Excellent! The more psychoanalyst-guests the better. Philosophers, too.

An interesting line of discussion for the program to explore would be, how does a psychoanalyst reconcile psychoanalytic values and an interest in proselytizing for “kindness”? Psychoanalysts do not want to impose their own subjective values on analysands. “Kindness” carries a boatload of moral baggage and subjectivity. How do you interpret someone as not being “kind” in a certain instance, without imposing your own subjective values?

How does Adam Phillips define “kindness”? As “empathy”? As “softness”? As “love”? If so, why use the word “kindness” and not the other words?

And if the diagnosis of the modern world is that it is lacking in “kindness,” what, in his view, is the root cause? Psychoanalytic theory seems to offer a powerful explanatory framework that, at bottom, turns on the phenomena of “splitting.” The mind divided into avowed and disavowed parts. Murder, bigotry, racism, self-destruction, lack of empathy and “kindness” can all be viewed as growing out from entrenched “splitting” within the unconscious mind.

Lastly, besides political values and the fortunes of the world economy, how does new technology and the new modes of communication factor into Adam Phillips’s exposition? Enhance interconnectivity and “kindness”? Impersonalize intercommunication and and an ability to identify with the other and, thereby, decrease “kindness.”

I know the trend these days, especially with the rise of Positive Psychology, is toward “ethics psychology,” a pitch back to an Aristotelian how-to live the good life philosophizing. Yet, the charm and intellectual weight of a Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault always seemed like the wise steering away from defining objective values, unimpeachable truths, words written in stone for time immemorial. Rather, they possessed the penetrating recognition that beneath the surface, even something as benign-seeming as the heralding of “kindness” often reveals a power-play and a desire to dominate others.

In short, to be aphoristic like Nietzsche, “Kindness can kill.”

Even those who do horrible acts have a way of subjectively viewing themselves as acting out of “kindness.” With the “best intentions.” From love. From the heart. How many people say, “Yes, I just did a horrendous, sadistic, ‘unkind’ act.”

-Agents of imperialism – missionaries.
-Bombing people inorder to bring them “democracy.”
-Shaming and trying to reprogram an individual out of homosexuality.

All “kind” people doing “kind acts” – in their eyes.

“Kindness kills,” indeed.

Psychoanalytic theory is supposedly in flux and splintered. I’d hate to see it lose its intellectual caution, self-discipline and certain hardness and venture too far into mushy Positive Psychology pastures.

Nietzsche warned, 2000 years of Judo-Christianity has already been tried and it has much blood on its hands. Humankind needs a deeper education. Face yourself. Stop splitting. Grow up, already.

A great Nietzsche passage foreshadowing Freud’s concept of “sublimination” and warning against a simplistic “kind” – “unkind” dichotomy.

“There is a time with all passions when they are merely fatalities, when they drag their victim down with the weight of their folly-and a later, very much later time, when they are wedded with spirit [Geist], when they are ’spiritualised’. Formerly one made war on passion itself on account of the folly inherent in it : one conspired for its extermination – all the old moral monsters are unanimous that `il faut tuer les passions’ . The most famous formula for doing this is contained in the New Testament, in the Sermon on the Mount . . . [where] it is said, with reference to sexuality, `if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out’ : fortunately Christians do not follow this prescription. To exterminate the passions and desires merely in order to do away with their folly and its unpleasant consequences – this itself seems to us today merely an acute form of folly . . . The church combats the passions with excision in every sense of the word: its practice, its ‘cure’ is castration. It never asks : ‘How can one spiritualise, beautify, deify a desire?’ – it has at all times laid the emphasis of its discipline on extirpation (of sensuality, of pride, of lust for power, of varice, of revengefulness). But to attack the passions at their roots means to attack life at its roots . . . what is freedom? That one has the will to self-responsibility . . . . That one
has become more indifferent to hardship, toil, privation, even to life . . . Freedom means that the manly instincts that delight in war and victory have gained mastery over the other instincts-for example, over the instinct for ‘happiness’
. . . How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay loft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of
servitude. This is true psychologically when one understands by ‘tyrants’ pitiless and dreadful instincts, to combat which demands the maximum of authority and discipline . . . First principle: one must need strength, otherwise one will never have it.” (Twilight of the Idols, or How to Philosophize with a Hammer).

In a sentence, that Nietzsche passage foreshadowing “sublimination” spoke about “kindness from strength” versus “kindness from weakness,” over-softness, self-denial.

Thought-provoking, insightful comments by Expanded Consciousness. I hope these will be addressed and the discussion will move beyond the surface.

The very notion of America and the development of the modern corporate ideology of “it’s the bottom line” goes against the very idea of kindness.

For instance, I was reading an article today about people going bankrupt because of medical bills who had insurance coverage. Well the concept of insurance is supposed to cover you in the case of an emergency or medical needs.

Due ot the nature of “bottom line” the insurance company in the article used deceptive practices that were so convoluted that even the hospital staff charged with dealing with the insurance claims could not figure out.
Kindness? What does that mean in context to a country that has a history of treating it’s population as if they are expendable. Were is the kindness of of Congress as they sit in Washington with great health care for their themselves and their families that is paid for by us, the tax payers. So here we have situation in which the very people who hold the fate of our lives in balance with no incentive whatsoever to act on our behalf. Why they have universal care.

My wife has problems with her knees. We have health insurance from Blue Cross that cost us over $4000 a year.
She is going for physical therapy and she found out that the policy will only cover one knee. That’s right one knee. Last time I checked most of us have two. This is a good example of being mean and using both meanings, trying to save money, and just plain nasty corporate BS.

Kindness, give me break. The US is anything but.

Now in the case of people and acts of kindness well is that not just part of being a compassionate human being?

- Thanks Barbara.
—————-
Three book reviews of On Kindness for anyone interetsed:

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090227/REVIEW/412819264/1008/rss

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/11/on-kindness-review

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/3233666/part_3/the-unselfish-gene.thtml

I might add that corporate America is at war with the citizens, and one could use the Nietzsche quoted above about power and religion and just slip in corporations.

Good stuff Expanded Consciousness.

Some of what Nietzsche says seems very close to the ideology of Libertarians.

That one has the will to self-responsibility . . . . That one
has become more indifferent to hardship, toil, privation, even to life . . . Freedom means that the manly instincts that delight in war and victory have gained mastery over the other instincts-for example, over the instinct for ‘happiness’
. . . How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay loft.

How does one reach such a lofty level of intellectual argument about “Kindness?”

When someone performs an act of kindness, the recipients know it. Period. There’s no grey area.
That’s what almost any recognized scripture, in any recognizable religion, would likely underscore–at least it seems to me.

If kindness has fallen “out of fashion,” then can breathing or eating be far behind?

How does Mankind even reach the point, where a trait so intrinsic in the human soul, is subject to some sort of transitory or diffident journey, by going out of fashion…as if it has to be REMINDED of its existence, in us all, and, therefore, its subsequent resurrection?

If it’s true, it’s quite sad.

Earle were have you been? It’s not that kindness is out of fashion it’s that the world we live in is so full of horrible events, wars, hurricanes, act’s of terrorism.

Human beings are capable of the most extreme acts of cruelty towards their fellow brethren, witness the Holocaust and Slavery of the African American.

The very nature of our being is in the ability to control the nature of becoming what the nazi state became.

It’s very easy to use the “other” to define ourselves, and this very act of demeaning and using otherness to define our destiny or race, witness manifest destiny.
To define people as inferior is this not an act of meanness? Yet on so many cases in history you find people using this ideology and with it they think they are doing good, being kind and so on. One example is the reeducation of so many American Indian children in the latter part of the 19th century and all through most of the 20th. The people behind this thought they were being good Christians, giving the American Indian children ad good christian education.

Thanks Putney -

Yea, capitalism and kindness are definitely in eternal competition against the other, to a rather large degree.

How are you applying the Nietzsche passage to corporations, exactly. i want to understand.

My reading of the passage on the individual-psychological level is that Nietzsche doesn’t deny that some darker instincts have to be overcome, for if they were acted upon we would be brutes and there would be disaster. Yet, Nietzsche understood (in pre-Freudian times, to boot) that self-knowledge of darker impulses felt should be brought to awareness, their strength felt and then that strength used for the process of overcoming, transforming, sublimating, beautifying, spiritualizing them. This is contrasted to the inferior way of just fearing the dark emotions and suppressing them wholesale, hoping to thereby be safe from acting-out on the darker instincts, but also left totally weak and crushed. Nothing remains but a good little boy and girl, trying to only have “kind” thoughts (then the “return of the repressed” ruins everything). So, any discussion of “kindness” has to be very nuanced and has to take account of human nature with all its ambiguities and avoid the danger of just turning into a “be nice and all will be a utopia” sermon.

