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Hello.

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My Grandmother used to say,
"A kind person only has one eye."

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She immediately added, "And I have two!"

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For a longtime, I've concluded
that kindness isn't worth a mass.

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Incidentally, if you remember
"Santa Claus is a Bastard",

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Thierry Lhermitte said,

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"I don't want to say it,
but Thérèse is really nice!"

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And from that we took that kindness

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was more on the side 
of moral weakness than of strength.

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Kindness signifies gullibility,
naivety, mushiness,

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childish or feminine virtue, or at least,
definitely not a cardinal virtue.

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So why am I interested in kindness?

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It's still a mystery today.

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But nevertheless,
I have started a conversion.

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I don't know if you remember,

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but in 2009, "Psychologie" Magazine
introduced Kindness Day in France

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that happened the 13th of November.

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It completely went unnoticed on my part.

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At the time, I was working on cordiality.

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The notions are very close,
if I do say so myself.

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An editor friend had noticed.

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He told me, "You should
write on kindness."

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"Over my dead body! Listen, I don't want
to be labelled 'Philosopher of kindness'."

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With that, I returned 
to my studies with nonchalance,

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and one day, piqued 
by something I don't know,

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I went to see what my colleagues,
living or dead, had written on kindness.

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So I opened a dictionary.

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Went to the letter K
in a philosophy dictionary,

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in two philosophy dictionaries,

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in all the philosophy dictionaries
I could find in the BNF,

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the National Library of France,

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and I found nothing on "kindness".

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So I continued my quest further,

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and I thought, "Are there books 
that philosophers wrote on kindness?"

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Since the Neanderthals, nothing.

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So I thought, "In moral philosophy,
perhaps there's a chapter,

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maybe there is a passage, a paragraph?"

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And nothing.

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And then I understood
that my contempt for kindness

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was the fruit of my culture,
my philosophical culture.

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And I became interested
in the history of kindness.

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I found that its history
was passionate, thrilling.

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And I thought, "Now that I get
why kindness signifies nobility,

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I have to consolidate it
and make a virtue from it,

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maybe not cardinal, but at least
a virtue backed by a moral.

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And so this is was I'm going to tell you:

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the history of kindness,
in three periods and two movements.

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I would say that the history
of kindness has three roots:

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a Roman, a Christian, and a Medieval.

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If all the roads lead to Rome,
kindness leaves from it.

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"Gentīlis" in Latin denotes a noble,
one who is well-born.

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One who is part of the 100 families
who founded Rome.

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By the way, we call "gens"
the whole of these families, the clan,

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who, by the way, constructed the politics
of the monarchy at Rome's beginning.

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And then the term "gentīlis",
"gentīlēs" in plural,

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will become tarnished.

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Firstly, it denotes someone
who belongs to the family,

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including one who is not
of noble blood, meaning slaves.

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Then, one thing leads to another,

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"gentīlis" will denote the nations
that belong to the Empire,

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then the nations that are
outside the Empire.

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So we can see that "gentīlis"
denotes a noble

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just as much as the lowest in society.

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Second root: the Christian.

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Christians were looking
for a term, like the Jews,

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to denote those who aren't Christian.

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Jews have their own word.
In Hebrew, it's "goy".

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"Goyim" in plural.

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Christians will have their minds set on
a term that has already been tarnished,

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namely: "gentīlis".

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So, a gentile is someone
who is not Christian.

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They aren't necessarily mean,

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they're just a nonbeliever
and don't have the right faith.

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Differently than Judaism,
the gentiles can be converted.

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Saint Paul will be baptized
as an apostle to the gentiles in Latin,

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even though he is Jewish
and speaks Greek.

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That means he'll cross the Mediterranean
to convert those of the wrong faith

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to the correct faith.

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So that's it for Christianity.

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Saint Thomas wrote 
a great deal against the gentiles.

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Third root: Medieval.

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In the Middle Ages, after the invasions,
the nobleman became bored in his castle.

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He practiced two virtues:
honor and charity.

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He housed the villagers when the brigands
and other invading peoples came.

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He turned towards Rome,
historically, spiritually,

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and he proclaimed himself
"gentle man", in two words.

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It's Guillaume Budé, from the Renaissance,

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who will combine the two words to create
a neologism from them: gentleman.

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So the gentleman is the aristocrat.

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And what I find comical:

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Imagine in the 12th century,
in a chapel or a church,

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the priest is speaking to the gentleman
and his family in the first row,

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and is speaking of Saint Paul,
the apostle to the gentiles.

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In a unit of time, place, and action,
you have two meanings of gentile,

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that come together
and are structured by Christianity.

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"Gentile", is both "noble"
and "dishonorable" at the same time.

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So there you have the history.
I find it fabulous.

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It is longer...

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It just so happens that the aristocracy
will weaken and become courtesans.

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From the Renaissance,

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it's Norbert Elias who explains this
in "The Royal Court",

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noblemen will be structured
around the king.

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And thus will flatter, will look
at themselves in the mirror,

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play hide-and-seek
in the gardens of Versailles,

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put on a wig, high heels,

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and so will become
a Tartuffe, a hypocrite.

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And noblemen will thus end.

