Nice isn't kind

[DiscoBiscuit]

Nice and kind are not the same thing. Nice is.... I drape my true feelings in the mannered rhetoric of polite society to maintain civil comity.
This is kind in a shallow way, where most of the intent here is to maintain ones place in respectable society, I know I feel that way. To the extent that any of us can tie our motivations to anything as distant as altruism on a societal scale nice is kind.
Kind is I do something for someone else and do so for reasons that are actually more altruistic than selfish.
The desire for the legitimacy that comes with maintaining one's seat in "polite" society, is one of the greediest forces at work in our world today.

 

[Merced]

Kindness is a trait that describes actions. Niceness is a trait that describes inactions.

Not getting snappy with a waiter is nice. Giving a waiter a big tip is kind.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Oh, I thought this was a thread for all those nice guys who aren't so nice that you always hear about.

 

[Coriolis]

Kindness is a trait that describes actions. Niceness is a trait that describes inactions.

Not getting snappy with a waiter is nice. Giving a waiter a big tip is kind.

I would say kind applies to the substance of what we do, and nice applies to the form. Beyond of all of this is good. Good and nice are often quite different. Kind and good more often overlap.

 

[Lucy_Ricardo]

Niceness and kindness aren't the same, but they're not mutually exclusive, either. Sure, one can be nice while being unkind, just like one can be nice without being good. But kind people, as a general rule, are naturally nice because they care about others and consider them during social interactions.

Being nice is sort of a kindness in itself. When you're nice to others, when you're polite to them, you make them feel comfortable around you. You dispell the awkwardness that some folks might feel in a social situation. And to spare someone discomfort is inherently kind.

There are people who use niceness as a manipulation tactic, but that doesn't make being nice bad. It's just those people who are bad.

 

[Population: 1]

I think of being nice as showing manners and maintaining a level of civility. Kindness emanates from a deeper place where sympathy and beliefs spring from. It's a genuine display of caring for someone. I can be nice to a rival even. Yet I wil not feel the need to show them kindness.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

The way the term "nice" is used in the OP does have a cultural underpinning. The further up the socio-economic ladder goes, the more social demand there is for appearances. The most extreme cases are lavish benefits to raise money for random charities that people are not actually invested in, but want an excuse for a lavish event to spend a lot of money on food, accommodations, apparel, when in reality, the entire cost of the benefit could do more good when given directly to a charity.

The closer you move towards poverty, the less reason there is to put up an appearance because you don't really have much social status to begin with. In this way, communication among the working class tends to be more direct because there isn't time or energy for artifice. It also costs nothing to be rude because no one was going to do you any favors to start with.

In the arts, I've had a chance to interact with the entire socio-economic span, and so it is really interesting to see the range of communication. The wealthy will give the backhanded compliment in which you are left feeling badly, but never quite sure how they meant it. The impoverished person will send you off with expletives, and might leave you wondering if they really hate you or just got yelled at by their boss.

 

[The Cat]

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind read. - Mark Twain

 

[Frosty]

I always differentiated between the two in that... nice is... surface level. Its easy. It doesnt require a lot from a person- its not aimed at helping a person- just in making things immediately pleasant.

Where kindness... is deeper. Its... understanding and being there for a person even if you arent always nice- even if you CANT always be pleasant. Its doing- helping- doing whatever to do and give the absolute best for anothef human being. Its looking at someone and... attempting to understand them. Attempting to understand the other person as an individual- as a human being- and just being there.

Niceness is not telling someone when they have a giant stain on their shirt. Kindness is taking them aside and informing them and then doing whatever you can to help them get it off.

 

[Coriolis]

This thread makes me think of the trope good is not nice.

 

[Poki]

I would say kind applies to the substance of what we do, and nice applies to the form. Beyond of all of this is good. Good and nice are often quite different. Kind and good more often overlap.

Makes me think of...i am being nice because i am kind.

 

[Red Memories]

Nice is a surface level, mutual feature which humanity is required to show to another. The greeting you give to someone at your front door, the asking if it is okay to sit by you in a setting instead of just taking the seat. Those who are considered mean lack this sort of warmth, though it may be they are just sick of so many solicitors at their doors or feel in a setting, you're allowed to sit where you want since it isn't someone's house.

