Kindness does not transform lives by revealing core truths or proving important aspects of reality--it barely even has any depth on its own. It is far from the incredibly penetrating and philosophically vital thing it is often treated as. Moreover, it is not even as pragmatically useful as some like to think! Think of the various hypocrisies, assumptions, or irrationalistic ideas in a culture: they are not likely to disappear because someone is kind to those who support them. In fact, kindness can be a form of gentle support or outright intellectual incompetence. It is objectively foolish for kindness for the sake of kindness to be thought of as anything more than petty emotionalism, in contrast with kindness rooted in rationalistic awareness and personal authenticity.
Kindness will very likely not bring hypocrites to the realization that prison rape and abortion are only tolerated because of idiotic double standards. Kindness will very likely not bring anyone to the realization that there is no absolute certainty, and thus no true certainty, to be found in assumptions. Kindness alone will not rescue societies from the irrationalistic perils of racism and sexism. Kindness does not prove anything about the nature of Christianity or the validity or invalidity of any worldview at all. In other words, kindness is irrelevant to or even a distraction from genuine epistemological and moral reflection. It takes a great deal of irrationality to think that reason indicates otherwise on its own or when applied to analyze social experiences.
Emotionalistic kindness is the refuge of fools who have no motivation to believe in something unless they associate arbitrary acts of kindness with it. This is, ultimately, a sign that someone believes in things that benefit them--or that only appear to benefit them in the moment. The kind of person who would believe in Christianity or atheism or anything else because they were treated with genuine or feigned kindness is a pathetic individual indeed. First, they are primarily looking to other people instead of reason, and even then in a reactive instead of active sense. Second, they are either stupid enough to equate kindness with confirmation of truth or stupid enough to know kindness is absolutely irrelevant and ignore this truth.
The truest type of kindness that can express both rationalistic depth and personal affection is the kind shown to friends, and there is no stronger or more worthy friendship than that based on rationalism. In this context, there is no desire to manipulate each other or to persuade someone to a certain idea through emotionalism or pragmatism. There is only the kindness of words and deeds meant to encourage, affirm, or celebrate an equal relationship in which both stand on the knowable truths and mutual love of the other friend. Kindness is a joy to show and an expression of something far more than shallow, thoughtless actions based on superficial preferences.
Never in any other situation or with any other motive is kindness as complete, wholehearted, and deep as it is here. Beyond this, there is belief in ideas based on kindness received when truth is not determined or revealed by kindness, there is a shallower motivation behind it (the appeasement of arbitrary, subjective desires) or there is an intention to manipulate others without doing so for the sake of some grand and true worldview. Kindness without a rationalistic context is like a corpse without a consciousness. It is a dead, futile way to knowingly or unknowingly act upon mere assumptions, unexamined desires, or superficial moral perceptions. When shown to equals or with something more than emotionalism or ideological aimlessness behind it, it is actually a very rational, liberating, authentic thing to pursue.
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