AUTHOR’S NOTE: It looks like “kindness” is the new social and cultural buzzword. Suddenly I’m seeing it everywhere: on bumper stickers, on window decals, on posters, on panhandlers’ placards, even spray-painted on walls. I’ve been expecting the entrepreneurs to catch up with the phenomenon sooner or later, and I didn’t have long to wait. If I recall correctly (since I haven’t been paying close attention), what was once dubbed “sensitivity training” is now spouting the “kindness” mantra. “Mindfulness” seems to have run its course as a money-making scheme for the self-help gurus, so it’s on to the next “flavor of the month.”

I have nothing against kindness. I’ve always liked George Carlin’s advice to the boys in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure: “Be excellent to each other.” Unless I’m wrong, excellence in all things is what the evolved human being should aspire to once the trite baggage of a typical secular and religious upbringing is dumped, and that includes observing the niceties of social engagement. I had an “excellent” teacher in my father, who was the soul of that exemplary quality; I once told my stepmother (who was quite the opposite in disposition) that he taught me everything I know about patience and kindness. He definitely needed it with my exacting mother (the quintessential Virgo), and after her death he fell into the same behavioral pattern with his second wife.

It strikes me that if there is money to be made, the money-grubbers will be hot on the trail of the opportunity. Offering courses in remedial kindness to supposedly teach people how to embrace what should be a fundamental human trait is testimony to just how far we have fallen from basic common sense. Nobody wants to “live” the experience by practicing it, they just want to give the appearance that they do, and there is nothing that will make them feel more virtuous than a “certificate of completion” that they can point to as proof. It’s like the gratuitous awards given by the Wizard of Oz to the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion in the movie of the same name; they had nothing more to prove, they just had to recognize that fact since they had already demonstrated their mettle during their trials and tribulations with Dorothy. Kindness to others should be its own reward, and we shouldn’t have to crow about how compassionately we spread it. Critics will counter with “Only in a perfect world,” but I’m not sure it’s something that can be taught short of the legal remedies that can be brought to bear on any flagrant transgressions.

I’m not a practicing pagan, but I’ve had enough exposure to its tenets to appreciate the part of the Wiccan Rede that goes “An it harm none, do what ye will.” This – or perhaps the simpler Latin maxim primum non nocere (“first do no harm”) – should be the caveat we invoke when we’re contemplating some action that might impact other people. But I doubt that it’s promoted in business-school ethics courses, and it certainly isn’t learned at the feet of entrepreneurial hot-shots, most of whom only acknowledge the “do what ye will” part. On the other hand, I’m not a Christian who will forgive any offense no matter how grave; as a student of Qabalistic wisdom I will give as good as I get in both mercy and severity when one or the other is deserved. I’m also well-aware of the “reciprocal ethics” of the Wiccan Three-fold Law, and won’t hesitate to conjure it when wronged (actually, my wife conjured it once on my behalf to good effect without me knowing about it)..

I try hard not to step on anyone’s toes, and I will not tolerate that being done to me at this point in my life, although I used to be less vigilant and sometimes got stomped on. (It could be said with justification that “He who was once the Fool is now the Hermit,” for the limited social contact I will endure; just call me “amicabilis in absentia.”) Maybe my “stretch goal” should be to personify Temperance by taking on a little “sensitivity training,” but I think I’ll save my money for some more tarot cards since they offer the same moral lessons without the unctuous posturing.