“If kindness has fallen “out of fashion,” then can breathing or eating be far behind?”

OK. Everybody is kind. Cancel the program, please.

“Mr. Swope? Mark Focus:

….I did this for Nabisco, this is for General Motors, this is for IBM….”

“Focus, you’re the best in the business…..now take a hike!”

Putney…..you missed the implication….ok, perhaps it was TOO implicit.

I’m the first one to denounce genocide. The point is that just like, “all politics is local”…..so is all decency.”

And, too, I was paying homage to the `severe’ issue of increased incivility in American culture.

Thanks.

Regarding kindness and the corporate world, true kindness at work can be to gently and firmly deliver to an eager or self-deluded colleague the message that they’re ill suited for a position they badly want. Not a job for sissies or the untrained.

“OK. Everybody is kind. Cancel the program, please.”

Aw shucks, that wasn’t very “kind” of me to say.
Wonder if I’ll be able to breathe or eat later.
Duh! There I go again.

Geez, I thought stand-up comedians we funny dudes and dudettes. Maybe their the “unkindest” folks of them all. Damn, an I a Chris Rock fan or not?

‘The point is that just like, “all politics is local”…..so is all decency.”’

Hmm … you are more likely to be mugged by yoour neighbor than someone living hundreds of miles away. Black on black crime, etc.

Expanded Consciousness–

I am saying that–as cliche as it sounds or may be (and I suspect that you might divert the discussion by saying that it is cliche)–all decency or kindness begins between one person to another….whether it’s in a family, marriage, friendship, group, clan, or whether it takes place in an alcove, room, a house, an office, the entire workplace, a neighborhood, a town, a city, etc….

It sounds perhaps syrupy and maudlin to say that–but, in fact, it may be true…..

I am a graduate student at the University of Utah and on my office wall I have a quote that inspires me daily, it says “Do well now to do good later”. It reminds me to work hard at this phase in my life so that I can have more tools to bring about good for others later in life. For this reason, I feel kindness can be a greater driving force than status and success. Will your guests please comment on how kindness can be a productive force for good?

Kindness is a virtue, Nietzsche notwithstanding, and needs to be encouraged.

Qt: Tribal societies aren’t utopias of kindness. While I agree with the capitalism analysis, what more can be said about pre-capitalist and non-capitalist societies? About human nature.

Fear of “other” can limit kindness. I’m thinking in particular about hitchhiking – does one give a ride to someone with a thumb out? If I’m not in a hurry, and there is a place to stop safely, I usually do.

I would submit that we are too kind in many ways. Many of the “kind” things we do at the one-on-one (micro) level have a very deleterious effect at the macro (global) level. We need to temper our kindness with practicality and a look to the effects on the global community. Excessive kindness is only possible in an infinite world. In a world as finite as ours, we have to start retracting some of our “kindnesses” and being more practical.

“Kill Them With Kindness”: http://skband.net/sounds/kill-them-with-kindness.mp3

“Kindness is a virtue, Nietzsche notwithstanding, and needs to be encouraged.”

Nietzsche wasn’t anti-kindness, he was anti-kindness-from-weakness versus kindness-from-strength. He recommended the same thing the author interviewed is, being aware of one’s totality of feelings, one’s ambivalence and deeper conflicts. He said that a truly powerful person would be large enough to support the weak and even parasites.

I think the idea of the conflict between competition and kindness is an over simplification. In life they are not mutual exclusive. In my business I have friends that are competitors. We share respect, friendship, social connections, and kindness. When we go head to head in a business situation, we do whatever we can to win the contract. When we lose the contract we are gracious and congratulate each other. These paradoxes are a big part of life.

Jack just made an interesting point, taken from the book: “America is a WARFARE state…” Undeniably true, especially when taken in context with this month’s national celebrations and festivities.

My point on the concept of kindness = vulnerability and vulnerability = weakness is: Predators look for kindness as a marker of vulnerability and weakness. It’s in the eye of the beholder, in other words.

Kind people do enjoy being kind. Most of us are in hiding, though, denying our true natures while doing our best to keep the “smell” of our altruistic pleasures from reaching the nostrils of the legions of predators out there.

We are easily entertained by the suffering of others, as the author says, and this is an intractable problem that I do not see changing for the better during my lifetime.

Thanks for taking a critical look at our vexing and frustrating oppression of kindness in the American culture.

The reason people are nervous about strangers is because the media has told us over and over again about strangers being weird and dangerous. We hear about mean people on the other side of the country, and learn never to pick up hitchhikers, etc. But I’m not sure if we have an accurate view of how people actually are – that most people are not crazy or cruel.

Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Kindness beautifully addresses the subject…

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Earle –
“all decency or kindness begins between one person to another”

Well, the psychoanalytic perspective sees our relationships formed from our earliest family relationships. So, yea. Yet, sociological psychoanalysis does trace the societal influences into the very structure of the familial relationships (patrimony, etc). So, it is hard to separate the family and the society and say it all begins in one or another place.

The Politics of Psychoanalysis (2nd ed) by Stephen Frosh is a classic read on this point.

http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Psychoanalysis-Introduction-Freudian-Post-Freudian/dp/081472700X/ref=ed_oe_p

Are people in countries with more social insurance less kind than those in countries with less social insurance?

It’s been my experience that no good act goes without punishment.

I have yet to see any reinforcement to be kind in the work force and I’ve been working for a long time in many different fields. What is reinforced is to keep to yourself, see nothing, hear nothing, do what you’re told and never ask why.

When I show kindness, it is for selfish reasons; it makes me feel good. Unfortunately, there seems to be no profit in it. The value of the American dollar has to be taken off its pedestal, before people can be free to be kind.

The only people I see consistently practice kindness do so because they can afford to. They are powerful with their money.

I worry so much about how a kind act of mine will be interpreted…that it keeps me from doing kind things. The fact is, I want to do kind things BECAUSE IT MAKES ME FEEL HAPPIER AND MORE ALIVE. It is a selfish motive, but I don’t think that I should let that inhibit me.

My urge to kindness is constantly frustrated. The other evening I was driving home and I swerved to avoid a mother raccoon who was hovering over her injured baby that had been hit by a car. I stopped and turned around, thinking that I would give the baby a merciful death, if necessary, and move its body off the road so that the mother would not also get hit. By the time I got there, the baby seemed dead, the mother was gone, and getting out of the car to attempt the simple act of moving a small raccoon body in the middle of traffic on a busy road in the darkness on a sharp turn seemed overwhelming. The risks to myself outweighed the potential benefits–to myself, and to the mother raccoon.

A lot of my kindness is directed towards non-humans and is often frustrated. My entire career (as an environmental scientist) is motivated by kindness towards humans and animals and plants and the whole entire system. I feel a lot of pain about the current state of affairs.

Qt: Guest says that we instinctually identify with others and presents kindness as natural and therefore, if absent, as repressed in service of capitalist values. Yet, if we are ambivalent and conflicted creatures, does the author see the opposite, the lack of trust as equally instinctual and natural? Psychoanalytic theory sees society as only an influence on the makeup of our psyche, not the main determinant.

So, what is Dr. Phillips’s view of the natural human? What is our natural, original temperament?
There seems to be a heavy cultural-determination bias in this argument.

Today’s mass media has had the largest influence on the erosion of kindness in societies–not only kindness, but also common courtesy and respect for one another. Societies have become so callous, to the point that cruelty has become fashionable. Very sad, and sick.

Dr. Phillips seem to value (over-value) feelings. As if we should just feel, feel vulnerable, feel soft (not harden ourselves), trust. Where’s the balance? From an evolutionary, adaptation viewpoint and from the basic reality of sexual competition in early tribal societies, it requires a view of human nature where both sides of the equation are viewed as natural. Versus “kind” as natural, unless ruined by bad society.

What was the name of the psychologist quoted by Jack Beatty? The one who talked about the mother hating the child before the child hates the mother. Thanks.

To Barbara Buckley:
Thanks so much for posting that poem. Very moving. Very “true.”

