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The Crucial Difference Between Niceness and Kindness
Niceness is about maintaining the status quo. Kindness is revolutionary.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Gal Gadot produced a video featuring an array of celebrities singing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” It was supposed to be a declaration that we’re all suffering through this crisis together. But it didn’t exactly come off that way. As viewers watched the stars croon lyrics like “imagine no possessions” from their isolated mega-villas, those of us in the real world were losing our jobs, health insurance, homes, and loved ones. Many viewers described the video as “out of touch” and “cringe-worthy.”
Gadot insists she was just trying to do something nice! In a recent Vanity Fair cover story, she explained of the video, “Sometimes, you know, you try and do a good deed and it’s just not the right good deed. I had nothing but good intentions and it came from the best place, and I just wanted to send light and love to the world.”
There’s a crucial difference between niceness and kindness, and an overemphasis on the former, I believe, only protects those in power. To explain what I mean, let’s first take a look at what it means to be “nice.”
What is nice?
‘Nice’ is inherently performative
People aren’t “nice”—they act nicely. When someone describes a person as nice, they are speaking about their experience of that individual, not of the individual themselves. Ellen DeGeneres is the queen of nice. She built an empire on her identity as a professional nice person. Her trademark sign-off is “Be kind!” What’s not to love? A lot, apparently. With reports claiming that DeGeneres allowed for — and even participated in — a toxic work culture, it seems that her “niceness” was just an act.
‘Nice’ doesn’t threaten the status quo
Look at DeGeneres: She presented herself as the most palatable, socially acceptable version of a gay woman (straight size, white, able, just femme enough). Nice keeps the powerful happy by learning the rules and following them just so. People in power don’t like to be challenged — instead, they like things soft, warm, compliant. They like to say you’ll…
