My most hated expression “just be kind”. Someone said it to me regarding JK Rowling speaking up about trans issues - “why can’t she just be kind”, ie, why can’t she just shut up. It’s vomit inducing arsenic laced saccharine.
Hahah, that cracked me up - "vomit inducing arsenic laced saccharine." Indeed, if one is charitable it is an incredibly one-dimension ethical call; if one isn't charitable, it's closer to a manipulative front designed to lull the populace into believing what you're doing is right and noble.
Believe that one is doing what’s right and noble , being „kind” and on the right side of history , is the crack cocaine of the progressive left. They are quite literally addicted to it.
I've rarely come across a liberal who would ever acknowledge that being kind to one person or group can end up a cruelty to a different person or group. (Probably because acknowledging a conflict breaks the entire paradigm.)
Every time I read well written retrospectives like this, every time I look at the "kindness" being perpetrated by the globalist establishment that has held the reigns of power for decades longer than you or I have been alive, I find myself thinking of "Smiling Faces Sometimes," a song by the Motown group The Undisputed Truth.
It's possible you've heard the song before. It's always been a popular one on the radio, finding frequent play on oldies stations and classic R&B/Motown stations. The song itself is a warning: don't trust someone just because they flash you a winning smile or pat you on the back. Look at what they're doing, how they're acting, and give your trust carefully and sparingly. It's a good song, both musically and for its message, and it applies very well to what you discuss here.
Oh what a tune! I should sample this for one of my songs. I assume it has many times.
I suspect this truth of interpersonal relations - that one shouldn't always just trust someone who gives you 'a pat on the back' or a nice smile - was widely known, a wisdom passed down by elders. One reason this isn't passed down is because of a lack of generational conversation.
This strategy of weaponized “kindness” is researched in depth by Dr. Joyce Benenson in “Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes” (https://a.co/d/eKSeqJj). She finds that females rate kindness (read “compliance” and “non competitiveness”) as one of the most important traits for females to have. It is a ploy to make would be competitors not compete directly and to allow indirect manipulation and status signaling that females generally prefer. This is in part why we see conservative parties start to be male majority and liberal ones as female majority.
Huh, I haven't seen this precise research - that's for sharing. As I've directly experienced, being inside an institution constituted of majority women - if you're a man - can be perplexing, and even suffocating.
Some of us females don’t like it, either. Military psyops have nothing on teenage girls and groups of women in general. And I remember “Smiling Faces Sometimes.”
Mmm, yes I've heard - ironically most of the research about the 'feminising of tertiary education' that I've read, has come from women who are dissatisfied, like Cory Clark.
This reminds me of something Douglass Murray said in The Madness of Crowds as he was describing some sort of "Women in Leadership" style business conference. He talked about a woman who opened her talk by talking about how accomplished everyone else was and how she didn't necessarily feel as though she deserved to be there. As a side bar, the concept of "deserving" seems to be mostly deployed by women. At any rate, I think this deceptive and indirect engagement is what Murray was describing - a sort of self-neutralisation to avoid coming across as aggressive or directly competitive. In these cases, the competition can ironically become about who is less deserving, more insecure, and who feels most like an imposter.
Yes, spot on. in Dr.Benenson’s book she mentions experiments with either all male or all female participants to solve a challenge. The men immediately started to discuss different approaches and debate which might work. The women started with long introductions and assurances that they were team players and all would be included. I’m sure they also downplayed their significance to minimize themselves as targets.
I’m a moderate US Democrat. I was on Twitter/X for 10 years, from 2011 to 2021. I often disagreed (respectfully) with both liberals and conservatives. Conservatives would debate me respectfully and try to convince me of their positions. Liberals would call me names, swear at me, and block me.
I'm sorry to hear that. Do you think there is a way forward for modern liberals? A new left, as it were? Or does it simply need to return to classical liberalism?
Gosh I hope there's a way forward. If the authoritarianism that Trump and his appointees is not countered, the next four years won't be much fun for many of us.
The Left destroyed itself with its descent into identity politics and cancel culture. Leftists became very smug and arrogant, thinking that they owned the culture and that no one could take it away from them. Well, the Right is gaining power globally - and quickly. We see that in the US, in Canada, in Italy, in Australia, in Argentina, and in other places. Leftist authoritarianism has played itself out, and people are tired of it. Now it's the Right's turn to overplay its hand.
The Far Left authoritarians are not going to give up their power easily. They are still screaming that everyone is racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on. Many people who were once afraid of the Far Left are now tuning them out, but they will not cede power to the Center Left (which needs to happen).
The result is that the Right - Trump, Orbán, Meloni, Milei, et al. - is going to come to ascendancy. I'm an optimist by nature, but I'm worried.
<If the authoritarianism that Trump and his appointees is not countered, the next four years won't be much fun for many of us> Judging by this comment, I'm pretty sure it won't be fun for you. As someone who escaped from the former Soviet Union, I don't see much difference between the current Democratic Party and the Soviet Communist Party of the old. And yes, this includes the self-professed "moderates" who continue to defend the indefensible and vote with the authoritarian "progressives."
