Kindness 2013: the power of confidence in yourself

I thought I would wrap this series up with a few thoughts about what, to me, makes kindness possible on an every day basis.

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that one of the reasons why people forget kindness is that they wrap their sense of self-identity around something – often a goal or status. When somebody else intrudes on that – achieves ‘their’ ambition, or tips one of their sacred cows – the rules of common etiquette and courtesy seem to be lifted. Kindness disappears amidst a sudden frenzy of avenging anger.

It’s a pitfall into which humanity seem to keep plunging. Is there a way around it? Sure. One answer, it seems to me, is in being quietly self-confident.

I don’t mean arrogant, or hubris-laden, or self-entitled. These are, of themselves, roads away from kindness. I mean, quietly , modestly self-confident. Feeling secure in yourself. To me, modest self-confidence means:

1. Accepting mistakes – and figuring out how to not repeat ‘em. ‘Sure, I stuffed up. But I know better for next time’.

2. Being prepared to learn.

3. Being secure in your own beliefs, meaning that you are not threatened by the beliefs of others.

4. Humility. There is a difference between arrogant self-entitlement and self-confidence. Self-confident people, in general, seldom indulge in exercises of ego and power over others. No need; they feel secure enough in their own sense of identity.

It’s not always an easy pathway. I think western society, in particular, leans against it. I think the human condition, in general, carries aspects that lean against it. But I think quiet self-confidence – based on humility, acceptance and tolerance  – also fosters kindness.

And hey – at the end of the day, it all boils down to one thing. Being nice to people isn’t hard. Often it costs nothing – a simple smile, holding a door open. Little things count as much as the big gestures. And the rewards never stop.

What do you figure?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Coming up later this week: more writing tips. And a new series – the funny side of real science. Starting with UFO’s. Good for a laugh? Oh yes.

Kindness 2013: revenge – it’s called epic kindness fail

In the past few weeks we have seen that kindness is a philosophy  - a  way of life that encompasses tolerance, reason, thought and compassion. And, it seems to me, all the more necessary as the planet becomes ever more crowded, ever more polluted, and as our resources diminish.

Alas, a quick glance at any news bulletin reveals inhumanities from civil wars to terrorism to horrific stories of toddlers being run over in China and left to die because strangers are too scared to intervene, lest they be held financially liable. Every day we hear stories of muggings, robberies and other deeds. And that’s without considering the ways people are unkind to each other in everyday life.

There are many causes. However, one of them, it seems to me, is the way we enwtine our sense of self-worth around an ambition, a desire or a cause. And when that is intruded upon – when our self-worth seems slighted – what happens? Why, the wrong must be avenged! And the hatred that follows is neither rational, nor reasonable.

My Airfix model of a Mk IV tank, 1917 – one of the ways the Germans were defeated in 1918.

What’s more, revenge happens on all levels. Remember World War 2? The how-and-why has been subject to relentless analysis, but it boils down to one point; Germany was sore at its defeat in 1918, particularly at the hands of France. A little Austrian corporal with shell shock managed to exploit that sense of popular injustice to get himself into power – and engineer revenge. It was made explicit in 1940. When the French capitulated, Hitler made a point of humiliating them in ways that related to 1918, even down to having them sign the armistice in the same railway carriage used to sign Germany’s capitulation in 1918.

Why do we keep doing it? Revenge initially feels good. Not only good, but – so it’s been shown via scientific analysis - more rewarding than kindness. And, as if it wasn’t enough to have that time bomb entwined into the human psyche, we’re also bombarded with the message daily. What’s the slogan? ‘Don’t get mad – get even!’ We always hear that ‘revenge is sweet’. We are even sold books and movies because we can, vicariously, feel that sense of thrill as a character wreaks revenge on those who wronged them.

It’s insidious, and what worries me is that it’s also accepted. You’ve been slighted? No problem – hunt down the miscreant and smash them over. Bwahahahahaha!

There is, of course, a catch; what those studies also found was that the people wreaking revenge not only kept the sense of injustice alive – and thus felt worse for it – but that the act of revenge itself had a psychological backfire point, afterwards.

In other words, it was a momentary sense of satisfaction only.

Kindness? Well, guess what. The feel-good sense lasts. So kindness trumps revenge in the end. A no-brainer, really. Except…well, the human condition also pushes us towards instant gratification - the path of revenge. So I fear that the philosophies of kindness that are important to us – that will make it possible for us to survive as a species, once the planet hits the tipping point and ruin is upon us – will get lost along the way.

Our world, in short, won’t blow up in a sudden armageddon. It’ll get ugly, nasty, and die horribly and slowly. Unless we make the conscious effort to have a philosophy of kindness.

What do you figure about this one?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Kindness 2013: is kindness also weakness?

The other day someone suggested to me that the reason kindness has faded of late is because, in this day and age, it’s viewed as weakness.