My own thoughts about kindness: Where it is valued and practiced, life is sweeter and even the sad and painful experiences are made more endurable. I know from experience that it can be hard to be kind. As a young person I admired people I saw who were giving and kind. I decided that I wanted to be like that. 35 years later, I’m still working at it – but it is a very worthy endeavor! It makes ME happier.

The sports analogy ignores they are on a team. Their teammates are their brothers that they’d do anything for.

Thanks for standing up for servers, caller! People feel like they can be asses just cause they are in a restaurant.

-Former waiter

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965)

Bah! Wish Tom was there. He has some spunk.

What a squishy, “kind” hour. Not a single challenging question. Yet, authors of printed reviews all challenge points and arguments in the book.

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090227/REVIEW/412819264/1008/rss

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/11/on-kindness-review

http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/3233666/part_3/the-unselfish-gene.thtml

There are two sides to every argument, while maybe not always equal, they should at least be laid out on an OnPoint program.

Real cutting edge today.

I really appreciated this discussion and look forward to reading the book.

I am often shocked at how many people have forgotten the little pleasantries that support acts of kindness, such as saying ‘thank you’ and ‘excuse me’. I often find that a simple ‘thank you, very much’ to a cashier, induces a warm smile and shoulder relaxation in someone working such a tiring job.

I also wanted to respond to the woman who spoke about kindness being reserved for the young and withheld from the elderly. Based on my own behavior, I am not sure a fear of aging has much to do with the disparities.

I am always kind to children because I believe it reinforces them to be kind as they grow. I also find that children will always respond in kind, even if just a smile. On the other hand, I hesitate with the elderly because I have often been shocked by the gruff response, or even lack of response. I guess I find it to be a hopeless case, if at their advanced experience they have not yet learned the value of kindness.

The program didn’t address the elephant in the room – the subjectivity of “kindness” problem. Just said kindness stems from identifying with others. Unsatisfactory. The missionary can say she is kind and she identifies with the native and forge ahead without a qualm. No, there has to be human-made principles and rules overarching and directing the time, place and scope of “kindness” inflicted by one onto another.

And there was no distinguishing kindness-from-strength from kindness-from-weakness. Just presented kindness as a pleasure and spoke of making oneself vulnerable.

Squishy-squish-squish.

“What a squishy, “kind” hour.” – Ex-Consciousness

Is it the expansion or contraction of consciousness talking here? You certainly sound contracted and fixed in place,today.

No matter. Bullies have never deterred me from expressing my natural kindness. Truly, kindness will gradually melt the icy, cynical stoicism of mean-spirited people when gently applied, judiciously, over time. Read some Dickins. It’s good for the soul.

“What was the name of the psychologist quoted by Jack Beatty? The one who talked about the mother hating the child before the child hates the mother. Thanks.

Posted by ToYourHealth, on July 1st, 2009 at 10:54 am EDT”

——————–

The great D. W. Winnicott.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Winnicott

http://mythosandlogos.com/Winnicott.html

I was looking through this discussion for the idea that Americans are more and more in “gated” spots, either in their cars versus walking along and interacting, or in communities where the object is not to have to even see, let alone interact with, others. Jeanne-Marie asked if kindness manifests differently in societies with more or less social insurance.
I think it is an elephant in the room that if you have money, you don’t have to be vulnerable and depend on kindness. The danger of getting either insured to the point of invulnerability or rich to that same point is that you lose the “language” of interpersonalism, knowing how and where and who. I think people in America aspire to be rich enough that they can circumvent all that we heard today about how we instinctively respond to others. Instead, we depend on pattern and stereotype in our interactions, and we look around for a way to pay for what we need.
I heard about social crises eliciting the capacity for communal consciousness, especially when a culture of pay-your-way has buried that part of being human, but I did not hear about the crises that isolate people, singly.
To me kindness starts when walking down the street you have a personal cloud you can retreat to but you also can look at a stranger in a way that totally sizes them up, truly acknowledging them in one glance, versus sort of stereotyping and forgetting, like a blade of grass.

This program was very timely. My daughter is doing an internship this summer and working on a project collecting the stories of people who do random acts of kindness. The person contracting this project wants to monetarily reward the do-gooders by paying them (a small amount). My daughter and I have been discussing this and both of us feel that kindness should be altruistic and that paying someone for doing good is…well…Capitalistic. Perhaps that is what is the problem in this country. We need to get over getting compensated for everything we do. Feeling good (and yes I said an “emotion” word) for doing something to help another (animal or human) is character building. I disagree that it is weak to be kind. I don’t think anyone would say that Mother Theresa was weak. We have lost sight of the importance of selflessness, of reaching out and feeling for others. Greed has taken over for kindness.

‘In the end, kindness is the foremost virtue.’ It’s a survival technique, this kindness. Our civilization depends on it.”
Bertrand Russell

Mr. Beatty: I am always happy to hear that you will be on the show, not only for what you say, but how you say it – with passion! And today, I was awed by your recounting a rather personal moment, the kind, no doubt, we have all had, but that you were willing to share, generous and courageous of you, and confirming what I have also heard when you speak – genuine kindness.

Yes, Expanded Consciousness, more squishy stuff, I suppose…so Bertrand Russell must have been a squishy kind of guy…and if only there were more of those guys in the world…

“What a squishy, “kind” hour.” – Ex-Consciousness

“Is it the expansion or contraction of consciousness talking here? You certainly sound contracted and fixed in place,today.

No matter. Bullies have never deterred me from expressing my natural kindness. Truly, kindness will gradually melt the icy, cynical stoicism of mean-spirited people when gently applied, judiciously, over time. Read some Dickins. It’s good for the soul.

Posted by Mari, on July 1st, 2009 at 11:28 am EDT”

Dearest, sweet Mari –

My goodness gracious! Not a very “kind” post of yours, certainly you’d agree.

Calling me names and everything. You are certainly failing to “identify” with me. I do not think you are making yourself very “vulnerable.” Or is it that you are way too “vulnerable” and sensitive? Ah, a flaw in the “vulnerability” argument? Excellent example of the exact problem that occurs when you do not distinguish “kindness-from-strength” from “kindness-from-weakness.” Thanks for demonstrating it so perfectly. Squishy, indeed.

You don’t mind a little rationality here, do you?

1. Was I addressing Mari? I was clearly addressing the arguments inherent in the topic and then offered by Phillips in the interview. Unless Mari is Phillips’s handle, the question is, “When was I talking to you?”

2. Clearly the act of looking beyond the arguments offered on the program would constitute an expansion of consciousness. While being spoon-fed OnPoint knowledge, that one is too timid to question what may have been left out, would be a contraction of consciousness.

3. Since I responded to content as it unfolded during the hour, could hardly be characterized as maintaining a “fixed” and “contracted” position.

4. Bully? Deterred you from expressing yourself? Bully implies engaing someone with force to try to compell them to perform or not perform an action. I said, “Mari, don’t express yourself?” Interesting. I think a pre-condition to performing that act would require my speaking to you in the first place. And I tried to prevent you from expressing your natural kindness, you say? Geez, it must have worked, for I see nothing “kind” in your post to me.

5. Kindness will melt the icy, cynical stoicism of mean-spirited people like me? Equating blind agreement with warmth, are we? Like Rush Limbaugh’s ditto-heads? They are very “warm” and “kind” to him. It would seem that Mari’s attempt to guilt-trip and name-call me into complete agreement with the author would form the sine qua non of the act of bullying. We agree, yes? And cynical? Cynical is a knee-jerk reaction of disagreement with no regard to the content. As if I didn’t speak of kindness, “kindness from strength.” Curious how I speak in detail about the content of the author’s argument and, in contrast, you neither engage nor rebut the content of my arguments. Just a string of ad hominem attacks. Oh, coming from Mari they must have been “kind” ad hominem attacks. Still waiting for those melting rays of Mari’s professed warmth. Hmmm, light does take a few minutes to travel from the sun.

6. Mari assumes I haven’t read Dickens and questions the condition of my soul. First of all, dear. Don’t you worry about my reading habits. I’m buried in books. And, you know, you must be right, Dickens wasn’t a very inquisitive or intelligent man. He surely would have listened to the program and would have had no thoughts about human nature other than what the great OnPoint had to offer. He’d tip his hat and admit he’d been bested and just smile “kindly” in response. Like the Buddha. Like an idiot savant.

