Why I hate Dhar Mann’s Kindness Videos.
This may be the shortest post you ever read from me, but it is one that points at a place where we are heading or already are in our sense of what is moral as a society.
This article is not to attack a person but instead to show that we need to take a deeper look at why our societies are the way they are, what our contribution to that is and how we can reengineer society.
Note: You may want to see a clip of his videos. I have added a link to see some of his “kindness” videos at the end of this article.
What you should understand.
You must understand that society as we currently have it was engineered, created by a set of people both intentionally and unintentionally. The way we live has been molded by what we see, hear and believe which was in turn designed by the kind of things we consume, so from shows, to music, to literature and most importantly to stories we tell.
This is why stories alone are one the most important ways to get people to believe in things.
Stories have the power to change things and people, every movement has its basis on a story, this only points to me that whenever we hear stories, whenever people begin to tell us stories or sell us stories we must become very conscious, and begin to look at what ideologies lie beneath these stories.
And this is why I am writing this article.
Before you proceed…
- You should believe that stories can change people.
- We are the way we are because of stories we have told ourselves or believe in.
- Our societies are engineered by stories.
The Dhar Mann Stories.
So I understand that you may not know who Dhar Mann is, so here:
“Dharminder "Dhar" Mann is an American entrepreneur, film producer and YouTuber. He is best known for his video production company, Dhar Mann Studios, that creates short films for social media platforms such as YouTube. The films target a young audience and typically feature a turn of events that teaches the antagonist a moral lesson.”
-Culled from Wikipedia.
Now you may wonder, what has a film producer got to do with this? Stories my dear! So most of the videos this guy produces are aimed at teaching morals, and part of these include “kindness” videos where people are supposed to learn to be kind, but the issue there is how the stories go. The typical setting is someone going out of their way to be obnoxious and cruel to another, then the climax becomes that suddenly the cruel person realises that the person they were unkind to is actually such an influential person, or the owner or the company or maybe a rich man saw them being rude and steps in. So there, the lesson being, be kind to people because you never know who they are.
My Questions after watching a couple of these videos are:
- What do we really learn from such stories?
- Does it teach us to be kind or does it teach us to be scheming?
- Did we learn what kindness is or we learned what we could gain from kindness?
A movie that shows you how Someone was rude to someone without feeling anything about their actions but suddenly feels bad because they find out that the person they were rude is the owner of the company. Is that the way kindness should be seen?
My argument is this; you don’t need to know who people are to be kind to them. You don’t need to think that someone just may be a great person in the future to be good to them.
And this is my problem with these kinds of stories because they end up being counter productive, they don’t teach you to be kind, they teach you how to use kindness to get what you want. They teach you how to be kind to people who can reward your kindness, they teach you how to do good to those who can repay your good but that is the very opposite of what good and kindness is for.
This matter becomes an even bigger problem when you realise how much followers, likes and engagement those videos get, it means that those thousands of people buy that ideology and will inadvertently use it to interact with their society. They will be kind to the waiter because you never know, he may be the owner of the restaurant in disguise. They will be nice to the lonely girl because she may be the undercover daughter of the president, and so on.
They won’t be kind because that’s how life should be or how we should interact with a fellow human, they will use kindness as a tool, an exchange product.
Indeed this is why we hear sayings like “ Be kind to people, you never know where you will need them in future”.
Let me borrow the teachings of Christ and say, Of what use is kindness to only those who can be kind to us?
What if we begin to be kind to people just because that’s how we should be?
Why you should not be kind…a short list.
- You should not be kind because you may need the person you are kind to in the future.
- You should not be kind because they may turn out to be a person of influence.
- You should not be kind because you will be rewarded or seen.
Why you should be Kind
- Because it’s the right way to interact with another human.
And that is it, that is reason enough. It doesn’t need any more addition.
And this is why we must challenge such stories, We should challenge them vocally, we should challenge them by thinking and we should challenge such narratives with our actions.
If you can indulge me, Let’s round up today’s article with an assignment.
Choose any day the new week and go be kind to someone.
This could mean holding the door for someone to pass, helping a struggling mother with her bag up the stairs, letting an older person get on the bus first or pulling out a chair for another.
Do you think you can do this?
Link to see some of the referenced videos:
https://youtu.be/DkjJi14Lmh8?si=qwHb19Cin9puFaPl
Thanks for reading!
I look forward to hearing stories of true kindness from you.
You can send in your experience at omefejean@gmail.com or just comment under this story.
