Hello Diana. Here it is April of 2023 and I just stumbled upon this amazing post. Kindness can be so powerful and, as you said, it's definitely not just for greeting cards. I research the practical benefits of kindness and write about them weekly. I'm not sure that kindness is disappearing, but social media has made it so much easier to be unkind. Your Mom would definitely not have approved.
I am very interested in the possibilities for kindness in our culture, including politics, because that seems to be what is creating the great divide. Some additional research, from Stanford, discusses the impact of civility versus incivility. It seems to correlate with what you have been finding. https://pacscenter.stanford.edu/pacs-blog/why-kindness-is-a-winning-campaign-tactic/
Thank you for posting this article. I believe that I stumbled upon it at just the right time. 💜
“Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, KIND, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent”. I learned this 50 years ago in middle school and I can still encounter a few middle school people who subscribe to this. The first step is memorizing it and then the second step is repeating it in your mind as you prepare to go into any social situation. Still works for me. It’s like a prayer/ internal reminder asking for help to live by these virtues.
Thank you! Here in 🇨🇦 we are experiencing a similar (although somewhat quieter) decline in empathy and kindness. We are seeing our police beat/mistreat Indigenous people in ways not unlike Black people are harmed in the USA. Our national Conservative party is deeply white nationalist. In my lifetime - 57 yrs - I have seen this evolve from a quiet undercurrent to breaking through the surface of our culture as 'acceptable.
Your piece has left me wondering if the journey from "Be nice" to true empthay and kindness, from aligning behavior with the "Be nice" command to aligning our hearts with the moral value of empathy and kindness, is a spiritual journey that we have overlooked to our own loss. In our capitalist structures of 'the winner takes the most', perhaps we must make this journey as an act of holy resistance.
For those wanting to go a little deeper - a correspondent helpfully objected to my using "nice" and "kind" almost interchangeably in this piece. This is part of my reply (for anyone who may be concerned with the same):
"The piece actually arcs from my mother's 'nice' toward moral kindness. Whatever distinctions those of us with a more finely tuned definition make, most people equate niceness and kindness. Thus, I took the basic dictum - "be nice" - and pushed it to its deeper levels of kindness and ethical choice. The intention was to hold the two words together (as in the popular imagination) and put forth a thicker spiritual definition of even the less complex word. It was a purposeful literary and pedagogical choice to draw those who value 'niceness' into a place of more mature moral reflection.
I used to dislike nice. And yes, it is truly appalling how some people use what is meant for good for evil. But, as always, I'm in a quest to reclaim and integrate and redefine, trying always to start with where I have been and where (I suspect) many people are in order to open the theological imagination toward paths previously unimaginable. That's just how I'm working the way of being a writer."
Hello Diana. Here it is April of 2023 and I just stumbled upon this amazing post. Kindness can be so powerful and, as you said, it's definitely not just for greeting cards. I research the practical benefits of kindness and write about them weekly. I'm not sure that kindness is disappearing, but social media has made it so much easier to be unkind. Your Mom would definitely not have approved.
I am very interested in the possibilities for kindness in our culture, including politics, because that seems to be what is creating the great divide. Some additional research, from Stanford, discusses the impact of civility versus incivility. It seems to correlate with what you have been finding. https://pacscenter.stanford.edu/pacs-blog/why-kindness-is-a-winning-campaign-tactic/
Thank you for posting this article. I believe that I stumbled upon it at just the right time. 💜
“Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, KIND, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent”. I learned this 50 years ago in middle school and I can still encounter a few middle school people who subscribe to this. The first step is memorizing it and then the second step is repeating it in your mind as you prepare to go into any social situation. Still works for me. It’s like a prayer/ internal reminder asking for help to live by these virtues.
Diana,
Thank you! Here in 🇨🇦 we are experiencing a similar (although somewhat quieter) decline in empathy and kindness. We are seeing our police beat/mistreat Indigenous people in ways not unlike Black people are harmed in the USA. Our national Conservative party is deeply white nationalist. In my lifetime - 57 yrs - I have seen this evolve from a quiet undercurrent to breaking through the surface of our culture as 'acceptable.
Your piece has left me wondering if the journey from "Be nice" to true empthay and kindness, from aligning behavior with the "Be nice" command to aligning our hearts with the moral value of empathy and kindness, is a spiritual journey that we have overlooked to our own loss. In our capitalist structures of 'the winner takes the most', perhaps we must make this journey as an act of holy resistance.
Thank you for giving me food for thought on this.
For those wanting to go a little deeper - a correspondent helpfully objected to my using "nice" and "kind" almost interchangeably in this piece. This is part of my reply (for anyone who may be concerned with the same):
"The piece actually arcs from my mother's 'nice' toward moral kindness. Whatever distinctions those of us with a more finely tuned definition make, most people equate niceness and kindness. Thus, I took the basic dictum - "be nice" - and pushed it to its deeper levels of kindness and ethical choice. The intention was to hold the two words together (as in the popular imagination) and put forth a thicker spiritual definition of even the less complex word. It was a purposeful literary and pedagogical choice to draw those who value 'niceness' into a place of more mature moral reflection.
I used to dislike nice. And yes, it is truly appalling how some people use what is meant for good for evil. But, as always, I'm in a quest to reclaim and integrate and redefine, trying always to start with where I have been and where (I suspect) many people are in order to open the theological imagination toward paths previously unimaginable. That's just how I'm working the way of being a writer."
I have heard it said that humans will evolve when mankind becomes kind.