Kindness
- "And David said, Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?"
- "Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities."
- Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?
- Kristin Wong, "The Problem With Being Too Agreeable", LifeHacker, 2 Feb 2017
Notes
The word, "kindness", is a vague term that brings to mind a lot of different ideas.
The idea is frequently expressed that Jesus was "kind" to everyone, which often leaves me scratching my head because Jesus is the same guy that compared a gentile woman to a dog, who chased money-changers out of the temple, called the pharisees hypocrites, cursed an olive tree, and let his friend die for dramatic effect. People will often respond to these observations by pointing out why these were the right things to do. I agree, but that's not an argument that addresses the issue that these events appear unkind and, therefore, disprove the idea that Jesus was "kind" to everyone.
In my mind there are only two reasonable resolutions. First, we can define kind around the type of behavior that Jesus engaged in. Second, we can dispense with the idea that Jesus was kind to everyone. They are both legitimate ways to go. I tend to lean toward the second option, though, because the word "kindness" is a word that is loaded with a lot of existing cultural understanding, and I don't think that cultural understanding is any more valid a description of Jesus, even if we were to focus in on LDS culture. It just seems like a descriptive word that is more likely to mislead people than to give them any real understanding of Jesus. I like the word charity. That's because, charity is a word that is already religiously overloaded, and defined explicitly as a characteristic of Jesus.
Kindness is sometimes compared favorably with niceness. In this comparison, niceness is depicted as being unvaryingly friendly and confict-avoiding to the point of situational dishonesty, whereas kindness is unvaryingly honest. Still, it remains hard to reconcile with chasing people out of a house of worship with a whip.
In the realm of personality, the issue of kindness seems to relate somewhat to the Big 5 personality trait known as agreeableness. I don't think it is a perfect match, but I think that a tendency towards agreeableness leads people to overemphasize kindness as a way to push the idea of being nice and to avoid conflict. (I tend to think that agreeableness is associated with motivation to meet external demands as one might find in an upholder or obliger as described by Gretchin Rubin's 4 tendencies personality scheme, or perhaps Conflict Avoidant behavior under John Gottman's love equation personality scheme.)
Negatives of Emphasizing Kindness
Emphasizing kindness (and non-judgement) can lead to misidentifying evil as good and good as evil. Evil is called good, because the straightforward result of emphasizing kindness, is that evil deads are overlooked. Evil people often seek to highlight their good attributes and marginal benefits of their wickedness and seek approval from others so that they don't have to feel responsible for their actions. Kind people can easily fall for this trap. Since kind people value kindness, they can then, somewhat ironically judge harshly, those who point out the actual evils in the world, calling them evil and even persecuting them for pointing out the evil.