It seems a bit of an obsession these days to equate being nice with moral goodness. What is seen as a good way to treat someone is whatever least encumbers or inconveniences someone, with the constant refrain of 'if it doesn't hurt anyone, it's fine.' What it ends up being, I think, is serving our wants and pleasures in the present with no true consideration of the bigger picture. The bigger picture to people is a matter of how someone feels. The premise for this, I think, might be the recent idea that it is most important to build up and maintain a healthy self-esteem. It could potentially destroy a student's self-esteem to tell them that they can't have an A for a paper they wrote very poorly. Especially when it is not a matter of an achievement not achieved, people still seem to find it more difficult to tell someone plainly that they need to put in more work; they did poorly.
We've been gradually losing the ability to tell the difference between what is right and what is wrong in the murky waters of being 'nice'. The constant refrain is to be tolerant to others, and true tolerance has been lost in the notion that if you disagree publicly with what someone else thinks or is doing, you are intolerant. You cannot disagree politely; you cannot disagree at all. Conflict of any sort, even healthy conflict with the possibility of problem-solving, is seen as wrong.
Firm parenting is also falling by the wayside. Even those of us who do believe in moral absolutes fall prey to this philosophy; it is creeping into many conservative circles, even. There is no defense against it, because most of us who still have a sense of truth have not learned why we should believe in truth.
A lot of people in the West have been turned into at least minor versions of codependents. Maybe it's going too far, and I certainly may focus a bit too much on the negative, but I think that our society is being transformed into a codependent society, out of the ashes of a society that believed in personal responsibility and true virtue and charity.
To some extent I think that the gravitation towards this 'being nice' is because it is much easier than standing against the flow for some conviction. There is social pressure to be 'tolerant', and most people have no energy nor time to consciously avoid that pressure (or at least one would not do it unless one thought it was worth it).
It's also a really convenient way to see things, as it allows one to validate one's selfish idea that one is the centre of the universe: that one deserves validation and boosting of self esteem.
It seems to me it's a vicious cycle of various ways in which our society and we ourselves reinforce this idea that viewing oneself positively is the way to go; it'll be psychologically better for us in the long run, because thinking positively about yourself is obviously what alleviates worry... or so we tell ourselves.
Wait a moment. Do we really need to boost ourselves up to be healthy? Does boosting ourselves really result in happiness?
Having to concern oneself with oneself is, I think, a result of our worry and need for control. Keeping up the façade of a perfect self by trying to have positive things to think about oneself is exhausting. It is keeping up the façade to ourselves that is most exhausting, and perhaps it is impossible not to do that if you are trying to keep a perfect exterior. Besides that secretly, we want to think well of ourselves, even those of us who self-deprecate as if our lives depended on it. But the solution is not for people to think any differently about themselves, for in ourselves we do not know ourselves better. We know ourselves by looking upward (to God), and thus also outward, engaging the world. If we stop concerning ourselves with ourselves, we will learn to see ourselves through our plain eyes, not through rose-coloured or mud-spattered glasses.
Here is C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity, painting a picture of humility-
'Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call "humble" nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.
If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.'
We should not boost each other up into any lies and vices of our human hearts (like the notion that we're sparkly, rainbow-maned unicorns). We must not feed each other the lie that what matters about a person is how normal or special they are. It is completely unnecessary. It's futile to mind your value in relation to others. Truth is much more important, and in the long term, more fruitful.
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