The fault-lines in Radical Kindness
Exploring the risks, rewards & nuances of revolutionary empathy.
Kindness is too often framed as a simplistic and mundane transaction in our life — Someone does something nice for us and we return them in kind.
Don’t get me wrong, returning kindness is socially, morally and economically smart. It plays a key role in Radical Kindness, but by no means does it make up its entirety. At its heart, Radical Kindness also asks what it takes to be the one to take that first step? It also explores whether or not we should even be looking to show empathy to another individual whose response is one of toxic, violent and controlling aggression.
It’s a difficult, nigh on impossible idea to consider being kind to those who would see us harm, but this is exactly the space that Radical Kindness tries to hold. Based on the idea that unconditional compassion can fundamentally change the world for the better, Radical Kindness activists promote care and consideration in the words and actions we use, regardless of who they’re aimed at.
But here lies a problem, one that most Radical Kindness activists ignore & one that I recently walked headfirst into.
Radical Kindness can bring us into conflict with people whose experiences, thoughts and beliefs we fundamentally believe in & agree with - the individuals who have directly suffered at the hands of those that we’re trying to promote kindness towards (and gain kindness from). Their deep, visceral and valid pain too often goes unrecognised and we risk dismissing their experiences further in the name of unifying compassion.
Let’s take an example —
120,000 extra deaths have been associated with the UK Conservative Governments Austerity policies between 2010–2017. The pain felt by many as a result of this isn’t surprising, nor is the anger felt following the UN deeming those policies “punitive, mean-spirited, often callous [and] a political choice”. Retribution on, among others, Conservative MP’s is an entirely valid desire following such destructive actions.
But can Radical Kindness acknowledge and respond in a way that both recognises the validity of the pain felt, while also keeping it’s principles of compassion for all, at it’s heart?
I believe so. But only if it’s undertaken with meaning, openness and reflection, with a few key reflections:
1. We don’t own the rights to effective dissent.
Our allies don’t need to use the same approach as us to be effective in achieving our shared aims. Trying to force peace and compassion at a blanket level, not only risks agitating our allies, but can also take away from our collective potential.
In order to respond to these risks, we need to learn.
We need to learn how to listen; how to hold complex space where conflict can occur safely; how to explain what we do and why; and when & how to effectively step back. Ultimately we need to ensure we’re using our Radical Kindness principles as much with our allies as we do with those that we fundamentally disagree with.
No longer can we take our allyship for granted.
Similarly, our allies do not hold sole ownership over effective methods of dissent either. The conflict that can arise here is high risk for both sides — It simplifies the ideas of pain and privilege and plays into the belief that experiential ‘worthiness’ is one dimensional and determined by responses alone. We desperately need to move away from this toxic narrative.
2. Listen to what kindness means to others
The feminist author and social activist Bell Hooks has extensively explored the role that ‘love’ has in developing our social awareness, social relationships and meaningful social action. She notes how many see love as ‘for the naive, the weak, the hopelessly romantic’, despite an overwhelming societal focus on the search for ‘love’. In ‘All About Love. New Visions’ Bell seeks to both broaden our understanding of love, while also honing in on the specifics for a term that holds a very enigmatic position in our collective understanding. Bell feels drawn to M. Scott Pecks’ approach:
[Love is] the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”
Bell explores how, at the very heart of this richer idea of love, lies the fight for basic human rights for all, as it is this that grows the environment needed for meaningful love to flourish. She notes that fostering love can help to progressively negate the foundations that much of our social inequality and pain is based on — greed, lies and the need for control. Hooks’ work has gone on to heavily influence much of the Radical Kindness movement.
2020 US Presidential hopeful Cory Booker also notes how the active use of love is not solely to fight against the haters, but to move on ‘the silence, indifference and apathy of the many’. In his 2020 Presidential campaign launch speech, Cory mentioned ‘love’ 18 times, defining it as “not feel-good, easygoing love. It’s a strong, courageous love. A defiant love. The kind of love that serves, the kind of love that sacrifices. The kind of love that is essential to achieving justice.”
The Director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory, Jamil Zaki explores how empathy, one of the foundations behind Radical Kindness, is a ‘mobilist’ skill — meaning everyone can develop these abilities, and as a result, we should be promoting it’s learning. In his book ‘The War For Kindness’, Jamil highlights how cultivating empathy has helped in the redemption of a white supremacist, the reforming of the Washington state police, and the healing of post-genocide Rwanda.
On Medium itself, love and kindness are extensively explored. Writing for Mission, Tony Fahkry notes that
World peace will not arise from overthrowing dictatorial powers or ending conflicts between nations. It will happen when humanity raises its consciousness beyond that of fear and hatred.
The incomprehensibly brave Ferial Pearson shares her experience delivering talks on ‘Secret Kindness’ in the face of bigotry and threatening behaviour. She concludes:
I am committed to equity and social justice.
Because I’m committed to kindness.
Because I’m a Muslim.
Not in spite of it.
Does this mean that life is now perfect and we have Radical Kindness to thank for it? No, not in the slightest, but find me any singular approach that has led to that outcome… Instead, Radical Kindness brings together a rich, wide network of brave, remarkable, passionate and compassionate individuals, whose collective work will act as a piece in the puzzle of creating a more equitable and compassionate society.