I agree with you that leftists rely exclusively on ad hominem personal attacks based on nothing, in order to establish their arguments, but that should tell us who they are. As a Trump voter myself, who has been a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 24 years, I can assure you, that within the walls of the deep blue state institutions, "kindness" is a club, as in, a weapon of mass destruction. It's used to ferret out independent thinkers, contrarian viewpoints, and to flatten the community around them into the scorched earth of false compassion cut off from any meaningful idea except the institution as god. Flannery O'Connor wrote about false compassion cut, saying that cut off from its source, the suffering of Christ, it leads to concentration camps and the gas chamber. The Right doesn't force "kindness" on anyone. No need to worry.
I was fully red-pilled three years ago after seeing the poll where majority of the democrats were willing to jail the unvaccinated. This “we are kind” nonsense is just a smokescreen for authoritarianism and incompetence. Got out of LA two months after that.
This is my experience as a conservative asking questions to those on Liberal sites. I recently asked a question on an Democratic Socialists site on FB and after scrolling through many many, names, insults, and conjecture about my family life, I found ONE person willing to have a conversation. I thanked her for her civility. I know there are people out there on every side that are willing to talk about these matters and ask thoughtful questions. I always thank them for the chance to talk about it. And generally they are thankful for the opportunity to discuss things with a conservative minded person.
Mmm, in real life I have had a similar experience at my University. It is very rare you will find a liberal who will first, discuss a controversial topic with you, and second, do it good faith so as to reach some kind of understanding. I have gone into many conversations naïve in thinking they will offer the same charity to me that I do to them; and it has taken direct betrayals and personal attacks to become 'wizened' to their tricks and intentions. Even so, like you said, there are some out there willing to reach some understanding, and it is generally worth it.
For me, in this stage of my life, this is the way forward. But I have to be in the right frame of mind: This person, too, is made in the Imago Dei, the image of God. These people, like me, are experiencing things from their point of view, and some are simply not able to, at this time, process any counter thought to their arguments. Maybe another time, perhaps. I can relate to that feeling.
I also am retired and have time to digest a little more of the vast amounts of information out there than the other person might have, or want to spend.
I have to look at these conversations from a point of careful consideration. For example, I had a two week discussion online with an acquaintance re: Trump vs. Kamala and Republicans vs Democrats. I did not want it descend into that type of discussion. I'd rather talk starting from commonalities. It started out well. We found common ground. But over time, I was insulted for all my counter points, and even my thoughts on what I thought we had in common regarding the issues. So I politely shelved the conversation. I didn't block that person. The door is open, so to speak.
But it bothered me for a good week after. Was this worth it? I don't know. But I just have to try for the sake of goodwill. I really hate how there is a right-left divide. And I know I feed into it too, at times, with my rants and comments. So, its all a learning experience.
I should add, I'm not good at thinking on my feet. I'm just another "keyboard warrior."
Kindness worn as a mask and overwhelmed by self-righteousness is dangerous indeed.
However I challenge the idea that competition and dominance are inherently good, which underlies the thesis.
One alternative take is that 'dominant' people aren't the most pleasant to be around (nor are they always the most competent), and as Jean Piaget showed a century ago, at some point in their development any child is supposed to understand the bigger goal isn't to win, but to be invited to play again.
Kindness may not be the standard, but wasn't cooperation what actually enabled the ascent of our species?
If I have implied that 'competition' or 'dominance' is inherently good (under some Godly, or objectively moral framework), I mean not to - rather that they are not inherently bad: Which extreme equalitarians certainly believe.
I would agree some dominant people are not pleasant to be around (especially the neurotic ones)! I have been meaning to write an article, in fact, on the differences and overlaps between influence and dominance - how one can have one without the other and how for effective leadership one needs degrees of both.
I am fond of Piaget but embarrassingly have not read enough of him. Please show me where I can find this suggestion of his.
For your last point:
1) Kindness is in fact 'a' standard, but not the 'only' standard - which leftists push at us, and which is often a facade for achieving and maintaining power (at least for the political types). Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt's work on moral foundations suggests kindness fits under the 'care' foundation, which is 1 of 6 moral foundations.
2) I personally find it unhelpful, when thinking of biological and psychological evolution, to use the dichotomy of 'competition versus cooperation' without specifying whether this is at the group level or the individual level. Within groups, individuals competed with each other roughly allowing the best, most able, healthiest of mind and body, to rise to the top and pass on their genes. However, groups competed against other groups, and it required individuals within the group, to simultaneously cooperate with each other, in order to maximise their access to resources. Groups that were poor at cooperating would die off.
Thank you. I didn't mean to caricature or misinterpret, and I'm in no place to blame anyone for trade-offs between nuance and word count... But in that spirit, I wouldn't want anyone's takeaway to be "I told you bro: you're either alpha or cuck" (sic)
I believe it is in "The moral judgement of the child" that while studying children playing marbles, Piaget notes at a later stage of development, children start appreciating the social nature of games, fairness, mutual respect, and good relationships.
No embarrassment there, or I'd be ashamed every day for all things I haven't read!
I agree there are layers to competition / cooperation. Some things can be either, or both, like hunting or games.
Even neither, if one decides to do something on their own.
Within groups, there is both, and no ideal trait. Maybe my dominant, aggressive territoriality will impress a potential mate when she's getting mugged, but turn them away forever when I argue with their dad.
And they can't account for everything. Maybe she just likes me because I'm handsome, witty, and smell like a forest in the Spring.
Anthropologists will never know 😉
Or maybe I am not as fearsome to my enemies as discerning and wise--to the point I have none and everyone likes me.
