Be prepared for the post-kindness era
Opinion: You probably missed it but, it was Random Acts of Kindness Day on February 17, set up to remind us that small gestures of kindness have the power to change the world, to create a more compassionate and caring society.
I missed it too, even though I’ve done several years of research into kindness. As national or international awareness days go, it wasn’t surprising it would slip under the radar. I suspect many have become skeptical, if not cynical, about ‘kindness’, being so associated with Jacinda Ardern and her government’s brand of “caring” politics.
The emphasis on kindness was central to her role as leader, from the government Budget being called the Wellbeing Budget to the “be kind” messaging that fronted the government’s 2020 pandemic response.
“If I could distil it down into one concept that we are pursuing in New Zealand, it is simple and it is this,” said Ardern in an address to the United Nations in 2018. “In the face of isolationism, protectionism, racism – the simple concept of looking outwardly and beyond ourselves, of kindness and collectivism, might just be as good a starting point as any.”
Ardern used it so effectively that I helped form a research team at the university to explore the politics of kindness from a range of perspectives – including my own, which is theatre. What kind of changes might this bring about, we wondered? My colleagues and I were hopeful that this signalled a real political rather than rhetorical shift, but we were cautious.
Are we now entering a post-kindness era? We haven’t heard much talk of kindness from the Government, except maybe for Nicola Willis’ defence of the Government taking a tough stance on welfare dependency. “It is not a kind thing to let someone linger on welfare for many years.” (Or, as Luxon said, “The free ride is over”.)
But with the benefit of hindsight, what did Ardern mean by kindness anyway? Are kindness and politics fundamentally antithetical?
I hope not, but it is still worth asking and reflecting on the question. The emphatic response to Ardern’s emphasis on kindness, care and empathy at the beginning of her leadership clearly struck a chord – Labour’s re-election majority win in 2020 was unprecedented in our MMP history.
Her warmth in comforting survivors of the Christchurch mosque attacks resonated, and putting protecting the vulnerable ahead of personal inconvenience galvanised national unity and spurred a sense of community during the pandemic. We put teddy bears in our windows and experienced that feeling that we really were all in this together. What does it take to sustain this feeling of collective care?
Like every aspect of human nature, kindness can be complicated. Though most of us agree it is important and consider ourselves to be kind, we don’t always think everyone else is deserving of kindness. An Australian Survey of Social Attitudes about 10 years ago found that though over 98 percent of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that it was important to be kind to one another, only 68 percent of respondents thought that all people were equally deserving of kindness.
As other researchers have noted, kindness is often more easily expressed to those we identify with – our family, our extended family, our friends, the ‘people like us’.
The dynamic of giving and receiving kindness can also be fraught – just look at the history of the missionary movements of the 19th Century.
In his take on Ardern’s language of kindness, Dylan Asafo in the Auckland Law School, suggested that talk of a “kind” government actually gets in the way of pursuing equity and justice and asked ‘how conditions can be transformed so that the ability of Māori and marginalised people to lead lives with dignity does not depend on whether these people are ‘kind’ or not”.
Alan Johnson, policy analyst for the Salvation Army and part of our research project, concluded that the work of kindness really lies with civil society – with everyday people and community organisations – and not with governments. The Kindness Collective is a great example of this.
As a result of my research into kindness, its potential and its problems, I’d propose that we don’t consign the politics of kindness to our political past, but instead ask what a compassion-centred politics might look like in Aotearoa in the 21st Century.
The Māori educator and historian Hirini Kaa told me he didn’t really know what kindness meant in the context of education, but he did understand manaakitanga. I understand this in two ways. Manaakitanga is a concept specific to Aotearoa – it’s what makes sense for us here and now. Not only this, but whereas kindness is feeling, manaakitanga is doing – a set of actions that involves care, respect, hospitality, reciprocity. All of which, as the arts facilitator Boni Te Rongopai Tukiwhao explains, is what “uplifts people’s personal power”.
In his 2022 reflection on ‘kindness’ and ‘unity’ for Newsroom, Asafo concluded: “We need aroha-based governance and a meaningful commitment to honour te Tiriti o Waitangi that will see all of us in Aotearoa (rich and poor, Māori and non-Māori) thrive and succeed in ways we never even imagined.” His words are striking given the current threats to te Tiriti.
I’m mindful of Alan Johnson writing that kindness starts with us and our communities. What if affirming our commitment to the principles of Te Tiriti as already established by the courts and Waitangi Tribunal was a project we could embrace with the same enthusiasm we had for looking out for our neighbours in those early months of the pandemic? What kind of leadership would it take to galvanise this?
Kindness may be complicated, but it’s also simple – a value that 98 percent of us care about. And it’s important not to let the complex stop us from recognising the simple: caring for and valuing others, and fostering community and collectivity in the face of a culture of competitive individualism makes all of our lives better.
In her work on how to live well together, fellow kindness researcher Niki Harré describes acts of kindness as “the soft propellers of everyday life”. These acts are not insignificant, but essential contributors to collective flourishing.
If Jacinda Ardern gave us a starting point for thinking about kindness beyond the personal, then it’s up to us to ask what we can do to create a more caring society, including holding our government to account when it really matters.
