Niceness is a vice; kindness is a virtue

Some of you are probably wondering what the hell substance I’ve been abusing to come up with a title like that. Niceness and kindness are synonyms, or so that’s what the thesaurus says. Well, that’s the thing – if niceness and kindness were identical concepts, we wouldn’t need two separate words to describe the same thing. Niceness is not a quality you should strive to cultivate – kindness, however, is.

There was once a cartoon which depicted the differences in how people from New York City and Los Angeles treated others. The cartoon showed two identical images of  a man greeting another person on the street. What separated them was what the man in each scenario was saying and thinking. In the New York cartoon, the man was yelling “Screw you!” while thinking “Have a nice day!” The Los Angeles cartoon showed the man yelling “Have a nice day!” while thinking “Screw you!”

Niceness is the manifestation of the latter mentality. People who define themselves by how nice they are are usually cowards. To them, the highest moral good is not hurting anyone’s feelings, and they will go to any length to avoid doing so even if it results in actual, material harm to those around them. While some nice people are genuinely concerned with others, just as many of them are often bitter individuals who border on being Type 1 misanthropes. The primary difference between nice people and outright misanthropes is that the former cover their meanness with a thin paint of cordiality. True kindness, in contrast, involves prioritizing moral good over emotional concerns. Kindness does not preclude cordiality in social interactions, but reserves it for when it is appropriate. A truly kind person will not hesitate to speak his or her mind when it comes to matters of importance, even if they risk temporarily offending those they care about.

The phenomenon of the “nice guy” in the modern West is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. I’ve linked to this post by 11minutes in the past, and I’m doing so again:

Nice guys are liars.

Take the following example:
- Great job!
- Thanks, but ohhh nooo – it wasn’t that great. You are so much better!

This happens quite frequently. “Nice” people assume that (false) modesty/humbleness requires them to downplay their own achievements. They believe this makes the other person feel better and it prevents the perception of them bragging about themselves.

Think again! The first person says that this was a great job. The second person disagrees. The second person essentially questions the first person’s judgment – or worse assumes that the first person is a liar – only trying to please the person who did a great job.

There is no need to be that argumentative. There is also no need to say it wasn’t that good is both sides are likely to agree that it was great. This is a genuine asshole move. Done by somebody who believes it was the “nice” thing to do.

Nice guys do that all the time.

The feminist naysayers are wrong – nice guys are, in fact, nice. The problem is that they aren’t kind. For all their cordiality, they are devoid of integrity and thus repulsive to women.

For a more concrete example of the difference between niceness and kindness, here’s the scenario I posted a month ago from the TV show House:

One example of this is in an episode from last season that I re-watched recently, “Joy to the World.” One of the subplots of this episode involves Wilson betting House that he can’t be nice to a patient. House subsequently diagnoses a clinic patient complaining of headaches as pregnant, despite her claims of her and her fiancé being virgins. House orders a paternity test, the results of which show that the woman’s baby was the result of parthenogenesis, a spontaneous genetic mutation that resulted in one of her eggs being fertilized without the need for sperm. After receiving a gift from the couple following this news (and winning the bet), House reveals that he faked the paternity test, the real results of which showed that the woman had in fact cheated on her soon-to-be husband. House concocted the bogus parthenogenesis story in order to save the couple’s relationship – a “nice” goal.

Faking a paternity test to protect a relationship is a nice act. It is not a kind act, because it results in actual harm to the man in the relationship while protecting the woman’s moral transgression.

For another example from the same show, here’s a link to the recent House episode “The Tyrant” on Hulu. The relevant part is from 33:53 – 36:10. In the scene, House breaks into a man’s house, drugs and ties him up, then uses a mirror box to relieve pain in his amputated right arm. Healing a man of the thing that had made his miserable all his life is assuredly a kind act, but the actions of trespassing on his property and tying him up are not nice – and yet, without taking those steps, the kind act could not be performed. This is a case in which being nice would prevent one from being kind.

This brings me to a subject addressed here and on other blogs in the Roissysphere and Steveosphere: the phenomenon of Stuff White People Like. As a class, SWPLs have been the driving force behind the replacement of genuine kindness with niceness in modern society. SWPLs are generally nice, polite people, and while some of them are genuinely kind, for most it is a mask to hide the ugliness of their souls from from the public eye. Welmer spoke about this attitude at length in his essay “Thawing Seattle’s Social Freeze“:

One of the alleged paradoxes of the Seattle social scene is that Seattlites are said to be “polite,” despite being notoriously flaky and difficult to befriend. This is actually a contradiction in terms: there is nothing polite about blowing people off or withholding hospitality. In fact, this behavior is downright rude and cruel. Is it polite to smile in someone’s face as you shove them out the door? No, that just adds insult to injury, but sadly it is all too common in Seattle.

Roissy made a similar observation when he visited Toronto, the SWPL capital of the world:

My overall impression of the locals: Everyone is exceedingly polite and unfriendly. Sounds paradoxical, but it’s true. They say “excuse me” and “sorry” a lot, and will always answer any question you have, but they never smile or strike up conversations with anyone.

I’ve visited many SWPL meccas including Seattle, Toronto, Ithaca, and others, and the impression I get from each is exactly the same. SWPLs are weak people who are filled with loathing and hatred towards their fellow men. They despise outsiders but can’t muster up the courage to say “fuck you” to their faces. If you are a person of strong moral fiber, SWPLness is pure poison for the soul. We may mock them for their pretentiousness and their ignorance, but their subversion of morality is what truly makes them repugnant.

I don’t oppose cordiality or politeness. However, being a kind individual means knowing when to be cordial and when to be brusque. There are times when a slap upside the head, physically or verbally, is the compassionate thing to do. Politeness for the sake of politeness is the unacknowledged vice of our age, and it needs to end. Don’t be nice – be kind.