So indeed, the dichotomy doesn't help much to understand people. Nobody in their right mind outside a faculty department walks around thinking about a competition or cooperation binary. People rise to the occasion, get lucky, have bad days.
And yet it is useful as a lens to understand ourselves, even today. It seems the collaborate/cooperate boundary is still as blurry--colleagues work together but only one gets to be the boss. The boss doesn't have the monopoly of influence. Etc.
I would venture, though, that while we live in the densest, most complex and interconnected system to ever be, we are also more bent to competition than ever--and increasingly, frighteningly so.
When I cast my eyes over the political landscape, I do so with an admitted Christian Worldview. One lego piece of this worldview is the assumed selfishness of human nature. It is a confession that we are not “basically good and perfectable.” Christians believe that this lack of goodness is the more correct description of human nature and is universal.
When we compare the Christian Worldview with the social products of the Enlightenment and the elevation of Man As The Measure Of All Things, we see a significant dichotomy. The present “progressive” worldview is just a reiteration of the Secular Humanism that has spawned socialism, tried and tried but never perfected. (nor will it ever be as it is based on a faulty assumption of human nature) Looking around, I need no encouragement to believe in our universal lack of goodness. Looking inside my own life confirms it, and I am left with the single appeal to the One who was murdered by evil men 2000 years ago but ultimately gained victory over their evil nature by Resurrection. It has held me in good stead for almost 50 years, since I converted at the age of 21.
I live in New Zealand, and I can tell you that woman caused nothing but irreparable damage to our economy. She was on the way out along with the labour government and then we had the mosque attack and boom she was saved just in the nick of time. Then she was riding the empathy ride for a while wearing the headscarf, then the purple were tiring of hearing nothing from her on how she was going to build this country, then boom Covid hit, she was saved again. However it was the nail in her coffin, she demanded people to be vaccinated or loose your livelihoods ahead pitted families, neighbours and colleagues against each other and every day her dribble of rubbish would be televised. She is one of the most despised ex politicians we have ever had.
Yeah, that’s bound to happen. Most ex politicians always secure something cushy. I actually can’t stand to see her smug face, she is the most condescending communicators I have ever had the displeasure to listen to. However she has been replaced with an equally spineless idiot, in fact NZ is in real trouble with spineless idiots running the beehive.
Oddly enough. I’ve just returned from an unexpected nine-day stay in Auckland after my spouse collapsed and died at the airport while in transit between the US and Australia. Every single person who we dealt with to unravel and perform the many steps we needed to take to repatriate remains to the US - airport staff, police, paramedics, the coroner’s office, government agencies, both the US and Australian consulates, Air New Zealand, every employee at the Pullman Airport hotel, Gareth and the staff at H Morris funeral services, and many more were “God in skin.” As awful as this unexpected death was, I’m lucky to have gotten to know these New Zealanders, who practiced actual kindness - sincere, embracing and heartfelt- because it is part of the culture. It was human and real, not political, and I’m deeply grateful for it.
I'm sorry to hear about your spouse - that must have been an awful experience. I'm glad my fellow New Zealanders expressed kindness, and did what they could. And I think you are right - we do have a relatively tight-nit civil version of 'love thy neighbour' generally, I believe.
The older I get, the more I realize that empathy and “niceness” are being weaponized. It’s refreshing to see research that confirms that these emotions are not just fleeting feelings but shared experiences of others who had the resources to investigate them further. As a former liberal, I’ve noticed that the right wing tends to be more receptive to outsiders and less critical than my liberal colleagues. It’s as if reality is bending to suit their preferences. Thank you for sharing this; it’s truly eye-opening.
In my experience, the left (“liberal” is an inappropriate term) is made up of people who, in their daily lives, treat other people badly, and they use their ideological philosophy as cover for it. When you claim to believe in “tolerance, kindness, inclusion” and so forth, but you treat the people around you in the exact opposite way, you are a con artist. A liar. A fraud. That’s what’s at the core of it. It’s a manipulative fiction.
I don’t discount that many of those who follow it have been naively and gullibly manipulated into actually believing it. If there weren’t any, it wouldn’t work. But those driving it have no such illusions. It’s a con.
Well said. Certainly, there are people that wholeheartedly believe such an ideology - and probably only can because they are in a context that prevents from seeing the negative fallout (like an elite institution, upper class suburb) - and there are others who cunningly manipulative others into following them.
Great essay. The core question is what does it mean to be kind? Often, what appears as kind becomes cruelty. Last year, I was in Japan for business and was struck by the difference of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka compared to major western cities I'd visited earlier. Clearly, "Kind" leaders bring disaster. What we need are wise leaders.
BTW, it's good to hear some degree of sanity is returning to NZ.
No ideology whether conservative or liberal has a monopoly on truth telling or making errors. When one considers the extreme ends of either position history is full of examples of both going too far and causing unintended (and intentional) damages to society. To cast aspersions and direct invectives towards those of a different perspective is misguided and does nothing but inhibit advancement in dialogue and in producing positive outcomes for anyone. To find the right balance between both would be an exercise in consideration and moderation, not a race to the extreme ends of either ideology.
Well said. Certainly, both have much to offer, and as you said, one way this is achieved is through dialogue - freedom of expression, the topic of my PhD.
