Are you Kind, or Just Weak?
How to be kind without sacrificing self-respect
In the shows and films we watch there is a common political situation where a benevolent leader must brutally and publicly punish a person for a crime, or lose their credibility and authority over their people.
The leader reluctantly carries out the brutal punishment, as not doing so entails significantly more risk. The leader, if they are to be successful, must maintain their image of dominance at the expense of some kindness, or the rule of law and respect for them as a leader will vanish.
While this may only be acting and writing, we can follow and understand the logic of the predicament easily. Machiavelli once advised that in a situation where it is not possible to be both feared and loved, it is better to be feared, because love alone is not reliable enough for a people to be disciplined.
“Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present.”
— Niccolò Machiavelli
Sometimes a level of kindness must be sacrificed in order to command respect. Fortunately for us, brutal punishments are not required to navigate our social interactions, but we must develop internal strength to maintain our boundaries and esteem.
In the following, I will explain why strength is necessary, and how we can be kind while maintaining respect from others.
Others will exploit you if you are kind, but weak
At the everyday interpersonal level, there is a constant tension via a social interplay of power dynamics. Kindness is not always automatically seen as a virtue. It can serve to reveal a person’s submissiveness and vulnerability — their weakness.
When this weakness is revealed, some see an opportunity to feel superior or to dominate the one that is kind. Why? Because to feel dominant is seductive. It is to feel powerful, and that gives one an irresistible sense of superiority and status.
“The more prudent course is to pursue the teachings of history-that weakness attracts aggression as the rod attracts the lightning.” — U.S. Committee on Armed Services, 1951
If you are too kind, others relax their efforts and realize they don’t have to try to impress you. They may stop treating you with proper respect, or their speech becomes lazy or cold. They know that extra effort is unnecessary. They will feel less of an obligation to you since what they sense as a lack of dominance must mean you are not a significant individual. You may be totally ignored, or they will try to use you and push your boundaries.
“Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others often fail to treat them with respect — not realizing that they have signaled others that it is not necessary to treat them with respect.” — Nathaniel Branden
People may also front a false friendly persona to a kind person to obscure malicious intentions. One example of this is a salesman that sees the weak and gullible as somebody to fool into making an irrational purchase, another is when emotional manipulators see your kindness as an opportunity for themselves, hijacking your empathy to foster in you an obligation to serve them.
It is better, then, for the kindly disposed to be on guard. To be trusting, kind, and naïve without boundaries and self-respect is to hold a placard saying “It is safe to exploit me”. They know you won’t fight back. Especially if they sense you need their approval.
“No one can make you inferior without your permission.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt¹
If you portray yourself as weak, others see you as less than themselves, but only because you see yourself as small. If you place others above yourself in your mind, anyone can easily become your master.
People say they want to see more kindness in the world, and yet the kind are often treated poorly. Adding to this, one study in what women find most attractive found kindness to be the outstanding trait. However, I believe this apparent desire for kindness is incomplete.
Kindness coupled with weakness is not attractive, desirable, or commanding of respect. What we really want is to see strong people being kind.
Being disrespected or used does not mean being a good person isn’t worth it
One thing that prevents the kind from becoming strong is that naïve or weak kindness is equated with being a good person.
“Of all evil, I deem you capable: Therefore, I want good from you. Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
These weak kind people can get resentful and believe that it is kindness itself that is punished by life and share sentiments like the following image:
And naturally, they never address the real problem — which is not their kindness, but their “weak-ness”. However, they are afraid to acknowledge that they are weak because it involves painful humility, and it requires effort to become strong.
They are afraid they might not achieve such strength. But what is guaranteed is that they will not reach that strength if they do not diagnose the problem as weakness, not kindness.
If they do not diagnose the issue correctly, instead of becoming strong, they may become mean, harsh, and cutting to protect their vulnerability. But this false exterior is brittle and crashes down when someone calls their bluff, and their weakness is once again exposed.
“If you’re too nice, people will take advantage of you, but if you’re too mean, people won’t want to be around you. So you have to be kind but firm.” — Jodi Picoult
Overcoming weakness
Before overcoming weakness, you must first recognize that sometimes kindness must be sacrificed to maintain your boundaries, that being kind is not automatically a virtue if it is coupled with weakness, that it is not a virtue if you are simultaneously being unkind to yourself, and being kind simply because you lack the capacity for meanness does not automatically make you a good person.
If kindness is to be respected, it must be paired with strength or else it will risk being interpreted as weakness, attracting personalities with malicious intentions.
I say this not to instill paranoia, but to encourage building personal strength, and placing vulnerability after a gradual unfoldment. This occurs with the building of trust with those mature enough to appreciate kindness, and to value yourself as an equal.
But how do we become strong?
Unfortunately, it can take a hefty dose of abuse before we finally reject how we are being treated, but this gives us the opportunity to rediscover a sense of personal value.
Some possible avenues to develop inner strength is assertiveness training, the techniques in Nathaniel Branden’s Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, Stoic philosophy, and methods within Cognitive Behavioral Therapy such as ‘Cognitive Restructuring’.
Whatever avenue you choose, what will follow will need to be lifestyle and mindset changes that facilitate the growth of strength and confidence and the minimization of self-sabotaging thoughts and behaviors.
Addressing your self-esteem, boundaries, and confidence is essential as the world will not soften just for you. You have to fight for yourself. There is no personal growth in merely cursing the world for its wolves. The only option is to become strong.
“Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness. I am kind to everyone, but when someone is unkind to me, weak is not what you are going to remember about me.” ― Al Capone
¹No exact quote matching this from Eleanor Roosevelt has been found, but it was most likely adapted from her saying “A snub is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. To do so, he has to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.” — source
- No content in this article was generated by artificial intelligence
