Wednesday, February 08, 2023

Killing me with kindness

My most fervent prayer for as long as I can remember has always been "Protect me from the kindness of strangers!"

There is a natural tendency to forgive others if they act with good intentions rather than malice if the consequences are not too negative. That line of "too negative" is however very blurry and severely contingent.

We desire a society made up of Good Samaritans. Over the long term, cooperation and kindness remain strategic champions.

The general, however, does not always apply to the particular and there are always, always outliers.

Beneficence is an outstanding moral principle, but it can never be considered to supercede autonomy. And I am always wary of those who claim to be proponents of the general good. Saints are extreme outliers.

Labelling as pathological those perspectives that do not agree with one's own especially from a position of power and/or authority is extremely dangerous as it leads to a monochromatic, dysfunctional society.

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