I have a question for you. The dilemma of liberal democracy or a 'liberal monarch'. What does one do with the illiberal? The intolerant? Do they tolerate the intolerant, or do they have special rules for such people because of the risk they pose to society (taking over, and imposing their intolerant rules on others)? One could say liberalism was consumed by radical progressivism precisely because of a failure to keep out the intolerant, and once it reached a critical mass, it was too late, the woke extremists began imposing their ideology on the rest of us.
Could you please provide the links of the studies please (my leftist husband rather believe that it’s fake news or studies from extreme right parties with a political agenda… 🙄
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C.S. Lewis
I read a decent number of studies regarding psychology, personality, and politics. On this particular subject I find a curious dichotomy: liberals who genuinely believe they ARE "being kind" (seemingly not intellectually or emotionally aware of the harm they are doing) and sadists who merely use the rhetoric of empathy to provide themselves a veneer of self-righteousness as the "defender/avenger of victims" as they indulge their malice against the alleged "oppressors".
The former seem to be explained somewhat well by this paper: Liberals and Conservatives Make Different Assumptions of Vulnerability, Explaining Moral Disagreement
It's easy to ignore the negative externalities of your policies when you sincerely believe the people you dislike are relatively invulnerable to those effects. No need to feel empathy for folks not "really" harmed.
The latter by another paper: Virtuous victimhood as a Dark Triad resource transfer strategy
"In a compassionate community, false signals of injustice, if not scrutinized and punished, and, especially, if associated with signals of virtue, will activate valuable resource transfers to the individuals or coalitions posing as virtuous victims."
Now, I'm not necessarily saying that liberals themselves are more likely to be malicious narcissist sadists (the evidence there tends to be weak and mixed), but it's hard to argue that they aren't more prone to try to create "compassionate communities", aren't more prone to sacralize "virtuous victims" as beyond question or punishment, and at least a little more prone to "removing moral protection from those accused". They inadvertently create a perfect hunting ground for psychopaths and then cheer on their predation (Luigi killing the insurance exec and Hamas murdering Isrealis being perfect contemporary examples of liberals' selectivity in from whom they withdraw moral protection and for which victims they express no empathy). "The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood, he was one of them" -Turkish proverb
Thanks for your great comment, and referring me to some articles!
The current strand of leftism, it appears, is attractive to manipulative narcissists and lazy-free wheelers. This might not always have been the case, but if it is, and these been gain cultural power over the movement, then it fundamentally distort its once compassionate breeding ground - though one could argue it was always destined go go this way.
I think the most obnoxious of the "be kind" people have a lot of unexamined hostility that they project on others. Rather than thinking "the unvaccinated had sincere safety concerns about the new shots" they went straight to "the unvaccinated refuse to do One Weird Trick to protect others" and then used that mentality to punish people they hated to begin with. They wanted the *image* of kindness rather than the *reality* of kindness.
It would be a mistake to go the opposite "might makes right" direction, precisely sometimes the image and the propaganda of a thing doesn't always match the reality. The answer is not to go back to the days when tons of people were treated like losers and "takers", because they didn't (yet) have much to show for their hard work during a bad economy. Where I'm from in the USA, Mitt Romney was caught saying that quiet part out loud and the 2012 presidential election was a repudiation of that mentality. Also, the final nail in the coffin of "job creator" worship was exactly the recent era we've hopefully left behind -- plenty of "job creators" just spinelessly went along with the dumbest cancellation demands.
There's an exhausted middle group who just wants reality-based policies and for governments to stay out of moral judgments and social engineering altogether, rather than dividing society into "kind vs chuds" or "makers vs takers"
I agree - I think there's likely a real hunger for middle-ground politics - the middles class especially has been getting squished. Whether or not it is possible, in our increasingly techno-feudal landscape, is another thing.
We need more input from the centrists and independents. Centrism does not mean I agree w/all that the other side thinks. It means that practically a centrist strategy works better for all than fanaticism from either side. Many people now describe themselves as homeless politically.
And people have the habit of assuming if they identify as one "side" or the other they must agree w/whatever their side supports, as if it's not possible those on the other side are correct about anything.
Ouf, The Ministry of Horse Teeth was the worst. And all you say is true, 'progressives' both lack genuine empathy (the ability to understand the feelings or perspectives of others) and are prone to authoritarianism.
I think the defining characteristic of leftists & liberals is their deep and constant dishonesty. Yes, they are stupid, selfish, mean, thieves, narcissists, hypocrites, virtue-signalers, poseurs, etc. to varying degrees, but they all lie like the devil.
Research suggests they have higher rates of narcissism and machiavellianism - essentially attention seeking manipulators. (There are other things, too)
My most hated expression “just be kind”. Someone said it to me regarding JK Rowling speaking up about trans issues - “why can’t she just be kind”, ie, why can’t she just shut up. It’s vomit inducing arsenic laced saccharine.
Hahah, that cracked me up - "vomit inducing arsenic laced saccharine." Indeed, if one is charitable it is an incredibly one-dimension ethical call; if one isn't charitable, it's closer to a manipulative front designed to lull the populace into believing what you're doing is right and noble.
Believe that one is doing what’s right and noble , being „kind” and on the right side of history , is the crack cocaine of the progressive left. They are quite literally addicted to it.
The reply to "just be kind" is always "to whom?"
I've rarely come across a liberal who would ever acknowledge that being kind to one person or group can end up a cruelty to a different person or group. (Probably because acknowledging a conflict breaks the entire paradigm.)