Thank you, Mari. Not only for the “kindness,” but for the (Hey Foucault! Get over here!) perfect example of exercising power through weakness, tyranny through victimhood, for showing one of the most common uses of “kindness” and one of the most common reasons for professing to be the “kind” person and for calling the other the “mean” person.

Just more splitting.

The downfall of this species.

So, in conclusion, I wasn’t talking to you, Mari dear. I expect more from someone who presents themselves to the public as a psychoanalyst. A lot more. More intellectual rigor. Not Oprah-fare, sprinkled with a few psychoanlaytic notions, unintegrated and unthoughtout.

Man, if Freud could hear this program. Their ain’t enough cigars in Havana he could smoke afterward that would calm him back down.

Uh, now you have been spoken to, Mari.

Much Love.

E.C.

“Mr. Beatty: I am always happy to hear that you will be on the show, not only for what you say, but how you say it – with passion! And today, I was awed by your recounting a rather personal moment, the kind, no doubt, we have all had, but that you were willing to share, generous and courageous of you, and confirming what I have also heard when you speak – genuine kindness.”

Here. Here. To trumpeting Jack’s courage.

“Yes, Expanded Consciousness, more squishy stuff, I suppose”

Posted by lissa, on July 1st, 2009 at 12:15 pm EDT

Did you read my posts?
A requirement of “kindness” is honesty.
Do you have a problem with distinguishing kindness-from-strength versus kindness-from-weakness?
With pointing to the subjectivity of “kindness” or do you like missionaries viewing themselves as “kind”?

You imagine Bertrand Russell would disagree?

I really found this On Point discussion interesting, I really valued Jane’s approach with the author and the callers, and I certainly see some great ideas brought in as I’m subsequently reading the discussion board.
I am fascinated by the intersection of spiritual growth and personal growth — in other words, if spiritually we are taught to remove our own desires from all equations (Buddhism and Christianity both do this to some extent, in my experience), and psychologically we are taught to become always closer acquainted with our own drives and desires, what middle path can we walk to be healthy AND community-minded people?
I think the authors present this in a more earthy light than I’m used to — and I like it — that we must acknowledge our mixed emotions, not expecting rote piety from ourselves all the time, respecting the authenticity of our own experience, but listening to our instincts to reach out when help is needed. I think this does approach Nietzche’s idea of kindness from a place of strength. But kindness and vulnerability I think are always connected. I don’t know anybody who would want kindness from an invulnerable person — I think to me that would seem paternalist and perhaps even false. From my spot on the cultural map, the idea of kindness carries with it for me the idea of openness to rejection.
Exp.C, I think you’re overusing the bulletin board — Mari’s right, there’s some flavor of bullying in that people need to get by you in order to share their thoughts and ideas here. You might step back a bit and let other people get a word in — you’re clearly interested in other people’s ideas, so listening without correcting or combatting might be an avenue to consider.
Thanks to everybody who weighed in on this. I really enjoyed reading the comments. Barbara B — I esp. liked that poem.

“Exp.C, I think you’re overusing the bulletin board”

Colleen, do not post here for 24 hours. Got it?

“— Mari’s right, there’s some flavor of bullying in that people need to get by you in order to share their thoughts and ideas here.
You might step back a bit and let other people get a word in — you’re clearly interested in other people’s ideas, so listening without correcting or combatting might be an avenue to consider.”

That is utter nonsense. Have you no shame? If you are going to be interested in personal growth and kindness, you need to take up the value of honesty. My posts were directed at the author and dealt with content. Get by me to share their ideas? Let other people get in a word??? Are you deluded? This is typing, not a live conversation where you can interrupt people. Bullying? The only people I responded to are people who hurled insults. And Colleen is going to tell me to not correct people who insult me? Who do you think you are? Colleen. Listen close. Do not address me again. You got it? I find you a thoroughly disgraceful, irrational, dishonest human being. Yes Colleen, I will correct anyone who is a liar and like a 12 year old, is only interested in hurling insults, doesn’t have the intellectual integrity to respond to the points I raised, and has absolutely no embarrassment at playing victim.

There is not too many things I break down along gender lines. But there certainly is a trend in America that women play victim at the same time they are abusive. True passive-aggressives. OnPoint should do a program on the phenomena.

I think maybe someone’s mixing up politeness with kindness. I am thinking of diplomatic meetings that are heralded for being “frank,” where they mean (as Expanded Consciousness seems to be saying) “honest.” The reason the diplomacy did not fall apart was because it was polite, followed protocol. Etiquette was observed. The semblance of respect was rigidly maintained, even if the diplomats had to rigidly “compartmentalize” some feelings in order to maintain the posture, the stance. It would “seem” that grace and kindness prevail, but they are all the more rigidly observed when the underlying situation is really very rough.
I guess the collegiality of the senators in Washington, D.C., is another example of that: intense competition masquerading as kindness (or its cousins politeness and respect — and humor, by the way — which I just typed as “human,” I guess my fingers see humanity as a humorous situation).
I interpret the truth about humans trying to get along as this: kindness is so important, so crucial, that it cannot be dispensed with in even the most hate-filled scenarios. The oil for making the best of rocky relations is humor, respect, kindness.

Most people judge people by how much they smile, their behavior, demeanor, then they decide whether they like that person or not. If they only go by those things to judge a person, then most likely those judgement tend to be more or less superficial.

That beautiful poem above is partly true. But personally I found myself to be nice and kind so much easier when I am healthier, what if when someone has some kind of condition preventing them to behave the “socially” accepted gracious behavior, quickly they are being judged “mean”, even if that person didn’t do anything mean on anybody verbally and physically, but just a simple expression or tone of voice that was being read wrong. I found this society focus too much on superficial greeting or social behavior, instead of feeling a person on a “personal” connection. I have seen or heard so many junk talk about a person once they walk away just because their behavior is anxious or a little rough (not talking about arrogance or being an ass, that kind of behavior). If you only have one chance to meet a person, give that person the benefit of doubt, if you have more time to spend together, focus on their rooted “intention” and final “action”, all the behavior and tone of voice in between is just the sub-product of their intention and action. Life is a journey, got to learn a thing or two.

It’s funny that when I was younger, I viewed the whole world with such great optimism, I used to think with my kindness and true heart can dissolve everything, it is that kind of power and acceptance that I get from people make me illude my optimism.

Later on, when yourself and people around you change, quickly I realize somehow people can’t see and feel my kindness anymore, what went wrong, I keep asking myself. So for me kindness is a learning journey, come out of bitterness, we still withhold our compassion, empathy and sympathy even if when our kindness is least noticed and most subtle.

What I wanted to address is what I heard about insurance companies. This being a very concrete expression of a modern institution for securing welfare for individuals or people.
Were health insurance companies not run for profit in this country perhaps insurance would not be looked upon as an institution of unkindness.
I had the urge to cast light on the fact that if capitalism were better regulated in the United States perhaps there would be fewer institutions of unkindness. It would be too easy to blame Americans for feeling cynical about the concept of insurance, simply because corporations have run amok in many places in the world but particularly in this country.
The idea of solidarity in a modern state through public welfare (health care, education, etc.) has been turned into red-scare propaganda so that it is expressing itself in form of superficial political conviction of an aversion to pay taxes for public welfare. Corporations have become too powerful for the states or even the federal government to oversee and regulate them in such a way that citizens are not taken advantage of.

As I was listening to the radio right now, I couldn`t help but thinking of this hour today when I heard a currently popular song called I`m alive from a band by the name of Metric. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtA7YIFapnY

As an aside while I think there was some wisdom in the hour, I think it overlooked the fact that we tend to surpress all emotions towards others especially strangers not just the ones of kindness. Furthermore, I think some emotional surpression is positive. We`ve all known people who couldn`t surpress emotions and they aren`t necessarily enjoyable to be around.

Whether it’s the kindness of strength or kindness of weakness, as human, we all are aware of our vulnerability and weakness, because of that awareness, that we are given the gift of “kindness”. A real true strength is transcended from weakness.