I  had to agree. It seems we value people who are ‘tough’, who can show ‘toughness’ by – well, you’ve guessed it, being able to discomfit others.  At heart it is power – ‘I’m stronger than you’. Kindness, by this view, is the ‘soft option’. Not a new view, but I think it has become one of the factors that has de-normalised ‘kindness’.

I don’t see things this way. Kindness does not mean compromising self-respect or integrity, or being ‘weak’. Actually, it is a means by which people show strength and earn respect. I have a story about this.

Ten years ago I wrote a biography of Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Freyberg (1889-1963), who led the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Second World War. He was a huge man – 6’2” – who still carried the childhood nickname ‘Tiny’. In the course of a career spanning both world wars he received multiple wounds, was awarded the VC, the DSO four times,  the CB, was knighted twice in further recognition of his service, and later raised to the peerage. He was brave as a lion,  a fighting commander who led his men into battle. J M Barrie’s 1922 lecture ‘Courage’ referred to Freyberg’s astonishing feats off Gallipoli in 1915.

By twenty-first century standards he was an archetypal ‘tough guy’ – a real-life action hero. One of the people we think of today as ‘strong’ in all respects. And he was.

However, he was also very kind, in the true philosophical sense I’ve been discussing in the past few weeks – fair, tolerant and reasonable. He had a repute for it. He was always thinking of others. This extended to tolerance of attitudes that were typically Kiwi.  Major-General Arthur Smith, Chief of Staff in Middle East Command, complained that Kiwi soldiers never saluted officers. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Freyberg explained. ‘If you wave to them, they’ll always wave back.’

Yet tolerant kindness did not mean softness. Freyberg had boundaries, made sure people knew what those were – and was respected. He demanded results, including expecting his officers to show the same standards of personal courage as his own. That combination of strength and a philosophy of genuine kindness inspired people to follow him – the very best sort of leadership.

That was brought home to me when Penguin published my biography of him in 2005. Even as the book was getting a delightfully positive response from independent professional reviewers, New Zealand’s military-academic historical community exploded in a frenzy of  hostility in our national media.  They appeared to be falling over each other in their eagerness to deny my worth and skills in a field where I had published 30 books to that time, without financial support or affiliation, and on personal merit; and where I was paying their full-time salaries to write books competing with mine, through my taxes.

Normally I hesitate to dignify ‘publication rage’ by engaging it, particularly as not one of these academics – who included my former thesis co-supervisor – had the integrity to talk to me in person about it (nor have since).  However, their wrong-at-every-turn assaults – which extended to denials of worth in all my work - included claims that were factually untrue and which made me look generally incompetent as a person. This overstepped the mark, and I was wondering whether to take the advice of my solicitor when my phone started ringing.

The calls all opened the same way. ‘Is that Matthew Wright? I’m one of Tiny’s men.’

Sixty years after the war – more than forty after Freyberg’s death – his soldiers remained faultlessly loyal, and were extending that to me. I had, more than one of them said, nailed Freyberg’s character. He was a great man by any measure. By rubbishing and defaming me,  those military-historical academics were also rubbishing Freyberg. And the remaining soldiers of the Second New Zealand Division – Freyberg’s men – were not going to have any of that nonsense.

It told me just how great a man Freyberg was. And Freyberg inspired that lifetime respect and loyalty not by exploiting army command structures to assert power, but through the virtues I have been mentioning – thoughtfulness, reason, tolerance, intellect – and kindness. A remarkable legacy.

That experience, to me, reveals the power of kindness as a philosophy. And its incredible strength.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Kindness 2013: thinking about kindness the Asimov way

 I posted last week about how difficult kindness is to really pin down – how to make it work we have to find a philosophy that encompasses many virtues from tolerance to reason to acceptance to thoughtfulness.

It struck me that a lot of what I was talking about can be found in the stories of Isaac Asimov. More often than not, his scenes involved characters talking. It is a measure of his extraordinary talent as a writer that his novels were dramatic, gripping and compelling througb the tensions between the characters as they talked. Wonderful, wonderful writing.

Asimov’s greatest legacy remains his ‘Three Laws of Robotics’, designed to break the early twentieth century trope of psychopathic metalloids turning on their creators. In essence they said (a) don’t hurt humans, or allow them to be hurt; (b) obey orders, except where it breaks the first law; and (c) protect yourself, except when it breaks the other two laws.

Asimov imagined societies where robots were ubiquitous – where they would prevent humans from hurting each other, a kind of active conscience for the dark side of humanity.

Needless to say these ‘robot laws’ were problematic. Asimov knew it – most of his ‘robot’ plots involved showing up loopholes. How do you define ‘harm’? (‘Galley Slave’ involved a robot fixing an author’s galley proofs, because the stress to the author of doing it himself, the robot judged, amounted to harm). Suppose you re-define ‘human’ so the First Law doesn’t apply? (Asimov explored this in Robots and Empire). What happens if a robot is met with equally balanced choices between the laws? (‘Runaround’).