Agreed. It’s a dumbing down of the masses. A Soma panacea.
Why can’t they just be logical?
Every time I read well written retrospectives like this, every time I look at the "kindness" being perpetrated by the globalist establishment that has held the reigns of power for decades longer than you or I have been alive, I find myself thinking of "Smiling Faces Sometimes," a song by the Motown group The Undisputed Truth.
It's possible you've heard the song before. It's always been a popular one on the radio, finding frequent play on oldies stations and classic R&B/Motown stations. The song itself is a warning: don't trust someone just because they flash you a winning smile or pat you on the back. Look at what they're doing, how they're acting, and give your trust carefully and sparingly. It's a good song, both musically and for its message, and it applies very well to what you discuss here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9yBjgrnpWI
Oh what a tune! I should sample this for one of my songs. I assume it has many times.
I suspect this truth of interpersonal relations - that one shouldn't always just trust someone who gives you 'a pat on the back' or a nice smile - was widely known, a wisdom passed down by elders. One reason this isn't passed down is because of a lack of generational conversation.
This strategy of weaponized “kindness” is researched in depth by Dr. Joyce Benenson in “Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes” (https://a.co/d/eKSeqJj). She finds that females rate kindness (read “compliance” and “non competitiveness”) as one of the most important traits for females to have. It is a ploy to make would be competitors not compete directly and to allow indirect manipulation and status signaling that females generally prefer. This is in part why we see conservative parties start to be male majority and liberal ones as female majority.
Huh, I haven't seen this precise research - that's for sharing. As I've directly experienced, being inside an institution constituted of majority women - if you're a man - can be perplexing, and even suffocating.
Some of us females don’t like it, either. Military psyops have nothing on teenage girls and groups of women in general. And I remember “Smiling Faces Sometimes.”
Mmm, yes I've heard - ironically most of the research about the 'feminising of tertiary education' that I've read, has come from women who are dissatisfied, like Cory Clark.
And most of them are proudly childless
We’ve devolved into Gynocracy
This reminds me of something Douglass Murray said in The Madness of Crowds as he was describing some sort of "Women in Leadership" style business conference. He talked about a woman who opened her talk by talking about how accomplished everyone else was and how she didn't necessarily feel as though she deserved to be there. As a side bar, the concept of "deserving" seems to be mostly deployed by women. At any rate, I think this deceptive and indirect engagement is what Murray was describing - a sort of self-neutralisation to avoid coming across as aggressive or directly competitive. In these cases, the competition can ironically become about who is less deserving, more insecure, and who feels most like an imposter.
Yes, spot on. in Dr.Benenson’s book she mentions experiments with either all male or all female participants to solve a challenge. The men immediately started to discuss different approaches and debate which might work. The women started with long introductions and assurances that they were team players and all would be included. I’m sure they also downplayed their significance to minimize themselves as targets.
Oh my goodness I had forgotten that song! Excellent!
I’m a moderate US Democrat. I was on Twitter/X for 10 years, from 2011 to 2021. I often disagreed (respectfully) with both liberals and conservatives. Conservatives would debate me respectfully and try to convince me of their positions. Liberals would call me names, swear at me, and block me.
I was never disrespectful to anyone.
I'm sorry to hear that. Do you think there is a way forward for modern liberals? A new left, as it were? Or does it simply need to return to classical liberalism?
Gosh I hope there's a way forward. If the authoritarianism that Trump and his appointees is not countered, the next four years won't be much fun for many of us.
The Left destroyed itself with its descent into identity politics and cancel culture. Leftists became very smug and arrogant, thinking that they owned the culture and that no one could take it away from them. Well, the Right is gaining power globally - and quickly. We see that in the US, in Canada, in Italy, in Australia, in Argentina, and in other places. Leftist authoritarianism has played itself out, and people are tired of it. Now it's the Right's turn to overplay its hand.
The Far Left authoritarians are not going to give up their power easily. They are still screaming that everyone is racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on. Many people who were once afraid of the Far Left are now tuning them out, but they will not cede power to the Center Left (which needs to happen).
The result is that the Right - Trump, Orbán, Meloni, Milei, et al. - is going to come to ascendancy. I'm an optimist by nature, but I'm worried.
<If the authoritarianism that Trump and his appointees is not countered, the next four years won't be much fun for many of us> Judging by this comment, I'm pretty sure it won't be fun for you. As someone who escaped from the former Soviet Union, I don't see much difference between the current Democratic Party and the Soviet Communist Party of the old. And yes, this includes the self-professed "moderates" who continue to defend the indefensible and vote with the authoritarian "progressives."
I agree with you that leftists rely exclusively on ad hominem personal attacks based on nothing, in order to establish their arguments, but that should tell us who they are. As a Trump voter myself, who has been a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 24 years, I can assure you, that within the walls of the deep blue state institutions, "kindness" is a club, as in, a weapon of mass destruction. It's used to ferret out independent thinkers, contrarian viewpoints, and to flatten the community around them into the scorched earth of false compassion cut off from any meaningful idea except the institution as god. Flannery O'Connor wrote about false compassion cut, saying that cut off from its source, the suffering of Christ, it leads to concentration camps and the gas chamber. The Right doesn't force "kindness" on anyone. No need to worry.
