Radical Kindness
Author: Anne Vial
July 07, 2020
Radical
kindness. I have been leaning on this phrase as a
sort of shield against the period of social vitriol we slog our way through
these days. “Kind” is often used as a mild, watered-down version of “generous,” as a delicate action without oomph. I am out to
reclaim kindness as an essential and life-giving force to carry through this most fraught moment.
I
start with the dictionary. It turns out that “kind” and “generous” derive
from the same Indo-European root that gives us many of our “gen-” words: generous, generate, gender, genius, genesis, for example. But another batch of progeny
from the same root sounds more like “kind”: kin, king, kindergarten; even Kriss Kringle makes his way into the derivatives listed
by the American Heritage Dictionary. These two branches of the same root
are on different linguistic journeys through our language. The
line to “gen-” words has at its heart birth and beginning. The “kin-” track focuses on clan, nation, and belonging. Think of a group of things all
the same: “That’s my kind of music!” Taken together, the
branches produce an exquisite and beneficial
tension—family and belonging bound linguistically to new
birth and generosity. They are impulses moving
simultaneously inward toward home and outward toward change; protective and brave, pregnant with possibility.
Why radical kindness? “Radical” has its own suggestive linguistic history.
Again according to American Heritage, radical
means “arising from or going to a root or source;
fundamental; basic.” Botanists and mathematicians use radical this way. The
next definition may seem more familiar: “departing
markedly from the usual or customary, extreme.”
Radical in this sense is chaotic and challenging, reaching out to something new
and different. Radical
kindness, then, is a double dose of the human ties-that-bind blown
open to embrace whomever we encounter.
How
does kindness become radical? What would radical kindness
be or do for the world? The pull of kin and tribe is powerful, and the social identities
of race, gender, and nationality used to define these terms are embedded in many
of the current struggles with cultural difference. Rootedness is part of what humans
value in community, yet tribalism makes us lash out at difference. The
person who can look beyond individual comfort and safety or anger and injustice
to act for the greater good is radically kind. I think of Fred Rogers’
unconditional acceptance of each individual he encountered and of Nelson
Mandela’s choice of reconciliation over revolution. Is there a way I can learn
to practice such radical kindness?
One
possibility lies in the energy and power inherent in difference itself. Diversity
specialist Verna Myers recommends an intentional movement
toward difference as a strategy for change. In
a 2014TED Talk on the project of dismantling the racism and brutality of
centuries, Myers urges
her listeners to “walk toward your discomfort” in pursuit of understanding. Walking
toward what we fear requires more than common kindness. It is difficult—introspective but
also outward-looking. It serves as a challenge to break open the protective
boundaries of the familiar. She calls us to “go looking for your bias,” not
to deny it. Myers’ plea embodies the outward movement of the generative roots
of what is both radical and kind, but it also returns us to kinship—she argues
that “people who can see your
humanity” ultimately become “part of your family.” For
Myers, this version
of kindness can challenge and redirect the fear that leads to racism and the desperation that leads to the
violence of reaction. I can’t help that I am a product of a society that
has codified
and ranked racial and cultural differences. But I can move toward that which I fear both within myself and in the world. It sometimes feels naïve to say so—but necessary too—we must be kind, radically kind, to
cut through the clannishness of cultural identity and move toward a generative, chaotic notion of human family.
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