That simply removes those actions from being the divine ideal of "just." One can also not run out of justice, there is no end or beginning to it, justice is a virtue that is inexhaustible. Lastly one cannot be ambitious about justice. As people want to use justice as an excuse to persecute people, as they hide behind the specter of justice to steal away liberties, these are human corruptions of the divine idea of justice.
Let's run that again with Kindness. One can never have too much kindness, while we might not always want help with something, having people willing to help us is a good thing. While a person may offer kindness or help or affection more than we need it, the sincere feeling of goodwill and honest kindness is seldom something we can have too much of. There is an exception here that kindness when we feel we are unworthy of it may induce guilt, that very human response to being in the presence of something divine that reminds us of our own mortal failings. But Kindness when we feel guilty is actually one way of overcoming guilt and driving us to be better, more deserving people. One cannot run out of kindness, you cannot run out of goodwill toward people who you feel deserve it. You may be too tired or too angry to engage in kind behavior, you may think a parson undeserving of kindness but your capacity for kindness and love aren't in question. Lastly one cannot be ambitious about being kind. Here is where the problem happens. The original author here is clearly being ambitious about kindness, they are trying to "viciously" be kind. That you "throw it back in the world's teeth." That's not kindness, that is not being forbearing or helpful or loving for the sake of it, that is performing an action that others might see as kind in order to prove something, to show someone up.
When I say that the mindset required for one to be kind excludes this kind of "kindness" that's what I am aiming at. If you are kind to someone, if you help them or ease their hardship that action you take is only kind if you do it because you want to be kind. At the point where you have a mental tallysheet going of how fucking kind you can be so this miserable world sees you as a light in the motherfucking darkness…. You've missed the point.
Now I am reminded of another quote from a guy named Will Durant in his 1926 book "The Story of Philosophy" (I mention that because it is often mis attributed to Aristotle, it is a summation of Aritotle's ideas that Durant gives new words to)
“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by doing his actions; we are we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
Now if we take the having of virtue (Kindness) to mean simply that we have done things that are kind… perhaps we stop being angry and become kind if we continue to do kind things regardless of our purpose for doing them. But until there is a change in our internal self, we are not kind. What I mean is this: while you can perform acts of kindness as a form of rebellion, the outcomes maybe seines kind but you are not kind until your heart changes. If I have a competition with a friend to see who can do more for the homeless community, neither of us are kind. Our actions may be seen by others as kind but our ambition to win strips out the spirit of kindness.
For some people that may be a distinction without meaning. After all if the homeless are helped and the recipient feels like they were treated kindly… who cares? As a practical matter I might prefer people do the right thing for the wrong reason than not do the right thing because they don't "feel" the right way. However in a world where people want to banish the dark from their hearts, people want to feel better, people want to make the world better not just on the surface but better at a deeper spiritual level…. The distinction makes a huge difference.