Oh hey, a debate popped up. I agree with
@Qelix but just for fun, I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate.
Kindness in fact keeps us from murdering each other.
While that statement in itself is true, it's not absolute. There are many variabilities that contributes to murder: vengeance, blackmail, beliefs, immorality, psychotic behavior... the list goes on. Simply classifying
kindness as
a prevention of murder is very limited and often false for the reason stated above.
Richard Chase is a serial killer who refused to enter anyone's home who have their front door locked for the reason that we assume to be that he avoids breaking and entering. Why, isn't he very kind?
Source: https://www.thethings.com/sugar-spice-and-everything-nice-15-of-the-nicest-serial-killers-of-all-time/
Social kindness e.g. inspires to people to investing their lives for a greater good, life developing medicine for example, instead of using their intelligence to become another wall-street broker.
Ooh, I do agree. I mean, Alfred Noble invented the dynamite to help mine in a quarry faster and keep people at a safe distance. Isn't he nice? Oh yeah, people use his bomb to kill people. Great! Another great man who got abused of his kindness in ways he could not even predict.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel
But to be fair, "the weak should perish" is a argument aggressors usually use.
That's called "natural selection", buddy.
If he had seen it under the aspect of kindness,
To make things clear, let us use these words' google definitions.
Kindness: "the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate."
Naive: "(of a person or action) showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment."
You see where I'm getting? If she were to act kind, she would be naive. "Oh look, a hero just came and save me" is both an act of
kindness and
naivety. This is a scenario where both meaning shall be inseparable. Compared to "A man has just slain my prosecutors. What is his ulterior motives? And why couldn't he come any sooner to save my friends?" which describes
ungratefulness,
predicting, and
wisdom.
I thought about his "kindness is poison" stance more like a general attack on the concept of altruistic kindness.
Altruism: "the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others."
Except, this world isn't perfect. A multinational company has no problem letting thousands of its workers go jobless if it's for the sake of minimalizing loss at an unsatisfactory branch. Of course, there are so many small-scale examples of true altruism; but it is never absolute.
If some psycho were to strap a random stranger you don't know and your best friend to two railroads and a train is marching at full speed - you're given the switch to decide where the train will go and thus who will die.
In a world where altruism is absolute:
-Using the power of friendship, your best friend's rope has been loosened enough for em to escape.
-Then the two of you rescue the stranger.
-After that, you say hello to the train captain and tell him that everything's fine so that you won't worry him any further from his stressful day.
-And finally you invited the psychopath into rehabilitation where he is then finally able to rejoin society.
-And all five characters of this tale, including yourself, become friends.
But that isn't the world we live in, isn't it?
In this world, you just have to let the stranger go and hope that you satisfy the psycho's taste for blood.
And so, what is my objective to this entire argument? What am I trying to state?
Nothing lol. I just wanna shoot you down cause I like debates.