Long live peace.

correction —

Sub-product corrected to “by-product”

A real true strength corrected to “Our real true strength is transcended from our weakness”

Thank you

Wow! Very thoroughly explored in these comments on many points! A scattering of my thoughts as I listened: It is my experience that ‘personality’ differences from early on may influence the intensity to spontaneously practice kindness in an unplanned moment – and the words spoken that a good way to drive someone crazy is … can’t quite recall … to foster their urge to kindness in a world/culture that does not support the tendency. I have known “sensitive types” who spend a lifetime trying to figure out how to be comfortable in a world that seems to insist they become ‘tough’ – or at least ‘tougher’. As a retired teacher of young elementary students I have witnessed deep and spontaneous concern by all children for justice/compassion, and have seen their faces change when the opposite occurs. I suspect it is such moments in which they begin to ‘wise up and shut down’. We lose a lot as we go along – so is the case for most of us here. I began ’service’ employment at age 12 with full time child care, moved through summers in hospital patient care, to farming, to teaching. Did not experience “the world of profit emphasis” until retirement. Although from the US Midwest my adult years were in Canada. Returned to US in retirement. Warring and a culture that seems not to imagine/understand the whole population benefit of universal health care (knowing one is cared for and is supporting care for everyone else + plus economic wisdom if we subtract the price of investment profit) have been great awakenings for me. I have still not come to comfort with these two ‘drivers’ – maximizing bottom lines and sending youth to kill/be killed. I’m very pleased this book exists. (And agree – maybe definition of terms could be helpful – my own emphasis has been centered around inherent knowing/impulse toward justice/compassion.) Best Regards to all- Maggie.

Beatty and the guest admit that they are socialists who embrace the “zero sum” school of economics. In other words, no gain can be had by anyone without there being a looser on the other end of the deal. That’s why I got into the armed robbery game back in the “80s. I figured, if all profits are ill-gotten gains then why shouldn’t I “liberate” some of the lucre. I have that kind of do-it-yourself, self-starter personality. Of course, I never considered applying my talents in the corporate world or in the police or armed forces.

Actually, to understand the miserable state of society one need only look to the government school system. The purpose of which is to break the will of the student and harness her to the Progressive version of Frederic Winslow Taylor’s efficient factory where each democratic unit (voter/taxpayer) is as interchangeable and expendable as the next. I recommend reading The Underground History of American Education, by John Taylor Gatto, a 30 year veteran teacher in the NY city school system.

Kindness, gratitude, and justice go hand in hand. Without kindness, there is no gratitude and justice; without gratitude, there can be no kindness and justice; and without justice, there can be no kindness and gratitude.

Welfare and warfare are not kindness, gratitude, nor are they just. Why? Because the thief comes for the purposes of stealing, killing, and destroying. What or who is the thief? Our self-created (d)eified (e)nergy (v)e(ils), our self-created, self-worshipped egos, are our enemies, “the powers that be”.

The “warfare state” kills the consciousness of super-abundant Life and the “welfare state” destroys the consciousness of Liberty and steals the consciousness of the Pursuit of Happiness. This is called by Thomas Jefferson in his writings “the tyranny of the mind”. This is why both capitalism and communism are very malicious and insidious economies. Some among the citizenry both logically and very accurately call them one entity: the international capitalist/communist conspiracy. Why? Because they both began in Europe. It is outright mental abuse of the citizens, WE THE PEOPLE, for the government, that is sadly not “of the people, by the people, and for the people”, to carry out the faulty, despotic, and tyrannical errors of capitalism and communism.

For some reason, our government, in its self-perpetuating, self-serving purposes, has chosen to throw these two failures at us without allowing the well-informed citizens of this nation to practice our God-given Right to Liberty, the Right to choose the superior excellence of Heaven’s “good”. A very insidious principle of the international capitalist/communist conspiracy is the godless concept of the “survival of the fittest”, the climbing the ladder of success and trying to push down anyone who is above you. This is a very cruel principle indeed, for it prevents each citizen from realizing his and her economic Pursuit of Happiness, unless each one has a strong heart for the defense of Freedom, the God-given Right to practice Liberty responsibly, and Justice, which must always be tempered with mercy to be true justice. Hence, only the strong-hearted , the True Patriots, Lightbearers, those citizens who inform themselves well, can overcome such a threat to their conscious understanding of their God-given Rights.

Mr. Medici invented capitalism/mercantilism to control the wealth of the nations, hence, kings and the papacy, and other royalty. Why? Because he felt that there was only so much wealth to go around, and that those who covet the wealth of the nations should have a way to “hoard” as much of the wealth as they could to themselves (hence, building barns, financial institutions, in which to keep it stored). Now, today, these false bastions of abundance are failing, the karma has come due to the owners and the perpetrators, and they have brought all of it upon themselves by practicing these principles of not-love or fear.

Karl Marx and Frederic Engels invented communism, of which “socialism” is a lesser but more devious and insidious child, for the purpose of “distributing” the wealth to the state. The wealth is never “distributed” to the “masses”, even though that’s what is promised, but is indeed “hoarded” by the state for the propogation of its own “super-ego” and self-aggrandizement.

When one of these two economic systems fails, the other of necessity fails, for they both serve the same ends, the hoarding of the wealth. Hence, neither of these economies are “kind”. Are we left then without a “kind” economy, an economy based on equality of opportunity, kindness, gratitude, and justice?

Free enterprise has never been tried during the Twentieth Century and so far in the Twenty-first Century. But this is the economy that works best in a “free” society. Progressivism set free enterprise aside in favor of the failed capitalism of Europe and the failed socialism of Europe. This way, the government could control everything in a devious way. It was Progressivism that brought us the federal “Progressive” income tax, the social security system, the Federal Reserve System, and the direct election of the senators by the citizens, taking away a states’ right and giving it to the “masses”. It took over our education system, our federal court system, and the way our government runs itself. It threw the “Constitution” with its Preamble, its enumerated powers, and its Bill of Rights, Amendment I through Amendment X, out of the halls of government.

Free enterprise is free enterprise! It isn’t limited by government or any other entity. In short, free enterprise is the free movement of goods and services. This is what produces wealth, and this is what produces our abundance. Is free enterprise allowed to exist when there are tariffs or other protections levied, which are collectively and rightly called “taxation without representation”. This ought not so to be in a free Republic such as ours. We are not the rest of the world, and we are not citizens of the world.

We are citizens of the United States of America. This doesn’t mean that we cannot practice kindness with the rest of the world, but it does mean that each one of us MUST treat each citizen of another nation as a sacred being with the same God-given Rights that each one of us have. This means that no government has the God-given Right to steal, to kill, and to destroy the consciousness of their citizens’ Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness.

When a citizen of this nation decides to transact a business venture with a citizen of another nation, it should be allowed, and it should be free enterprise, not in any way punishing any of the parties involved. The government should have no say in what business venture is taking place for what purpose.

Did you know that there were no monopolies in our economy until Progressivism reared its ugly head? And did you know that the government is the largest sustained monopoly against which there is no written law? Free enterprise is free from all of this fear, for the basic principle of free enterprise is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

In other words, free enterprise is serving our fellow man with our plenty, our talents, skills, discoveries, and inventions, not hoarding from one another and storing it away. It isn’t taking from one to give to someone else. It is the second great principle of free enterprise, the law of giving and receiving operated in a market setting. This means that citizens can trade, by bartering, buying, and selling to serve the needs of one another, not to gain an advantage one over the other. In true free enterprise, there is no seeking to limit or totally eliminate the blessing of the transaction for any of the participants.

Therefore, there is another important law which governs free enterprise. “You shall absolutely reap what you sow.” The corollary to this law is what has been called “the law of the farm”. This law states that there is a yield to the reaping; you shall absolutely receive much more than you give. This is the secret to super-abundance which is the Cosmos’ desire for all Life, life in all of its God-blessed (man)ifestations. This is the ultimate objective of free enterprise.

BUT, to be able to partake of free enterprise, it takes great humility and equanimity in your own soul. This means, as an absolute paradox which is Truth, that you esteem the other better, more highly, than yourself, and you are in the transaction to bless his Life, not to gain anything for the self-created ego, the not-Self.

WE THE PEOPLE have neither “kept” nor scrupulously maintained our Republic. This is the reason why we have allowed these things to happen in our government. The “powers-that-be”, the superlatively egotistical government, that doesn’t come close to the founders’ intent, has put the uninformed citizen to sleep, and therefore, the government has taken much more than we will it to have. As a result of not practicing our Freedom and our Blessings of Liberty, both of which are two more of our multitude of God-given Rights that cannot be changed, muted, or taken away, WE THE PEOPLE have neither taken dilligence to control the growth and the power of our government nor have we watched over our representatives in Congress as we should. Hence, all of this error, all of this misuse of the power that WE THE PEOPLE have given them beyond the “Constitutional” boundary of enumerated powers, falls upon our heads as well. In fact and in Truth, WE THE PEOPLE have failed ourselves. But, now is the time for forgiveness and mercy, not harsh judgment, condemnation, and criticism of souls.