I was fully red-pilled three years ago after seeing the poll where majority of the democrats were willing to jail the unvaccinated. This “we are kind” nonsense is just a smokescreen for authoritarianism and incompetence. Got out of LA two months after that.
This is my experience as a conservative asking questions to those on Liberal sites. I recently asked a question on an Democratic Socialists site on FB and after scrolling through many many, names, insults, and conjecture about my family life, I found ONE person willing to have a conversation. I thanked her for her civility. I know there are people out there on every side that are willing to talk about these matters and ask thoughtful questions. I always thank them for the chance to talk about it. And generally they are thankful for the opportunity to discuss things with a conservative minded person.
Mmm, in real life I have had a similar experience at my University. It is very rare you will find a liberal who will first, discuss a controversial topic with you, and second, do it good faith so as to reach some kind of understanding. I have gone into many conversations naïve in thinking they will offer the same charity to me that I do to them; and it has taken direct betrayals and personal attacks to become 'wizened' to their tricks and intentions. Even so, like you said, there are some out there willing to reach some understanding, and it is generally worth it.
For me, in this stage of my life, this is the way forward. But I have to be in the right frame of mind: This person, too, is made in the Imago Dei, the image of God. These people, like me, are experiencing things from their point of view, and some are simply not able to, at this time, process any counter thought to their arguments. Maybe another time, perhaps. I can relate to that feeling.
I also am retired and have time to digest a little more of the vast amounts of information out there than the other person might have, or want to spend.
I have to look at these conversations from a point of careful consideration. For example, I had a two week discussion online with an acquaintance re: Trump vs. Kamala and Republicans vs Democrats. I did not want it descend into that type of discussion. I'd rather talk starting from commonalities. It started out well. We found common ground. But over time, I was insulted for all my counter points, and even my thoughts on what I thought we had in common regarding the issues. So I politely shelved the conversation. I didn't block that person. The door is open, so to speak.
But it bothered me for a good week after. Was this worth it? I don't know. But I just have to try for the sake of goodwill. I really hate how there is a right-left divide. And I know I feed into it too, at times, with my rants and comments. So, its all a learning experience.
I should add, I'm not good at thinking on my feet. I'm just another "keyboard warrior."
Interesting read.
Kindness worn as a mask and overwhelmed by self-righteousness is dangerous indeed.
However I challenge the idea that competition and dominance are inherently good, which underlies the thesis.
One alternative take is that 'dominant' people aren't the most pleasant to be around (nor are they always the most competent), and as Jean Piaget showed a century ago, at some point in their development any child is supposed to understand the bigger goal isn't to win, but to be invited to play again.
Kindness may not be the standard, but wasn't cooperation what actually enabled the ascent of our species?
Great comment.
If I have implied that 'competition' or 'dominance' is inherently good (under some Godly, or objectively moral framework), I mean not to - rather that they are not inherently bad: Which extreme equalitarians certainly believe.
I would agree some dominant people are not pleasant to be around (especially the neurotic ones)! I have been meaning to write an article, in fact, on the differences and overlaps between influence and dominance - how one can have one without the other and how for effective leadership one needs degrees of both.
I am fond of Piaget but embarrassingly have not read enough of him. Please show me where I can find this suggestion of his.
For your last point:
1) Kindness is in fact 'a' standard, but not the 'only' standard - which leftists push at us, and which is often a facade for achieving and maintaining power (at least for the political types). Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt's work on moral foundations suggests kindness fits under the 'care' foundation, which is 1 of 6 moral foundations.
2) I personally find it unhelpful, when thinking of biological and psychological evolution, to use the dichotomy of 'competition versus cooperation' without specifying whether this is at the group level or the individual level. Within groups, individuals competed with each other roughly allowing the best, most able, healthiest of mind and body, to rise to the top and pass on their genes. However, groups competed against other groups, and it required individuals within the group, to simultaneously cooperate with each other, in order to maximise their access to resources. Groups that were poor at cooperating would die off.
Thank you. I didn't mean to caricature or misinterpret, and I'm in no place to blame anyone for trade-offs between nuance and word count... But in that spirit, I wouldn't want anyone's takeaway to be "I told you bro: you're either alpha or cuck" (sic)
I believe it is in "The moral judgement of the child" that while studying children playing marbles, Piaget notes at a later stage of development, children start appreciating the social nature of games, fairness, mutual respect, and good relationships.
No embarrassment there, or I'd be ashamed every day for all things I haven't read!
I agree there are layers to competition / cooperation. Some things can be either, or both, like hunting or games.
Even neither, if one decides to do something on their own.
Within groups, there is both, and no ideal trait. Maybe my dominant, aggressive territoriality will impress a potential mate when she's getting mugged, but turn them away forever when I argue with their dad.
And they can't account for everything. Maybe she just likes me because I'm handsome, witty, and smell like a forest in the Spring.
Anthropologists will never know 😉
Or maybe I am not as fearsome to my enemies as discerning and wise--to the point I have none and everyone likes me.
So indeed, the dichotomy doesn't help much to understand people. Nobody in their right mind outside a faculty department walks around thinking about a competition or cooperation binary. People rise to the occasion, get lucky, have bad days.
And yet it is useful as a lens to understand ourselves, even today. It seems the collaborate/cooperate boundary is still as blurry--colleagues work together but only one gets to be the boss. The boss doesn't have the monopoly of influence. Etc.