3. Ask the difficult questions
In order to respect our allies and truly look to bring about the large scale social change we desire, it is important that we ask the difficult questions and not just pave over the cracks in our social problems.
We must ensure that, true to its form, Radical Kindness does not simply let someone off the hook for their actions. Instead, through the use of deep exploration of an issue in a fact-focused way, we can collate the evidence necessary to lay bare the flaws, pain and destruction in the policies, words and actions taken by the powerful. Radical Kindness attempts to get the powerful to reflect on their actions and the consequences that come as a result.
It is theorised that rarely do people honestly, purposefully plan to do active harm to others. More often than not, they act or follow in good faith. This is not to say ‘evil’ doesn’t exist nor that we should dismiss actions because someone “didn’t mean to”. As Sarah Griffiths delves into with Psychologist Julia Shaw, we need to explore ‘Why Do Good People Follow Evil Orders?’ if we have any hope of making a truly equitable society a real possibility. This means assessing and attempting to adapt the ideas of ‘compliance’, ‘authority’ and dehumanising terminology while also fostering concepts like ‘heroic imagination’ and active reflection.
Radical kindness holds emotional responses deeply at it’s core with a desire for justice. In it’s attempt to achieve this, Radical Kindness opens up space for complex and conflicting thoughts and feelings to see the light of day. It acknowledges the existence of differing rationalities before finding a shared way forward with equality, efficacy and compassion at the forefront.
Camille Woodthorpe explores the factors at play in building an honest connection, even with those who harm us, through the use of respectful behaviour, finding shared core values, holding back on generalisations and promoting diversity of thought. Again, we must realise that we cannot force an ally, with lived experience of abusive behaviour, to stand in front of their abuser and lead on this compassionate approach. Nor can we work effectively while we avoid those individuals — after all, their pain and experiences is why we desire to do our collective work with an authentic heart.
4. Open up the Spotlight
We need to ensure that our collective voices and the stories we share are as rich and diverse as the world around us. We cannot rely upon the wellmeaning of our intentions, or just engaging with those who choose to contact us. We need to be active in the diversifying of our representation, while also ensuring that this work in undertaken in an authentic, reflective and meaningful manner. It is only by doing this that we can hope to create a society in which power inequality and the silencing of experiences is addressed.
The Climate Change movement in the Western world is predominantly white, despite aboriginal communities bringing attention to the issue for centuries. Mary Annaïse Heglar explores the learning and breadth of experience that movements, including climate change, can gain through it’s inclusion and promotion of voices from communities of colour, who have lived experiences “about building movements, about courage, about survival.”
So many movements and events hold an apparently invisible privilege — affordability. Someone needs to be able to afford to take time off work to protest, they need to able to afford to risk their job, they need to be able to pay to attend an event. In ‘Neither Radical nor Revolutionary: The Preservation of Privilege in Social Justice Activism’ Laura LeMoon explores this financial and class privilege, explaining how it determines not only who is deemed valid enough to ‘talk’ but also who is valid enough to even be in the room where it happens. Laura explains:
If I could not attend a conference because my poverty was a barrier then these nonprofits really aren’t producing any different outcomes than, say, a corporate Microsoft or Amazon conference
Laura also explains how if organisations and movements are truly interested in meaningful social change, they need to assess how they open up and give the individuals effected by a situation the space and time to talk about their experiences and ideas to move forward. Laura also explores how essential professional respect is to this dynamic, with movement/event conveners ensuring that people are not out of pocket for sharing their work.
5. Sit with our own experiences
It is imperative that, in order to avoid confusion or questions over our intent, that we also share our own stories. We must show how often our approach to Radical Kindness comes from our own pain, anger and sadness. It comes from our knowledge that had we been shown the kindness we advocate for, our lives would have been much safer, healthier and more positive as a result. This is the future we want to build for all others.
We also need to sit with our difficult life experiences in order to hold open, safe and nonjudgmental space for both radical and meaningful dialogue with others. The role of Radical Kindness space facilitator is not an easy one — we can feel stuck in the middle and attacked from both sides. We can find ourselves agreeing with many points made by different people, while constantly worrying our own ideals are at risk of being attacked, ridiculed or watered down. We are concerned with the imagery of us ‘jumping into bed with the enemy’. These concerns are all incredibly valid and we must actively support each other and use the concepts at the heart of Radical Kindness in order to bring effective self care into our lives.
Instead of acting as the purveyors of ‘the right way’ (which I think we’re all guilty of doing), we need to look to be unifiers and amplifyers, bringing the stories of pain, death and loss to a wider community — those that can help bring about large scale social change. This focus on achieving shared goals through a merger of skills is why it is so essential that we no longer tell the vocal to be quieter or the pained to show gratitude.
It should be noted that neither will we allow our own intentions to be attacked, misrepresented or framed as less authentic. The unnecessarily hurtful vilification for trying to bridge gaps and hold space for conflicting opinions does nothing but further separate our communities and society at large.
So, as we continue on our journeys as campaigners, as communicators and as #CompassionateTroublemakers, let’s spend time reflecting on how we can be both the most effective ally to those individuals effected by the social structures we look to tear down, and be true to ourselves and our belief in radical, meaningful, active kindness.