We MUST disassemble component part by component part, in a very systematic, controlled, and pallatable way, every facet of our government which is not enumerated in our “Constitution”, every “jod and tittle”. We will once again have a manageable, controllable, small, and,hence, obedient government, and WE THE PEOPLE will once again take up the standard of the Republic and “keep” it.

Each ego in government, not each soul, that has chosen to enlarge the boundary of the “enumerated powers” given to it by WE THE PEOPLE in the “Constitution”, must be replaced, not out of dislike, hate, or spite, but because we need to begin anew, with REAL CHANGE, not cosmetic change, our God-given Right to the Blessings of Liberty, that after the choice we make fails to “perfect the Union”, WE THE PEOPLE retain the Right to choose again and again and again until we get it right.

I believe that we are not far from correcting the problem, opportunity, that is before us, but we MUST not act like laggards, mentally lazy and asleep in our national consciousness, in our responsibility to “keep” our Republic.

The challenge is large, and the time is now! If not me, who; if not now, when? Each one of us MUST do our part. However, WE THE PEOPLE cannot do this alone. We need to enlist the help of Heaven.

In the vision that the Goddess of Liberty gave to General George Washington one afternoon during the harsh winter months at Valley Forge, she showed him three perils that would come upon this nation and the triumphs that would follow, even before we became a Republic. She showed him the triumph of the nation following the Revolutionary War and the creation of the Republic, the triumph of the Union, not the Union forces, following the Civil War, and the ultimate triumph of the nation, WE THE PEOPLE, over the long-accepted concept of government over the people and our return to the concept of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. In the end, the people with one united voice shout, “Amen!” However, in this last triumph, Heaven plays a much larger role, because the people, in humility, fearlessness, and love, finally call out to the Almighty for aid. We are in this last part of the vision, and great success is promised. So, let’s get busy, empower the hosts of Light, and receive it.

May God bless your heart; may God bless America; and may we pass every test on our way to a more perfect, kind, grateful, and just Union.

David Henry Coffey [beloved][prince][of ability and authority to produce "good"]
1024 East Street
Mansfield, MA 02048-3409
774-284-4297
cffdvdlb@comcast.net

What an intriguing interview.

Mr. Phillips is cautious in generalizing our age as kind or not, but I say indeed there is a great deficit in kindness, perhaps in fact a famine.

I can relate to this feeling of “censoring” my kind impulses, though I’ve never heard this experience articulated. I think the underlying reason is usually fear, which is never a good thing to give into, but it is a fear of: looking flaky (people see you as “soft”), looking fake (people doubt your intentions), feeling exposed (for whatever reason) and yes, being exploited (it has happened).

Kindness takes great courage. But in the end, there is no single act of kindness I regret. Kindness can break you, expose you, and humble you.

But on some inexplicable level, it sets you free.

Responding to E.P. comment that we evolved based on “sexual competition” and another comment I read in a forum today explaining that Mr. Sanford was acting on an evolutionary impulse to “spread his seed” (apologies for repeating that), I would like to encourage this program to do a show on evolutionary psychology and how it is applied–and, indeed, misapplied–in interpreting the world today.

On the Op Ed page of the NYTs today two doctors wrote in with diametrically opposed reactions to a column by David Brooks: one an anthropologist, one a evolutionary psychologist. Could we hear them on this show?

It seems everywhere I look people are using the evolutionary process to explain human deeds. Most of the arguments simply do not make sense to me. For instance, we focus on competition but would humanity ever have survived without, in fact, kindness? We focus on promiscuity in men, but in reality a man who wanted his child to grow up healthily would have every instinct to be a present, engaged, protective father and not off philandering.

I’m digressing, but really, I would love to hear this topic debated.

I think the author just said “if people are wealthier than other people they have exploited more people”. I listened twice to tell if he was paraphrasing someone else or stating this himself. He seemed to be saying this was inherent in the reasons behind British social support. He did not distance himself from it. I’m a liberal and think capitalism has to be reigned in in many ways to work well, and that there has to be a good safety net. But the idea that someone is wealthy only because they exploited is nuts. It could be true. Or it could be they did very worthwhile things society valued and rewarded them for. I wish he had clarified.

At the moment of connection, at the moment of need, we will either be kind, indifferent, or cruel. At the moment of connection, everything that happened up until that moment will direct our actions. Our actions depend on the environment and also on our level of awareness or sensitivity. Our actions are influenced by what we need and that need is based on how we were raised. What do we know about ourselves. A complex system indeed.

When we are in a toxic environment, like work, kindness can be driven underground by the loud voices of greed and self-protection. There is also a crowd mentality that invites collusion and a sense of joy in seeing another suffer. Take those people out of the environment and the dynamic might change. Single out one of those people and they might hate their actions–if they are capable of introspection. Not everyone has this capability. They need to keep proving they are good, right, kind, altruistic–when nothing could be farther from the truth.

Toxic environments exist in families, with friends. Can we step away and see our actions as separate from the rest?

We talk about random acts of kindness as if this moves the world. Who can say? Leaving extra money at a toll booth gives us a kick. We feel the excitement. It is about us. But this is not the true definition of kindness.

Kindness is like the air we breathe. We know when its is demonstrated to us. And we know when it is missing–at work, in families, with friends. Kindness involves direct action. It is not a thought. It is what we do.

With children, when we are taking action to meet our needs first at the expense of the child–we are not being kind. But its easy to justify our actions.

Those who truly understand children know what it means to be kind. They understand the dependency and vulnerability. It doesn’t matter if their kindness is visible. It just means that the child is safe, or that the child’s life is enhanced by a wonderful moment when she is seen and heard, and most importantly valued for who she is.

We seem to forget this. It takes so little to value the other person. We just need to suspend our needs and see the other person. And when we truly see them, it alters our behavior.

The fact that “we’ve grown afraid of kindness, wary of it — that it’s become dangerous to practice” demonstrates to me its awesome power. Kindness is disarming and there is no genuine way to defeat it. Sure, you can resist but real kindness and honesty is real power.

On the point of whether or not accumulation of wealth is done on the backs of the poor (that an individual cannot amass wealth without having caused harm) my perspective has long been that ’somewhere in the world an individual may/may not have suffered in poverty/injustice to allow me to make this gain’. And I follow with a brief consideration of how likely this may be true.

Usually I can imagine truth – that someone, somewhere, worked to help my gain be possible – and did so from an environment of impoverishment. Similarly, if I pay ‘what the market will bear’ for labor, what are the conditions in which the laborer finds him/herself? Can I pay more than market value for labor even if my own gain is reduced?

I do not mean tossing $$ about willy-nilly – I mean what can I afford for this labor? How much does the outcome of the labor benefit me? How does it benefit (or tend to crush) the life of the laborer? It also means I am inclined to ask How important is the gain to me in the face of what it may cost another?

To some extent this line of inquiry also plays into issues of ’safety net’ social policy like universal health care. We do not live in a time when everyone in town happens to know the family across town is suffering and can rally around to meet the need.

It’s a big world with billions of folks in it. On the assumption that there is need, we can attempt to devise ways to pool our resources and ask a public body to distribute uplifting and/or life-saving support. The public body does this on my behalf because I cannot know of every individual’s need.

I have worked in a high-needs school community and have witnessed both children and parents ‘perk up’ and begin to thrive over time as a result of committed and intelligent support effort on the part of service deliverers (including teachers, including both academic and social/economic gain). When I remarked on the shift of children’s faces when they anticipate justice/compassion and it does not develop, I meant children hoping/anticipating adults will deliver. Following a path of blaming folks as ‘lazy’ is at best ignorant (unaware).

Whomever has greater “power” is in stronger position to guide toward justice/compassion in matters of social policy – whether it be ’social’ as in a community, a state, a nation, or global. Power can be seen as simply as ‘life experience’ and need not be associated with a specific role.

We may not need “government” (democratically elected bodies) to organize social benefit on our behalf, but it is theoretically much more practical/sensible to use government this way – much as a governing body of any organization, such as that of a minor league team, a sportsman’s group, or an economic cooperative venture may be organized. The idea is that we vote individuals – assign them by our vote – to look after a task on behalf of the group. This is neither capitalist nor communist except as the governing body makes it. Social democracy makes a lot of sense in theory as it implies human beings organizing elected bodies for themselves to look after what needs to be done – including policy that reflects our level of interest in compassion/justice.