Kind is offering your food to a stranger. Not just sitting near someone, but asking about their day, and possibly in a class setting helping with homework. Kindness radiates a deeper warmth than the mutual niceness. Kindness is a virtue, niceness is merely something expected.

 

[anticlimatic]

I'm nice to people I dislike, but never kind.

 

[Coriolis]

Nice is a surface level, mutual feature which humanity is required to show to another. The greeting you give to someone at your front door, the asking if it is okay to sit by you in a setting instead of just taking the seat. Those who are considered mean lack this sort of warmth, though it may be they are just sick of so many solicitors at their doors or feel in a setting, you're allowed to sit where you want since it isn't someone's house.

I suppose I fall into the second category, though I wouldn't exactly consider it mean. I get very impatient at these sorts of superficial inquiries. If someone asks "is someone sitting here?" before taking a seat next to me, I am likely to say something like "only the invisible man". It's obvious if the seat is empty. I don't want to hear about their day, and certainly don't want them to ask about mine. In fact, I usually prefer they don't sit near me. But if they are there and if I can actually help them with something, I will.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

I'm nice to people I dislike, but never kind.

I'm opposite. Kind but definitely not nice to those I dislike.

 

[Forever]

hmm.. nice and sometimes kind to most strangers, almost everyone really.. you kind of have to be an asshole first if you want me to not be nice to you.

But even then I'm nice.

If I like you, I'm kind a lot of the time, like I feel compelled to be kind to y'all.

Oh well.

I think people should be kind to strangers when they can.

 

[Tomb1]

The way the term "nice" is used in the OP does have a cultural underpinning. The further up the socio-economic ladder goes, the more social demand there is for appearances. The most extreme cases are lavish benefits to raise money for random charities that people are not actually invested in, but want an excuse for a lavish event to spend a lot of money on food, accommodations, apparel, when in reality, the entire cost of the benefit could do more good when given directly to a charity.

The closer you move towards poverty, the less reason there is to put up an appearance because you don't really have much social status to begin with. In this way, communication among the working class tends to be more direct because there isn't time or energy for artifice. It also costs nothing to be rude because no one was going to do you any favors to start with.

In the arts, I've had a chance to interact with the entire socio-economic span, and so it is really interesting to see the range of communication. The wealthy will give the backhanded compliment in which you are left feeling badly, but never quite sure how they meant it. The impoverished person will send you off with expletives, and might leave you wondering if they really hate you or just got yelled at by their boss.

My father grew up dirt poor. He and his brother used to share two outfits and wait for the Salvation Army Truck on Christmas. Neither my father nor any of his siblings would ever curse anybody out like that. My father is all about treating people with respect and will go out of his way to do favors for his friends, and vice-versa...even strangers. He would give you the last twenty dollars in his pocket if you were in need....he gave an old woman money to buy sneakers for her grand-son once and did not even know her. That's why he never made a lot of money in his life, because he was so generous. His friends from the street were the same way. There would always be a fight as to who would pick up the check. And my father's brother is a multi-millionaire today. In contrast, my mother is the one that will tell off the manager at a restaurant for lousy service. She grew up middle class. Come to think of it, my mother's parents came from poverty. My grandparents and their siblings don't fit that description. It would have to be my aunts and uncles and cousins that come closer to fitting that description of the "rude poor person" but they were not poor.