I would venture, though, that while we live in the densest, most complex and interconnected system to ever be, we are also more bent to competition than ever--and increasingly, frighteningly so.
When I cast my eyes over the political landscape, I do so with an admitted Christian Worldview. One lego piece of this worldview is the assumed selfishness of human nature. It is a confession that we are not “basically good and perfectable.” Christians believe that this lack of goodness is the more correct description of human nature and is universal.
When we compare the Christian Worldview with the social products of the Enlightenment and the elevation of Man As The Measure Of All Things, we see a significant dichotomy. The present “progressive” worldview is just a reiteration of the Secular Humanism that has spawned socialism, tried and tried but never perfected. (nor will it ever be as it is based on a faulty assumption of human nature) Looking around, I need no encouragement to believe in our universal lack of goodness. Looking inside my own life confirms it, and I am left with the single appeal to the One who was murdered by evil men 2000 years ago but ultimately gained victory over their evil nature by Resurrection. It has held me in good stead for almost 50 years, since I converted at the age of 21.
Well said, and thanks for sharing your journey.
I agree, the denial of innate flaws helps explain so much of liberal and progressive behaviour, the narcissism that has been getting out of control.
I agree once more we have had a crisis of redemption in our society - that we have refused this necessary avenue for the soul in people.
"The Left" are oddly naive. The idea that "if we throw everything they want at them, they'll be good" seems a persistent fantasy.
Then delusion follows to explain the nasty but predictable (to anyone else) results.
I meant to add that the notion of concupiscence might be enlightening!
You’ve articulated something I believe as well. Thanks.
I live in New Zealand, and I can tell you that woman caused nothing but irreparable damage to our economy. She was on the way out along with the labour government and then we had the mosque attack and boom she was saved just in the nick of time. Then she was riding the empathy ride for a while wearing the headscarf, then the purple were tiring of hearing nothing from her on how she was going to build this country, then boom Covid hit, she was saved again. However it was the nail in her coffin, she demanded people to be vaccinated or loose your livelihoods ahead pitted families, neighbours and colleagues against each other and every day her dribble of rubbish would be televised. She is one of the most despised ex politicians we have ever had.
Well said.
And then they make her a 'Dame' and go make a film about her.
Go figure.
Yeah, that’s bound to happen. Most ex politicians always secure something cushy. I actually can’t stand to see her smug face, she is the most condescending communicators I have ever had the displeasure to listen to. However she has been replaced with an equally spineless idiot, in fact NZ is in real trouble with spineless idiots running the beehive.
I agree with you once more; Luxon is just a shade of her, or a mirror, nothing more.
Yes, he is a real disappointment. But even worse than him is chippy.
Oddly enough. I’ve just returned from an unexpected nine-day stay in Auckland after my spouse collapsed and died at the airport while in transit between the US and Australia. Every single person who we dealt with to unravel and perform the many steps we needed to take to repatriate remains to the US - airport staff, police, paramedics, the coroner’s office, government agencies, both the US and Australian consulates, Air New Zealand, every employee at the Pullman Airport hotel, Gareth and the staff at H Morris funeral services, and many more were “God in skin.” As awful as this unexpected death was, I’m lucky to have gotten to know these New Zealanders, who practiced actual kindness - sincere, embracing and heartfelt- because it is part of the culture. It was human and real, not political, and I’m deeply grateful for it.
I'm sorry to hear about your spouse - that must have been an awful experience. I'm glad my fellow New Zealanders expressed kindness, and did what they could. And I think you are right - we do have a relatively tight-nit civil version of 'love thy neighbour' generally, I believe.
The older I get, the more I realize that empathy and “niceness” are being weaponized. It’s refreshing to see research that confirms that these emotions are not just fleeting feelings but shared experiences of others who had the resources to investigate them further. As a former liberal, I’ve noticed that the right wing tends to be more receptive to outsiders and less critical than my liberal colleagues. It’s as if reality is bending to suit their preferences. Thank you for sharing this; it’s truly eye-opening.
No worries, thank you for reading. As a formal liberal myself, I know exactly what you mean.
In my experience, the left (“liberal” is an inappropriate term) is made up of people who, in their daily lives, treat other people badly, and they use their ideological philosophy as cover for it. When you claim to believe in “tolerance, kindness, inclusion” and so forth, but you treat the people around you in the exact opposite way, you are a con artist. A liar. A fraud. That’s what’s at the core of it. It’s a manipulative fiction.
I don’t discount that many of those who follow it have been naively and gullibly manipulated into actually believing it. If there weren’t any, it wouldn’t work. But those driving it have no such illusions. It’s a con.
Well said. Certainly, there are people that wholeheartedly believe such an ideology - and probably only can because they are in a context that prevents from seeing the negative fallout (like an elite institution, upper class suburb) - and there are others who cunningly manipulative others into following them.
Great essay. The core question is what does it mean to be kind? Often, what appears as kind becomes cruelty. Last year, I was in Japan for business and was struck by the difference of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka compared to major western cities I'd visited earlier. Clearly, "Kind" leaders bring disaster. What we need are wise leaders.
BTW, it's good to hear some degree of sanity is returning to NZ.
No ideology whether conservative or liberal has a monopoly on truth telling or making errors. When one considers the extreme ends of either position history is full of examples of both going too far and causing unintended (and intentional) damages to society. To cast aspersions and direct invectives towards those of a different perspective is misguided and does nothing but inhibit advancement in dialogue and in producing positive outcomes for anyone. To find the right balance between both would be an exercise in consideration and moderation, not a race to the extreme ends of either ideology.