The US Constitution is indeed a wonder, but it is not necessarily 100% sacred. Jefferson himself suggested it should be re-written by a special congress to do so every generation or so.

Jefferson also held a belief that every individual is essentially “aiming for the best that can be.” I have found this to be true and have known a number of sometimes maligned individuals who are viewed as lazy or worse. A recent study discovered the poor in America are far more likely than the more wealthy to act generously, and to share even scarce resources. I have often wondered how Jefferson would view where we have taken ourselves.

Jefferson’s take on the inherent dangers of banking institutions holds up, I believe – as does Eisenhower’s “beware the military/industrial complex”. “Industrial” has become “mega-corporation”, and compassion/justice is not a primary motivator of these any more than it may/may not be found in our elected governing bodies.

We are “one family” whether we like it or not. Kindness when it is comfortable or present in our immediate moment is one thing. Kindness (compassion/justice) by extrapolation extended to unknown, unseen, but easily imagined need is another, and is the one area I believe we do not often consider.

If we are to practice awareness of the latter (unknown but imaginable need) we – I believe – cannot help but temper our efforts toward personal gain with strong questions of “want vs need”.

In may respects, we remain in a condition of “it’s all about me” (and those I am pleased to know among my social/career/economic set.)

For me the call to kindness is deep, often un-heard, and I do hope we humans are “evolving” toward greater response to this call. As stated earlier, I have witnessed it in children – and I have come to the belief this call to justice/compassion is as innate as any contrary innate call – including selfishness, etc. We can nurture, bring forth, make room for, … etc… this more noble call in ourselves once we are awake to its existence.

Best Regards! Maggie

This program was the first I have heard of this book, and I’m looking forward to reading it. Almost all of the points raised in listener comments, especially those by “Expanded Consciousness,” as well as much more, are discussed thoroughly in my KINDNESS AND THE GOOD SOCIETY, CONNECTIONS OF THE HEART (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002). This book is a full-fledged philosophical treatment of kindness, and it contains many, many examples from literature, art, poetry, and psychotherapy.

Some of these cases are indeed puzzling. In Ibsen’s A DOLL’S HOUSE, Nora tells her husband that he had done her “a great wrong,” although he had been very kind to her. In Frederick Douglass’ great autobiography (LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS) includes the following passage: “[T]he kindness of the slave-master only gilded the chain. It detracted nothing from its weight or strength. The thought that men are made for other and better uses than slavery throve best under the gentle treatment of a kind master.” And in THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, after Jim, the runaway slave, has been recaptured, the local doctor describes Jim to his friends as follows: “I see plain enough he’d be working main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars–and kind treatment, too.”

These and other cases raise knotty problems. For example, if some cases of kindness are morally good while others are evil, how do we tell the difference? Is it always the case that, as Beverly states, “We know when it [kindness] is demonstrated to us?” How do we know? What is it, exactly, that makes an action or refusal to act really kind as opposed to clever deception? What makes a person as opposed to a particular act kind, and how is it that kind people can do very unkind things? How is it possible that we can deceive ourselves when we think, mistakenly, that we have done someone a kindness?

Since “Expanded Consciousness” has so ably quoted Nietzsche, I will close with another quotation from that “master of suspicion,” as Paul Ricoeur referred to him. “The proficiency of our finest scholars, their heedless industry, their heads smoking day and night, their very craftsmanship–how often the real meaning of all this lies in the desire to keep something hidden from oneself!” –ON THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS

Maggie pretty well tied in a bow kindness as expressed through us in government (or not). (Wow.) I want to point out two things. One: donor fatigue, where with 6 billion people, if you ached for every troubled, sick, mistreated indiidual you’d be flattened. I think we are manipulated by the media, by churches, National People with [Disease} Day maybe to focus on some, but more crucially to bypass all the other sufferers without today’s disease.
Two: someone said “kindness is action.” I think the best kindness goes under the radar, just as the worst cruelty does. It evades easy reportage or the gaze that looks and is shocked (by cruelty) or impressed (by kindness). I just read through a “Junie B” book for children where the main point is that Junie gets in as much trouble for “thinking” insulting thoughts “at” the girl next to her. The teacher blames her for the thoughts. Personally, I have found that people calling me names is a call to interaction, a somewhat awkward preteen-type goad, but not something to suppress, even the thought of. Let it out. Let the person engage in the interaction, get it out there.
A few days ago I saw the nonaction kindness in play very impressively. Imagine a medical office where people have to wait for hours, with a tech apiece, more or less. There is space to be separate, or to be together. You sort of get to know the others but can pretend to be doing crosswords. One woman, a new patient, displayed a rather “dirty” look in my direction. I had sort of signed off into personal space by calling to my tech “what is a word for ‘get out of here’? ‘Zapper’? I think my tech took the cue to go to her office. But the new patient maybe thought I was being rude, or had been rude by being chatty with my tech. The new patient was sort of alone. But after that, she and her tech sort of opened up to one another, and my tech spoke to her a few times. Things got several degrees warmer interpersonally. Actually, I got another jolt when I thought I had offended a second patient, not that he showed it. I revisited all the things he might have overheard (parts thereof), and was relieved to see him settle in, sort of find his place.
So much of that was intuitive. Had one person not displayed her displeasure, however off-point her feeling was, the sequence of minute signals that corrected the situation could not get triggered. Or probably it would, but I am noting my part anyway.
And the particular mutual adaptations of the afternoon, mostly wordless, often without any revealing expressions, certainly no acknowledgements, are the essence of kindness but are not “actions.”
So can name-calling without anything being said be punished in third grade?

Kindness first needs to be given to ourselves. If we were kind to ourselves, we would be happier. We could then extend that kindness to others.

Reaching out to others with emptiness inside only leads to hollow promises of kindness, a shell of a smile.

Do or say something kind to yourself today and everyday.

Sometimes the irony stands up, does a back flip, and smacks you full in the face.
Thanks for the strong poem, BB.

A saying well put — “We judge ourselves by our intention, others judge us by our behaviors.”

Started from childhood, most people want to fit in, therefore we end up speaking, acting, and thinking (debatable) like people around us, even if at the end of a day, your conscience signals you that something is just not right. Next day, we wake up, start our day just like yesterday, this way we get around easier. When you hear yourself and others’ conversations, most of them are wasteful and junky. Every person on this planet earth should practice silence every so often, by doing so will clear our thought, conscience, and soon you will find yourself not being so reactive anymore, which is very beneficial.
Don’t we find ourselves being overly reactive always end up losing our internal and external battle.

We clean our body everyday for refreshment, we should do that for our soul, experiencing silence can put things in perspective. Energy is good, but too much energy can be destructive.

Unfortunately plenty of people grew up with air filled with noises and constant moving energy, our mind become so pumped up on steroid. We don’t know what to do with silence, which makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable, they associate silence as warning or alarming.

Silence is the water that cleanse our mind.

Kindness is also having benefit of doubt, respect, giving space for the person you feel he/she is requiring.

I have a very personal conflict in kindness. I found myself very unkind when it comes to criticize the people on TV, like they are not real living human. Of course they won’t know my comments about them anyway. But it is my conscience tells me I am not kind. For example, I really really don’t like Sarah Palin and what she stands for. I have not been very kind coming out of my mouth about her. What should I do in this instance? Should I practice my kindness even if she doesn’t care or know anything about it?

I enjoyed the discussion on this topic. Hopefully, everyone will read this touching story about how kindness spreads.

One day a man saw an old lady, stranded on the side of the road, but even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes and got out. His Pontiac was still sputtering when he approached her.

Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hour or so. Was he going to hurt her? He didn’t look safe; he looked poor and hungry.

He could see that she was frightened, standing out there in the cold. He knew how she felt. It was that chill which only fear can put in you.

He said, ‘I’m here to help you, ma’am. Why don’t you wait in the car where it’s warm? By the way, my name is Bryan Anderson .’

Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. Bryan crawled under the car looking for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles a time or two. Soon he was able to change the tire. But he had to get dirty and his hands hurt.

As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from St. Louis and was only just passing through.. She couldn’t thank him enough for coming to her aid.

Bryan just smiled as he closed her trunk. The lady asked how much she owed him. Any amount would have been all right with her. She already imagined all the awful things that could have happened had he not stopped. Bryan never thought twice about being paid. This was not a job to him. This was helping someone in need, and God knows there were plenty, who had given him a hand in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to act any other way.