My own experiences lead me to conclude this is not peculiar to just my own family members. A couple of people in my inner circle come from and still live in poverty. This one guy is skinnier than a rail because he never eats so he can have money to give to his kids and lives in the worst neighborhood. He sees himself as having a big heart. As a general rule of thumb, character is the poor man's wealth. He gave me equipment once that had a value of five hundred dollars. I had never done any favors for him whatsoever and kept asking him how much he wanted for it. He insisted on giving it to me for nothing. In return, I pulled strings for him when his juvenile son got in trouble years later. But he did not ask me to help him out. I just always return a favor as people I do favors for owe one to me and especially if they are part of my inner circle. Some outside of it I would do nothing for if they were dying in the street. In a tournament once, we drew each other....he defaulted the match because he did not want to face off with me due to the favor I had done for his son. That's something I would never do. When you assume that "It also costs nothing to be rude because no one was going to do you any favors to start with" your assumption is one hundred percent unsupported in my experience...perhaps it might sound right or have some truth in terms of just a surface impression, but if anything, I thing that you are speaking more to individual differences. Also when you rationalize that "because you don't really have much social status to begin with," you are conflating social status with economic status. A lot of street kids have social status, even among middle and upper class kids, for reasons that generally contribute to social status --- talents, intelligence, etc. I have one friend whose natural talent makes him quite popular and admired even among people from rich backgrounds. They bend over backwards to do favors for him.

As you say, you met these people through the arts. That raises a red flag. You have to keep in mind that the arts attract a lot of wannabe poor people or those that wind up poor for the sake of their art. I knew one kid into the arts that came from a well-off family. He had a membership at the pool in the summer time when I was younger and a gigantic douchebag to boot. When I saw him years later he now dressed up in dirty rags and only drove a bicycle every where when it should have been a douche-canoe. He was now an anarchist but still a douchebag. This artsy girl-poet that dressed in salvation army hand me down rags and walked around everywhere barefoot grew up in a house twice the size of mine. Another woman spent her summer begging for money at McDonalds' drive-thrus in order to be homeless. Believe me, there's a lot of "poor" people in the Arts in denial/shame about their middle class/rich backgrounds, some putting up the façade that they are poor and others willfully turning their lives into poverty. That's fine. I do not have anything against a person sacrificing for their artform but you have to remember that just because a person is currently poor doesn't give them the street smarts genuine street kids developed growing up poor and learning how to hustle. Because the willfully poor art student still retains the douchebaggery of their spoiled childhood, they wind up giving poor people a bad name.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

[MENTION=13911]Tomb1[/MENTION]
I apologize for any offense. I grew up as trailer park trash myself, so it was mostly an oversimplified joke that was a bit insulting to everyone in a kind of 'tongue-in-cheek' way. I've never made much money, but am now on the lower end of middle class. I did not mean to give poor people a bad name. Actually I considered it something of a compliment to be direct and honest. I also do not think that cursing is wrong, and I use curse words myself.

 

[Lark]

To be honest if I were to think of what problems society ought to prioritise niceness would probably come a distant last.

 

[❀༺♥༻ℭ𝔞𝔢𝔩𝔦𝔞_𝔄𝔦𝔰𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤༺♥༻❀༺]

I agree that kindness and being nice arent exactly the same. Being nice to others is definitely fine, I've been called a nice person before. But niceness lacks a depth. It's amiable & polite & appropriate. But a nice person may not be a good listener, or enjoy helping the less fortunate. In fact you can be shallow while being nice. Because niceness has a lot to do with socially acceptable behavior (ie not having rough manners, a cold demeanor, not smiling, etc.) Sometimes niceness can be downright selfish, you might be "extra nice" to that guy to get a promotion, or to the cashier to get a discount. Being nice often has a goal in mind, it's priority is itself. You can be nice because it's just easier to navigate society this way, less headache for you. Or it might be the logical thing to do in a situation. But kindness is different. Kindness is honest; it's selfless because it comes from a place of tender compassion. Kindness is a genuine act of goodwill towards someone else, or even yourself. You're complimenting someone because you noticed they're feeling down and want to brighten their day. You are helpful to someone because you see they're struggling. You listen to someone talk because they have no one else, and you're interested in what they have to say. Being nice could just be one big ego trip. "Look at what I just did!" "If I help this person I might get this and that" Being nice might have a goal, whereas being kind is about the deed, not the reward. All that said, I dont think niceness and kindness are starkly different. A nice person can be considerate to how they're coming across to someone else, because they're thinking about how they might be affected by what they say/do, which is like kindness. But at the end of the day, kindness is far more valuable than social niceties.