Is there such a thing as objectivity when it comes to human interaction? What are our responsibilities to others when we interact with them? Are kindness, compassion and joyfulness objectively better than demeaning, abusive behaviors? These are questions that I'm not sure I have the answers to. Clearly, I feel like it is our responsibility to spread good throughout the world. But is that really true? Do nasty people have as much right to their nastiness as I have to my kindness? There was a time in my life when I was not very nice. I chose to change my direction. But maybe that was just my choice. Maybe that choice was no better or worse than choosing to stay nasty. So what would make kindness objectively better than cruelty?
It seems to me that the best way to determine objectivity is to look at the fruit which each behavior bears. If that's the case, then it's settled. Kindness clearly bears better fruit than non-kindness. Kindness, compassion, and joyfulness make people feel good. Abuse makes people feel bad. But that feels a little too simplistic to me. It pushes the people of the world into "good" and "bad" categories. But writing that last sentence helps me a little. It doesn't push the people into categories. It pushes their individual behaviors into categories. And that makes sense. A good person can still exhibit bad behaviors. And a person who exhibits bad behaviors is not necessarily a bad person. They just behaved badly in a given situation.
So what are our responsibilities to others when we interact with them? If kindness is objectively better, does that create a responsibility to treat others with it? That's not very easy. Going back to my concentric circles model of responsibility, our primary responsibility is always to ourself. We have to build a relationship with our whole being. When that's accomplished, it is our job to turn out to the world and do our best to support it. But what if we're still working on building that relationship with ourself? Does that give us the right to treat others poorly? I wouldn't think so, but logically it seems like it would. It seems like there has to be a different answer, but for now, I don't know what it is. I'll be spending time thinking about it. And I certainly hope that I come up with something else, because mean-spiritedness should not have an objectively correct place in the world.
If you have something to add, I'd love to hear it.
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