One kindness

Prompt:Thus, kindness has an internal tension—it brings us pleasure but it also reminds us of all that we fear about ourselves including change. (There is also an interesting discussion about whether kindness requires selflessness—hopefully we will discuss in class as this is important and a theme that will come up in C. Fred Alford’s book on whistleblowers.)Like most people I fear change. Change brings the good and bad out into your life. And when change is happening in someones life they are either happy or miserable. This reflects to the above prompt as also being an example of the internal tension of kindness. To some people it will kill them to be kind. These people are by nature mad or angry. So why is that? How could being considered kind be so hard for people. To me being kind is part of my lifestyle. Going into to medicine career i cant be rude or not kind. Its part of my way i choose to live my life.

"But if Self-love was validated by the Enlightenment, selfishness emphatically was not." (p.25) The Enlightenment brought dramatic changes for the society and the cultural views. It was looked upon as you would be selfless, rather you would seek pleasure without hurting anyone else. After this quote it talks about no man could get the greater pleasure from acts of kindness and charity. When people started being "less" selfish was a touchstone for humanity. As the Enlightenment thinkers proposed this idea of being kind and doing acts of charity for the greater good was a huge turning point for human kind to have sympathy. (also expressed on page 29) Sympathy is defined as having pity or compassion. (p.28). To me i would have never known the word "pity" would be used in the definition of sympathy. To me sympathy is having compassion, or mutual fondness for someone or something.

"For ones mind to yield pity is an effect of affability, gentleness, and softness." (pg 40) This quote was followed by emotions are works for the weaker being. This weaker being in this time period was a women. To be kind was a feminine act. This sexist statement stuck with women until the modern age. For men to be kind back then, it would be an act of being a women. Men were still considered the ruling sex. With women having the maternal love and kindness showed that they knew the feelings and needs of others than just men. This was a ego shot to the men. This introduced new gender distinctions. Where women were reflected to being spontaneous with unreflected modes of kindness