A lot pivoted around the premise that robots operated by if-then logic. Asimov’s key robot, R. Daneel Olivaw, was just that – literal minded, a point Asimov used in a plot turn in The Caves of Steel. But in his later robot novels, robots could reason their way through dilemnas. By the end of the cycle, R. Daneel was largely indistinguishable from a human in behaviour – and, unerringly, working for the good of humanity.

It would be nice to imagine af ‘First Law’ equivalent for humans – but we already have this. We are exhorted from childhood to look after others – to help others – in short, to be kind. It’s just that we don’t. Not often enough. Things seem to get in the way. A pity, really.

I’ll explore some of those ‘things that get in the way’ in the next few posts. Meanwhile – what do you think about a human ‘first law’ equivalent?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Coming up this week: Sixty second writing tips, more on Tolkien, and continuing the series ‘Write it now’ – an A-Z of how to write.

Kindness 2013: the many ideas that lead to kindness

I’ve been posting for a few weeks about the importance of kindness. Especially in this day and age. And we all know what kindness is….don’t we?

Well, I figure yes – and no. Let me explain.

In most ways kindness is obvious. It’s about doing things for other people, altruistically, with no reward for yourself other than the feel-good factor of knowing you’ve helped someone. It can be as small as a smile to a passing stranger; or as large as you like.

But to me it’s more than that. Kindness is underpinned by many related ideas, including ‘thoughtfulness’ – making sure you don’t do something to somebody that is unkind, even by accident.

In order to be ‘thoughtful’ we must also understand what people are doing, and why. That draws in ‘compassion’. Understanding’ also demands ‘reason’ – we have to be able to think our way through the issues. It demands ‘tolerance’ – because if we allow ourselves to see somebody else as a threat to our own ways or self-esteem, we are likely to lose ‘reason’, ‘understanding’ and ‘kindness’.

To me both ‘understanding’ and ‘tolerance’ also demand ‘abstraction’; an ability to step back and not allow the emotions that cripple our kindness – anger and revenge, mainly – to intrude. More on this anti-kindness pitfall in a later post.

Kindness, in short, is a word that encompasses a philosophy; a philosophy of care, of compassion, of thought, of reason, of tolerance, of abstraction and of understanding. Particularly, of understanding the human condition – for if we understand that, then we can know and avoid the pitfalls.

All these things are the tools that make kindness possible – reliably, often, as an everyday part of life. They also surprisingly difficult to do, for reasons which I’ll explain about in a subsequent post.

And yet I can think of people who do this, right now. And there is a fictional character who does all these things too.

Spock.

Not the 1960s Spock of Star Trek (1965-67), but the multi-dimensional Spock of the later movies, the elder Spock of the 2009 re-boot especially. The difference was specific; in the 1960s, Spock was prisoner of an emotionless Vulcan biology in which his ‘human half’ had to be allowed to shine through. A contrived character. But by the 2000s, Spock had become a much more developed character, and his emotionless approach had become something else – a philosophy. Vulcans were violently emotive; they had to find ways of controlling their destructive side. And where does a philosophy of calm logic, science, abstraction from emotion (especially anger, if you’ve seen the movie) and reason lead us? By Spock’s rules, it is to kindness.

What do you figure? I’d love to hear from you on this one.

 Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013 

Kindness 2013: beginning with small steps

I posted last week about making 2013 the year of kindness. And I have been absolutely humbled by the wonderful response. Thank you!

Along the way, someone pointed out, on Twitter, that kindness is a good idea – but human nature will prevent it working. And, alas, and alack, that’s quite true. History is littered with efforts to be kind which founder on the usual culprits – jealousies, greed, ego, assertions of ‘us’ over ‘them’. Human nature is multi-faceted, complex, and largely split between altruism and self interest, both personally and in terms of the groups we identify ourselves as belonging to.  Kindness exists, but it is inevitably counter-balanced with unkindness along the way. And often, alas, it is the unkindness that wins.

Why? Because unkindness often appears to be the easier course, and – unfortunately – also the more rewarding for some people. I’ll explain more about that later. But as a historian, science geek, anthropologist and general cynic I agree that we can’t eliminate the darker side of the human condition.

But we can, I think, make kindness the side that wins more often than not. If enough of us try. What’s more, I think that as the world gets more crowded, more intrusive, less private and faster, the onus is on us to make sure we do. Otherwise we risk ending up fighting over the wreckage. It’s happened before.

The thing is that, at the end of the day, kindness is rewarding; acts of kindness make the recipient feel good. It makes you feel good, for doing it. It’s also easy. Kindness starts in small ways. It can be as simple as holding a door for a stranger. Or helping someone cross the road. It can be as simple as a genuine smile. Being nice costs nothing, and gives so much

What do you figure? I’d love to hear from you on this one.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

This series continues next week. Later this week: ‘So you want to be a writer?’ First of a series on the A-Z of the art. Check it out. Then: ‘ Inspirations. Dreams stay with you in a big country.’ And more.