LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Non-random calls for kindness

In 1982, instead of merely lamenting the “random acts of violence and senseless acts of cruelty” occurring in Ronald Reagan’s America, author Anne Herbert first scrawled “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” on a placemat in a restaurant in California.

Yet today, enduring the apocalyptic hyperbole, vicious ridicule, and savage insults hurled by the American political far-right in public is nigh impossible. Far beyond its blatant untruthfulness, the brazen spitefulness and bodacious rudeness of MAGA Trumpists may no longer be shocking, but it is far beyond cringeworthy because it is far beyond embarrassing. It is cruel.

Disgracefully—lacking any grace—they are many miles away from former American president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s assertion and exemplification that “human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.”

Just as cruelty is one type of anti-social aggression, kindness is one type of pro-social altruism. More than helping behaviour, which could simply be job performance in human service employment, altruism is voluntary helping intended to benefit another with no expectation of reward to self. Conversely, social psychologists deem helping enacted primarily for self-gratification to be egoism, not altruism. True kindness is an end it itself, not a means to an end.

Nevertheless, ample research from positive psychology confirms that practicing kindness also provides mental and physical health benefits to the altruist, and positively impacts third party observers as well. Witnessing kindness can enhance people’s mental health, affective well-being, and perceptions of humanity. Thus, like stress, kindness is emotionally contagious, and inspires others to pay it forward.

Furthermore, there is a significant difference between sympathy (feeling merely sorry for someone) and empathy (feeling deeply sorry with someone), yet both fall short of compassion, which is actively doing or saying something kind to someone. Moreover, kindness can be principled, not only emotional. “Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not” (Samuel Johnson). Indeed, more than a passing emotional state or a permanent personality trait, kindness is a habituated social practice.

Whether individual or collective, kindness in Latin is humanitas, the recognition that we are all kin, one of a kind, called to the “kind”ness of human solidarity that embraces our super-ordinate human identity. Kindness is already normative in a wide range of social frames from parenting and teaching to friendships and civil interactions. But while there have been sub-cultures of normative kindness, such as the Amish, there has never been an entire culture of normative kindness. The chance of ours becoming the first may be infinitesimal, but there is no higher calling.

Even wisdom must defer. “What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau). “Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom” (Theodore Rubin). Yet “a mistake made by many people with great convictions is that they will let nothing stand in the way of their views, not even kindness” (Bryant McGill). They may say or do the unkindest things in the nicest manner, but “kindness is not deference, not conflict-aversion, not niceness or politeness. It’s a quality of grounded, dignified, powerful warmth” (Academics Taking Action). Indeed, “you can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by force” (Publilius Syrus).

While acts of kindness are usually performed by a benevolent individual and directed at a person or small group, pro-social behaviors can also be performed by or directed at entire organizations, or even much larger entities such as communities or society at large. In Kindness Wars: The History and Political Economy of Human Caring (2023), sociologist Noel Cazenave seeks to ignite a kindness revolution by unpacking the different levels of kindness from the interpersonal to the societal, and how kindness challenges the logic of capitalism.

Meanwhile, how can we be kind to malicious Trumpists? Well, ask them about the bases of their beliefs and loyalties. Listen attentively and empathically. But don’t try to reason with them. Leave it at that. The Dalai Lama got his priorities in good order when he said that “I’d rather be kind than right. You can always be kind.” And as Confucius cautioned, “Act with kindness, but do not expect gratitude.”