Letter to the Editors

As the Mem Hall bell chimed, signaling the start of the period, I set foot in my classroom and found myself in the middle of a heated conversation between a few of my peers. One classmate mentioned someone I knew and liked, and another responded with a vehement, “They’re weird.” Appalled, I listened to their continued attacks on someone I knew didn’t deserve it. A voice in my head told me to speak up, to object to their callous remarks, to defend the person who would probably do the same for me if the roles were reversed. But another voice in my head cautioned me against it—that I risked seeming overly serious and meddlesome if I shoved myself into the conversation where I wasn’t invited. The latter voice prevailed, and I sat in silence as their discussion ended and my teacher strolled in. I swept the experience to the back of my mind until a pang of guilt struck me again weeks later.

In my haste to seem easygoing, my desire to appear “nice” overpowered the commitment to the principles of kindness and respect I always hoped to embody. During that English class, I had hoped to seem unobtrusive, able to “take a joke,” and most of all, chill. Our aversion to conflict, even in the form of a simple conversation, leads us to mistakenly conflate “niceness” with kindness, oftentimes obscuring the true essence of kindness—kind action—in the process. By submitting to this aversion, we unwittingly sacrifice choices that may genuinely help those around us for the sake of maintaining a certain image or avoiding discomfort. The distinction lies in the intention behind our actions. As Mr. Murray described in his Convocation address, kindness is “tak[ing] the right action rather than the easiest or least risky response to every situation.” It stems from a set of morals that allow you to extend grace to the people around you—standing up for a classmate, talking to a peer before class, or joining someone sitting alone at Tsai. Niceness is about maintaining a pleasant demeanor that avoids conflict. While kindness sometimes necessitates assertiveness, niceness relies on a pleasant disposition, the appearance of being ‘agreeable.’ In today’s world, the quality of being likable is often associated with nonchalance and “chill.” In our desire to create a friendly social atmosphere, we tend to lean more towards passive “niceness” rather than active actions of kindness. However, our disinclination to truly be kind fosters a toxic environment, and “niceness” achieves the opposite effect of our original intentions. 

True kindness often receives no recognition; in fact, its demand for bold action or speech that defends someone’s dignity may even offend others, achieving the opposite effect of “niceness.” However, being kind when others aren’t looking—and when an individual has another’s favor to lose—is a truer judge of character than their popularity. In reality, objecting to an attack on someone else costs us nothing; the inner moral dilemma about which direction to take isn’t a real question. By speaking up, we take another step in our pursuit of the people we hope to become, grasping onto more of the qualities we want to embody. In doing so, we build a kinder, more supportive environment.