He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance they needed, and Bryan added, ‘And think of me.’

He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed for home, disappearing into the twilight.

A few miles down the road the lady saw a small cafe. She went in to grab a bite to eat, and take the chill off before she made the last leg of her trip home.. It was a dingy looking restaurant. Outside were two old gas pumps The whole scene was unfamiliar to her. The waitress came over and brought a clean towel to wipe her wet hair. She had a sweet smile, one that even being on her feet for the whole day couldn’t erase. The lady noticed the waitress was nearly eight months pregnant, but she never let the strain and aches change her attitude. The old lady wondered how someone who had so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she remembered Bryan …

After the lady finished her meal, she paid with a hundred dollar bill. The waitress quickly went to get change for her hundred dollar bill, but the old lady had slipped right out the door. She was gone by the time the waitress came back. The waitress wondered where the lady could be.Then she noticed something written on the napkin

There were tears in her eyes when she read what the lady wrote: ‘You don’t owe me anything. I have been there too. Somebody once helped me out, the way I’m helping you. If you really want to pay me back, here is what you do: Do not let this chain of love end with you..’

Under the napkin were four more $100 bills.

Well, there were tables to clear, sugar bowls to fill, and people to serve, but the waitress made it through another day. That night when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about the money and what the lady had written. How could the lady have known how much she and her husband needed it? With the baby due next month, it was going to be hard…..

She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay sleeping next to her, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered soft and low, ‘Every thing’s going to be all right. I love you, Bryan Anderson .’

There is an old saying ‘What goes around comes around.’

Good friends are like stars….You don’t always see them, but you know they are always there.

Lata Rele, it is a very moving story, I especially like the part “He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance they needed, and Bryan added, ‘And think of me.’”

This story reminds me of a recent commercial, when someone sees others landing helping hands, it is contagious, then it becomes a circle of goodness.

Someone pointed out earlier, kindness has 2 motives, strength & weakness. But to me, kindness is our transcended strength from our awareness of our vulnerability and weakness.

I love this show, it touches so many thought provoking subjects that is rare especially for recent trends of news media.

Thank you, Tom and all your teammates for your unique approach.

Whoever was feeling bad about criticizing people on TV, I think doing that kind of critique is healthy. It sharpens our judgment and hurts no one. Plus it sort of defuses any smoldering frustrations. I get totally furious at certain politicians and anyone who pays them or lobbies them for this or that which runs counter to my views. I might like them and respect them for this and that, but I also would love a chance to give them a piece of my mind — or let someone more eloquent give them a piece of my mind.
Bouncing off a piece of a program on local public access TV, isn’t our culture of capitalism based on greed, taking advantage of people (exploitation — slavery globally now worse than ever, making you plastic gizmos), buying off whole countries (they say), corruption being almost built into a capitalist system, elites preserving themselves in ways elemental to capitalism?
The idea was that radical restructuring around other human motivations other than the selfish (Adam Smith, right?) is in order (here and everyplace). We need a Gandhi/Martin Luther/Martin Luther King/Saint Paul/St.Bernard dog — I digress. We need heavy duty philosopher/economist kings. (Or so they were saying, and I’m still on that wavelength, not yet at the throwing-slippers-at-that- particular-TV-show stage.)
Kindness as “random acts of kindness” which constitute moving stories — that may not be enough. Perhaps if kindness were more part of our social fabric, it would not be kindness; it would be required behavior, with no name at all. Just as it is required not to rob people on the street, or anywhere. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Is the government my brother’s keeper? Is the capitalist system shunting our better human qualities into the realm of the “random”?

to Ellen Dibble —-

“Is the capitalist system shunting our better human qualities into the realm of the “random”?” — very well put, can’t be more true than that.

I feel the same way about the random act of kindness really is not enough, it gives us the illusion of self satisfaction of being a good being.

It is so interesting to see things and truth observation being revealed layer by layer over the years. I came from another culture, certain American or extreme capitalism behaviors are so obviously different than other parts of the world, and it does take an outsider to recognize those behaviors right away. I can understand why those observations are not welcomed within this culture. So I started to adapt the culture behavior here just to fit in and that makes my days go easier. The greatest thing coming out of this economic meltdown is bringing back the awareness of how much we have been manipulated and sold by “super greed” that some people started to believe it is ok to be super greedy.

I think the direction of our emphasis on “education” is totally wrong in lots of societies. Most of us think the ultimate goal to education is to get a good paid, socially respected job, and be successful. Education should be emphasized toward the goal of having independent, provocative, informative thinking, toward peace and balance.

Only when educations are accessible to most of the populations in the world, when most people are educated enough to have independent informative thinking, then labor intense jobs would be more respected and paid decently without being abused into slavery.

justanother: Beyond education here (higher education) being about success, money, I note that it skews towards privilege, the idea that you can get an advantage by the “brand” of your education, by the “connections” it provides. This is counter to a lot of American ideology, counter to a lot of the egalitarianism we Americans profess. The Statue of Liberty’s beacon of “Opportunity for All” would not be about preemptive success such as terribly costly college degrees confer; such education would even tend to disable the individual’s actual abilities, if you know what I mean, rather than sort of booting one’s interpersonal skills.
I don’t think you focus on K-12 education in your note, but the program I watched that so dissed capitalism seemed to see the domination by landed elites at the root of the American social and economic way of being. So the object of K-12 education is to manipulate the masses, not to raise up critical thinkers. Americans can have skills up to a point, no more.
What this crisis (these crises) bring to light, for one thing, is a question about what work Americans should be doing. Should we revert to manufacturing? It comes to what is a sustainable way of life, globally, and how can we equitably all participate (work at) keeping it going.
The program I saw said that technocrats are the problem solvers, that politicians are poised to be pushed around by the elites, not to find and solve problems.
I’d like school (K-12) to be year-round (since kids don’t need to help out on the farm, but parents work year-round), and for full-day, year-round kindergarten and preschool to be offered (again, so parents can work, and so children get an even platform of early education).
If we could focus, as you suggest, on getting as much of the world able and participating, it would surely threaten those who do favor democracy but only as long as the options are preselected, vetted, by the ruling “interests.”
The program I saw framed the revolution of Protestantism as seeding capitalism by asserting that God’s chosen people prosper financially, something like that. Many evils flow from that, according to their theory.

****The program I saw framed the revolution of Protestantism as seeding capitalism by asserting that God’s chosen people prosper financially, something like that. Many evils flow from that, according to their theory.****

Can you share the name of the program you watched, if not, it’s perfectly fine.

Thank you

You can e-mail the station from the website at http://www.northamptontv.org. The schedule there does not go backward. The time of the program was July 3rd at around 11:30, but I could be off several hours, before or after. The video production was quite amateur (I didn’t see any title, for instance; there were lots of black stretches where patched), the content intriguing. Maybe during work hours tomorrow I can call the number they give and ask. You can too. I wasn’t expecting to be so hooked (on a holiday Friday very late).

It isn’t right to say that religion is against passion, however: quite the contrary. It demands passion for justice, for goodness, for truth, for beauty, and for God. Just not passion for sin.

Ed – Nietzsche’s point (quoted in the third post above) was that while everyone is against the instances where passions lead to “folly” and disaster, religion’s prescription is “excision” and suppression. He is suggesting, what later became “sublimination” in Freud’s writings, to not throw out the baby with the bath water and that the passions labelled “bad” can often be transformed into something good versus dismissed and excoriated. Nietzsche was against simple dichotomies (”beyond good and evil”) and wasn’t simplistically saying that he was passionate and religion passionless.

Applying this to the kindness topic, “kindness” doesn’t have to be seen exclusively as a softening, as a suppression of hardness and selfish desires to free up a desire to perform a kind act. Kindness can also emanate from an unsuppressed and subliminated spirit, one overflowing with strength and the ability to extend outside oneself. The overabundant soul. This approach wides the scope when trying to account for and understand kindness. It avoids the error of simply diagnosing the modern world as in need of weakening and softening. In fact, a stronger world would also be a kinder world.

Who woulda thunk it?

****In fact, a stronger world would also be a kinder world.****

Agree.

Only when we build up our trust by setting our final goal toward peace, and really looking into our intention and final action and compromise (give and take) to reach our peace. And that would be a stronger and kinder world.