Well said. Certainly, both have much to offer, and as you said, one way this is achieved is through dialogue - freedom of expression, the topic of my PhD.
I have a question for you. The dilemma of liberal democracy or a 'liberal monarch'. What does one do with the illiberal? The intolerant? Do they tolerate the intolerant, or do they have special rules for such people because of the risk they pose to society (taking over, and imposing their intolerant rules on others)? One could say liberalism was consumed by radical progressivism precisely because of a failure to keep out the intolerant, and once it reached a critical mass, it was too late, the woke extremists began imposing their ideology on the rest of us.
Could you please provide the links of the studies please (my leftist husband rather believe that it’s fake news or studies from extreme right parties with a political agenda… 🙄
Yes, for sure - I should have provided links, I normally do.
Here's the Empathy one (liberals v conservatives): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01461672231198001
Here's the substack that contains a great explanation of the research on how left-wingers are 'averse' to masculine looking men:
https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/left-wing-authoritarians-are-averse?r=b87nb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
Let me know if the links do not work, and thanks for reading!
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. - C.S. Lewis
I read a decent number of studies regarding psychology, personality, and politics. On this particular subject I find a curious dichotomy: liberals who genuinely believe they ARE "being kind" (seemingly not intellectually or emotionally aware of the harm they are doing) and sadists who merely use the rhetoric of empathy to provide themselves a veneer of self-righteousness as the "defender/avenger of victims" as they indulge their malice against the alleged "oppressors".
The former seem to be explained somewhat well by this paper: Liberals and Conservatives Make Different Assumptions of Vulnerability, Explaining Moral Disagreement
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qsg7j_v1
It's easy to ignore the negative externalities of your policies when you sincerely believe the people you dislike are relatively invulnerable to those effects. No need to feel empathy for folks not "really" harmed.
The latter by another paper: Virtuous victimhood as a Dark Triad resource transfer strategy
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2024.112964
"In a compassionate community, false signals of injustice, if not scrutinized and punished, and, especially, if associated with signals of virtue, will activate valuable resource transfers to the individuals or coalitions posing as virtuous victims."
Now, I'm not necessarily saying that liberals themselves are more likely to be malicious narcissist sadists (the evidence there tends to be weak and mixed), but it's hard to argue that they aren't more prone to try to create "compassionate communities", aren't more prone to sacralize "virtuous victims" as beyond question or punishment, and at least a little more prone to "removing moral protection from those accused". They inadvertently create a perfect hunting ground for psychopaths and then cheer on their predation (Luigi killing the insurance exec and Hamas murdering Isrealis being perfect contemporary examples of liberals' selectivity in from whom they withdraw moral protection and for which victims they express no empathy). "The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood, he was one of them" -Turkish proverb
Thanks for your great comment, and referring me to some articles!
The current strand of leftism, it appears, is attractive to manipulative narcissists and lazy-free wheelers. This might not always have been the case, but if it is, and these been gain cultural power over the movement, then it fundamentally distort its once compassionate breeding ground - though one could argue it was always destined go go this way.
I think the most obnoxious of the "be kind" people have a lot of unexamined hostility that they project on others. Rather than thinking "the unvaccinated had sincere safety concerns about the new shots" they went straight to "the unvaccinated refuse to do One Weird Trick to protect others" and then used that mentality to punish people they hated to begin with. They wanted the *image* of kindness rather than the *reality* of kindness.
It would be a mistake to go the opposite "might makes right" direction, precisely sometimes the image and the propaganda of a thing doesn't always match the reality. The answer is not to go back to the days when tons of people were treated like losers and "takers", because they didn't (yet) have much to show for their hard work during a bad economy. Where I'm from in the USA, Mitt Romney was caught saying that quiet part out loud and the 2012 presidential election was a repudiation of that mentality. Also, the final nail in the coffin of "job creator" worship was exactly the recent era we've hopefully left behind -- plenty of "job creators" just spinelessly went along with the dumbest cancellation demands.
There's an exhausted middle group who just wants reality-based policies and for governments to stay out of moral judgments and social engineering altogether, rather than dividing society into "kind vs chuds" or "makers vs takers"
I agree - I think there's likely a real hunger for middle-ground politics - the middles class especially has been getting squished. Whether or not it is possible, in our increasingly techno-feudal landscape, is another thing.
We need more input from the centrists and independents. Centrism does not mean I agree w/all that the other side thinks. It means that practically a centrist strategy works better for all than fanaticism from either side. Many people now describe themselves as homeless politically.
And people have the habit of assuming if they identify as one "side" or the other they must agree w/whatever their side supports, as if it's not possible those on the other side are correct about anything.
Ouf, The Ministry of Horse Teeth was the worst. And all you say is true, 'progressives' both lack genuine empathy (the ability to understand the feelings or perspectives of others) and are prone to authoritarianism.
I think the defining characteristic of leftists & liberals is their deep and constant dishonesty. Yes, they are stupid, selfish, mean, thieves, narcissists, hypocrites, virtue-signalers, poseurs, etc. to varying degrees, but they all lie like the devil.
Research suggests they have higher rates of narcissism and machiavellianism - essentially attention seeking manipulators. (There are other things, too)