“Be kind,” Says the Bully.

#TransparentTuesday

Hi friend,

Have you ever noticed how the same people spewing hatred and bigotry online are often the same ones whose social media profiles say something like “it costs nothing to be kind,” or “love is my superpower”?

It’s frustrating to me that the worst takes on queer and transgender folks, immigrants, and people of color always seem to come from people who claim to value kindness, love, and acceptance. 

Certainly a lot of these people identify as Christian in some form, and frankly I have to just step back and admire the spectacular mental gymnastics those people pull off to avoid seeing any contradiction between “love thy neighbor” and “deport thy migrants,” or between “be kind to one another” and “fuck your feelings.” (Sigh.)

But even when it’s not coming from a religious place, I feel like far too often we tend to see higher levels of overt nastiness coming from the very same people who claim to live by epitaphs like “be kind, because you never know what other people are going through,” and “before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes,” or who call themselves a “love warrior” or “compassion coach.”

Why is this??

It could just be that people who feel secure in their embodied values don’t feel the need to put it in their bios, so that the people who do feel the urge to announce to the world that they care about kindness are more likely to be doing so from a place of insecurity, virtue signaling, or a desire to be seen a certain way– like “look at me, I’m a Good Person™!”

It could also be that we all have different definitions of what’s considered kind in any given scenario, and everyone views each topic through their own lens and with their own biases. 

For example, I might think it’s kinder to say something supportive (or nothing at all) to a fat woman talking about body acceptance, while a gym bro deeply entrenched in diet culture and manosphere might think the kindest thing to do would be to explain to her that she’s going to die and no man is ever going to choose her unless she loses weight. 

Now, do I think most people making these kinds of horrible comments actually think they’re doing it from a place of kindness? 

No, probably not. 

But it’s certainly possible that based on our own differing perspectives, we would each have a different interpretation of what’s kind, and what’s not, in various situations.

That said, I think there’s another, more nuanced, complex, and accurate reason for this pattern, and in order to talk about it, we’ll have to be willing to think a bit more deeply about kindness, compassion, and empathy.

Think for a moment about what you’ve learned about kindness, for example.

• Where do you believe kindness comes from? 

• Do you see it as something that’s natural and innate, or practiced and chosen? 

• What do you think it means about someone who is effortlessly kind, versus someone who has to work at it? 

• What do you think it means about someone when they’re not kind? 

• Do you imagine them to have some intrinsic character flaw or moral failing, or do you ascribe their unkindness to their social conditioning, trauma, or a temporary state like stress or fatigue?

  
  

You can ask yourself all these same questions about compassion and empathy— where do you believe these qualities come from, and what do you believe it means about someone who can access them easily, compared to someone who has to work at them? Do you see these as reflections on a person’s innate goodness or badness, or as self-protective mechanisms? 

I’m inviting you to consider all this because our society teaches us (falsely) to think of kindness and compassion as fixed, intrinsic qualities that reflect and determine a person’s moral character. 

Most of us learned to think that “good people” are naturally and innately wired to be kind, loving, and generous, while “bad people” are naturally and innately selfish, mean, and cruel. We also learned that being the first kind of person is extremely important, because a person’s moral character determines what kind of life and treatment they deserve.

This puts us in a bit of a conundrum, because we humans are actually much more complex than the good/bad binary would have us believe. We are all capable of both extremes, and we all experience the full range of emotions and reactions— sometimes even simultaneously! 

So deep down we know that we can sometimes be selfish, judgmental, rude, or unkind… but we also learn we must at least appear to be a “good person” in order to have value in the world.

This sets us up to think of kindness and compassion as something we must perform, rather than something we experience.

We also tend to know, deep down, that our feelings and reactions are completely context-dependent, and that how kind/loving or mean/judgemental we are changes all the time, based on a variety of factors like our trauma history, interpretations and projections, defense mechanisms, our sense (or not) of belonging, how safe we feel, and even just whether we’re tired or hungry!

But we still tend to think of these traits as fixed and intrinsic, which makes us feel like any sign of meanness, selfishness, or judgment is an automatic stain on our character, rather than an area worth getting curious about, and exploring with compassion. (Which it absolutely is!)

That sets us up to feel shame, however, which makes us feel like we need to try to repress, hide, or disown any signs of “badness” we notice in ourselves!

And what’s the end result of all this self-policing, self-rejection, and self-abandonment?

Well, it makes us feel less safe, less connected to others, and less compassionate with ourselves…all of which tend to make us more impatient, critical, and unsympathetic when it comes to others.

In other words, the intense moral pressure to be (or at least to appear to be) a kind, loving, empathetic, and compassionate person pushes us into being more selfish, judgmental, uncaring, and cruel.

I think this is often at the root of what we’re seeing online (as well as in politics, and in real life) when the same people loudly proclaiming “love and kindness” also tend to be the rudest and most hateful. 

What are your thoughts on this? 

Big hug,

Jessi