Killing them softly with kindness

In todays world, it seems that everyone wants to give their fellow man a leg up to help them to get through the hard times. Its a natural instinct to want to alleviate the suffering of others; to provide them with food, shelter and a means of support when that are down on their luck.

The problem is; this cycle of kindness created a cycle of dependency to the point that our kindness creates a class of people wholly incapable of taking care of themselves or living independently without the guarantee of a handout coming to them from some source or another. It has gotten to the point that people think they are ENTITLED to a hand out when they are down instead of trying to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps in order to overcome adversity.

Kindness Can Kill if Love is Unwilling to Wound

Kindness is a very great thing and has an important place in our relationships. Kindness is evidenced by goodness and charitable behavior, a pleasantness, tenderness and concern for others.

Kindness is an aspect of love, but it is necessarily distinct from love. For is sometimes happens that love, which wills what is best for the other, may deem it best not to remove all suffering. A father, in fact may impose punishment on a child out of love. Kindness generally seeks to alleviate suffering and negativity. Love understands that suffering often has a salvific role. My parents disciplined me out of love. Had they been merely kind to me, I would likely have been spoiled, undisciplined and ill-equipped for life.

The good eclipses the best – And herein lies the danger of reducing love to kindness. In simply seeking to alleviate the suffering of the moment, or to give people what they want, many deeper issues go unresolved and worsen. Welfare has created a slavish dependence for many in our culture. And it is not just the poor in our cities. There is corporate welfare, and many other subsidies and entitlements, that too many can no longer go without. Rather than addressing the root causes of poverty, dependence or poor economic conditions and bad business models, kindness interrupts love’s deeper role and treats only the suffering of the moment. In this sense what is merely good (i.e. kindness) replaces what is truly best (Love). True love gives what is best, not merely what is immediately preferred.

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He points out how willing we are to give money to a panhandler on the street with no strings attached but, if our own children come to us asking for money, we are more likely to start asking questions; why do you need the money? What is it going to be used for? We want to make sure our own will use it responsibly because we love them and want only the best for them.

Truly loving another means that you just don't want to alleviate their temporary suffering but, you want to improve their overall condition. You want them to become self sufficient even if this means a little tough love, like lecturing them on the mistakes that brought them to their current condition or threatening to cut off the aid if they become too dependent on it.

If only the leaders of our world could learn the difference between love and kindness.