Battles and Interrogations

My friend posted this as her Facebook status:

____________tries to remember: "Be kinder than necessary; everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

I have problems with this statement for some reason. In attempting to interrogate--perhaps more aptly to deconstruct-- why I have a problem with it, let's examine the premises upon which it is based.

This mantra assumes that day-to-day experiences can be metaphorically represented as battles, which, by definition, must be won or lost by one set of participants. In taking this first assumption, we find embedded within it the connotation that "fighting a battle" is associated negatively with aspects of life; it implicitly suggests that conflict (battle) is fuel for a broader social dissonance, and therefore propagates the admittedly unrealistic view of human interaction as being inherently unconfrontational or peaceful. One is "kinder than necessary," then, in order to prevent the complications inherent in any given or hypothetical personal battle: stress, anxiety, anger, discontent, lost experience, lost knowledge, etc. Perhaps even to avoid "battle" and its complications all together. Since humanity has been conditioned to eschew conflict--examples are everywhere in mainstream media-- it associates negative emotion with anything past the status quo of social interaction. The statement suggests, then, we all must collectively be kinder than usual , kinder than we are. So when one is "kinder than necessary," one is protecting not only themselves and their possible interlocutor from "battle," but their society as well by betraying practical human agency.

So, it is fair to say that this statement has inherent and bold conformist meaning, that is, the statement assumes that:
A.) Everyone interprets life as a series of unending conflicts (Positive [winner] and negative [loser]);
B.) Everyone is only partly kind, rather than consistently kind. (Conditioning)
C.) In order for society to be productive and functional, members of the society must conform to unwritten rules codifying the society's own propagation of consonance between members. By extension then,
Ca.) Members of a society, in order to function within it, must conform to normative social interaction.

In addition to promoting conformist attitudes, the statement also implies that humans--and their interactions--exist normally, within a status quo; and that status quo's outcomes in our lives are directly influenced by another's interference or non-interference in "the battle." Thus, if we label daily conflicts as battles, thinking again that they must be either won or lost by the participating and primary party, then this statement is also implying that when we act "kinder than necessary," we are actually interfering positively, rather than negatively, on the outcome of the battle. To put this a bit more bluntly: the statement implies that alone, we cannot win battles; that we need the help of others to overcome any foreseeable or hypothetical conflicts within our lives. Thus this conclusion dually functions as not only further illuminating the statements conformist attitude, but also furthering the uselessness of human agency. Do not think for yourself; do not cause trouble in society; do not foster negativity; do not ask questions of why, only questions of how. Hence, this statement is arrogant in its idealistic perspective that the world is a peaceful place of cohabitation and coexistence--which we can all recognize as fallacy by simply glancing at today's newspaper headlines.

The statement also preserves and proscribes meaning to itself. Why should we be "kinder than necessary" if not to validate our own and our other's battles? Or, from a broader approach, our own and other's existences? By avoiding conflict and remaining passive, we can not only help others but also help ourselves! Obviously, this is an entirely absurd notion.

It must be said that when I stumbled across this Facebook post, I was immediately bothered by it. The above discussion is my own subjective interpretation of what the statement could mean when taken in a social context, and by no means is it exhaustive. There could be a whole slew of other things that it implies, but it's late and I don't really feel like getting into that.

I am not reflecting negatively on what the person who posted this was trying to say, since when you take the statement at face value it makes decent sense; rather, I am reflecting on what I perceive to be embedded within the statement, that which makes the statement work (so to speak) within a broader contextualized perspective of life. It is my own personal perspective of life that drives these interpretations; a perspective that upholds the necessity of human agency and the many personal connotations that follow it, one that is necessarily confident in the ability of the self rather than the ability of the many. I certainly respect the ability of the many; I am as idealistic as the next guy, but the statement really rubbed me the wrong way, as if it implied that as individuals we do not matter. I have always placed the will of the individual above the will of the collected; so there you have it.