#1 philosophy
Hello, I usually have a lot of philosophical thoughts and I will just write them out on here. I’m fine with any refutes to my answer and I do wish to see other perspectives. And also trigger warning on pretty much most of them.
#1: Why do people value kindness, and how does it contribute to a better or worse world?
Let’s start off by defining what is kindness. To me, kindness is something that can only be answered by oneself. Let’s take a scenario, a couple is always arguing because one partner always buy more food for the other even if the other has already ate. Let’s call them A and B. In A’s perspective, they bought B food because they think the other hasn’t been eating enough lately and going underweight. But B thinks that A is being annoying because of how many times B repeatedly told A not to buy them any more food. Kindness is all about intentions. It can only be understood by the person who is doing the action.
Now that I’ve established what I think kindness is about. Let’s look at a different kind of kindness. In psychology there’s a term called “superficial charm”, this term refers to someone being kind to others because of it being well perceived by others rather than the real intentions of the person doing the action. So is that real kindness? In my perception of kindness, definitely not. Even if the “kind” thing has been done, our intentions weren’t to be kind, rather it was so that others like us better. To be honest, I myself do it as well. Let’s just say superficial charm is not real kindness. So does kindness contribute to a better world?
If there’s an increase in genuine kindness, kindness will also see increase in being exploited, taken advantage of or sometimes even misunderstood. For example, if you are always being kind to someone. That person might start expecting your kindness as the “norm”, and if you do something out of the ordinary, their thoughts of you just turns bad. If your kindness is mistaken as being insincere or sarcastic, it may break trust as well as create cynicism. Anyways, to conclude this, the effectiveness of kindness relies on the authenticity of intentions. If kindness is perceived as insincere or manipulative, it may trigger negative responses. The world works in a weirdly simple way. Taking a game theory, the ***-for-tat strategy, most individuals will respond to how others respond to them. So if your kindness is misunderstood, it may result in a bad scenario. I can’t surely say whether kindness contributes to a better or worse world, but what I know is that it’s best to do what you can. As long as you believe you are doing the right thing with a pure intention, just do your best! 💕
@JanusPi I value kindness because when I’m kind to another person it makes me feel better. There is some truth to what you say about the intention behind the kindness. If I am not being superficially kind I definitely feel happier from being kind. But I would argue that even superficial kindness has social value - if for no other reason it models how we wish people would treat each other despite their intentions or feelings behind the kindness. We call this “civility” and sadly many people have abandoned this and habitually treat others with aggression. They suppose they are “winning” something by being a$$holes. I suspect the reward they get is harmful to themselves.
@FlatenedByLife
I completely agree! It’s more being a civilized person than anything.
Hello there!
I think the idea of defining kindness in terms of its intentions very interesting. It makes me want to look up the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s page on kindness.
I think that intentions do matter in kindness, but I don’t think that I would personally define it as purely based on intentions. The road to *** is paved with good intentions, as the saying goes, and one can argue that someone can murder someone else with good intentions. I think of kindness as something that is also about the needs of the other person than solely about intent. Intent of doing well and also acting in a way that helps someone else with a need is critical. What each person’s need and the “right” corresponding action is, however, extraordinarily complex. I am not always sure of the answer. I was just reading a Buddhist article about how sometimes giving compassion, a related concept, means doing things that can be harsh. For example, if a person wishes to swim in a river that will surely kill them even after you repeatedly warn them and press them to not go, holding them back by force could be considered most compassionate.
In the example of people taking you for granted, I think if a person takes you for granted and gets sad or mad if you stop doing something for them, then you might not necessarily be helping them with a need. You might actually be enabling them in them taking advantage of you. The relationship would be extractive and transactional in nature. Trying to define what they actually need without them explicitly telling you, is however, one more example of what I consider the difficulties of meeting needs. How can you truly say what they “need”? What if they don’t believe in it or reject your idea of their needs despite good reason to believe in it like the swimmer above? Even if they agree with what you think they need, they might communicate it well so how would you know? I’m not sure how to answer these questions, but I will say that the other person might be “appreciating” what you give them rather you as a person, and that can be a complex difficulty. I’m not prescriptive enough to say that appreciating someone for their kindness is an ultimate good that should be inculcated in people’s minds, but I do have a bias that appreciating transitory and more surface level things like fame and fortune and conditional love tend to end in some sort of suffering—something that I would like to prevent. I think in this case, I would stop doing the “kind” behavior while still wishing them well. At the very least, I know what I need, and I need non-transactional relationships and that is kindness toward myself.
On the matter of misinterpretation of intent, I think that this is a communication issue and possibly an issue of misinterpreting what a need may be. If someone, for example, sees you as a manipulative person despite genuine intent of help that is communicated well, then that projection may mean that they need to reflect on how they see kindness as distrustful because of past experiences. That is a need that may require a therapist’s help and a willingness for introspection. In such a case, being honest about your intentions, apologizing for upsetting them, and then moving on and respecting their wishes for no “kindness” may be the most graceful and kind act. Continuing to try to be kind with good intentions may make them more distrustful and push them away.
Overall, I think kindness as I define it is important for the betterment of the world. Kindness that is purely based on intent can be dangerous and harmful, but when tempered, it can offer much. I think that, however, all kind acts should first start with kindness to self. In learning how to be most kind and compassionate to the self, it allows one to know how to better at meeting others’ needs and understanding their needs. I look forward to hearing what you have to say.
@TheLightofKintsugi
That’s an interesting take! It’s seems like it’s quite a difficult task to define kindness huh… ☺️