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In 1789,

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aristocracy was put away with,

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and that's the end of kindness
as a social lifestyle,

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as a refined lifestyle,
as an aristocratic lifestyle.

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But I see an opportunity there:
not in the French Revolution,

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but in the fact that it abolishes
kindness as a lifestyle,

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and provides an opportunity
for it to become a moral virtue,

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and a republican virtue.

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So this is what I'm trying
to theorize in a second phase.

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Well, how do I define kindness,
taking inspiration from the street?

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I thought, "Fundamentally,
what is it to be kind?"

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There is of course
the idea of benevolence.

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And I thought, "It's not
something very elevated.

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You don't sacrifice, you're not
nailed to the cross when you're kind,

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it's just giving a hand."

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And so I thought, "It's cool
to be kind, it's a pocket moral.

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It's a realistic moral.

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It's a post-modern moral.

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It's a moral without guilt."

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And I'm against this moral that I call 
an impressionist to the important morals,

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those that I teach,
as a philosophy professor.

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Some morals that aren't realistic:

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the ataraxia of the Stoics,

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the apathy of the Epicureans,

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or those morals that raised
humanity above itself,

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that were forges
with the three monotheisms,

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and that tell us from morning to night,

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and from birth until death
what we have to do.

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But when we can't, we feel a giant guilt.

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Kindness gives off the idea
of an important moral in subtle ways.

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And these little subtleties
create a good mood in society.

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By the way, putting it up against
the important morals,

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I say that it's a moral of power
and not a moral of need.

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I am kind when I want to be,
when I can be,

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and certainly not when I need to be.

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There isn't guilt when I don't give
a helping hand when I'm asked.

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Why is it also a moral of power?

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Because, it's good to remember,
we live in a cynical society.

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Cynics are people that do unto others
as you would have them do,

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to use them, to indenture them.

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I think that cynics are defined first
as predators, as people who take.

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And I think that people who take,
are people that lack.

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A cocaine addict in a state of lack,
we know what that is.

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But we look at ourselves less
in our society in such a state.

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We look outside ourselves
to find what we lack.

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That's why we take, in life, 
in business, in politics today;

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I will won't draw you a picture.

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I think that the kind person
is someone that gives.

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They're not in a state of lacking,
they are in a state of richness,

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in a state of generosity,

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and so, it's this excess
that they can give.

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That is why it's a moral of power.

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I also believe that it's
a moral of gentle power,

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of soft power, as the Americans say,
meaning the power of gentleness.

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When we want to open a door, in general,
you don't do that with your shoulder.

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You look at how the knob is made,

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and put our hand on it
to turn it in the right direction.

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"Pull" is often written, and we push,
in stores, but in general, we manage.

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And so I believe that there is
a kind of intelligence in this soft power.

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That's why I say if kindness
belongs to empathy,

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I'll distinguish it from two other
close forms it's often confused with:

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firstly respect,
which I call, "cold empathy",

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and concern, which I call,
"burning empathy".

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So you guessed yourselves
that kindness was a "warm empathy".

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Respect simply consists
of conforming to a rule, to a law.

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It's leaving a parking spot
to a handicapped person.

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It's not so much that we'll help them
get out of their chair.

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Burning empathy was immortalized
on screen with, "Amélie".

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It's wanting people's
happiness despite them.

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I find that this virtue, concern,
is invasive and intrusive.

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She wants people's happiness despite them,

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and as you know, hell is paved
with good intentions.

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Kindness is a kind of intelligence
that's located halfway between the two.

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It's not really tepidness.

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It's warm because it's intelligence:

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it's through my mood that I can have
relationships with others' moods.

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And what is it to be kind?

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I'll give a short and sweet definition.

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It's giving a helping hand
to someone who asks.

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If they don't ask for it,
you don't have to help,

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there we have our Amélie.

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If we are asked, on the other hand,

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it's up to us help or not to help.

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In the two cases, we're not being mean.

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But through this kindness,
we raise ourselves.

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So the last thing that I would like
to say to raise this little moral,

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this little virtue that was forgotten,
that was outdated,

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is to say that we struggle
updating kindness in France,

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because we have two reservations:

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the first coming from cynical ideology,

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that makes us predators,
so giving isn't seen as good.

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The second comes from the heritage
of the French Revolution

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that extols an absolute egalitarianism.

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The night of August, 4, 
in France, it's in our genes,

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it's gone into our DNA.

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And so "to serve" is something
that puts us in the position of "serf",

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of "servitude", and it's not easy.

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And so we don't like serving.

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I'll use the example of the café waiter.

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We've at least two philosophers
who've done it:

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Sartre, in "Being and Nothingness".

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Sartre saw the image
of freedom, of "for oneself",

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of someone that could be something
other than what they are: a café waiter.

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I say that the café waiter illustrates
France's resistance to kindness,

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because if you've done the experiment
at the café next door,

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as soon as you sit down,
he's the one to take power.

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It's not that he's mean,
but he resembles everything French:

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he wants to show us that equality
is most important in human relationships.

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And so, to be kind is to accept servitude.

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As La Boétie said,
it shows voluntary servitude,

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it's putting your knee on the ground.

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In the face of "ego comes first",
which our society advocates,

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I say that kindness forces us
to get outside of ourselves,

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to empty us of ourselves.

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I'm using a poor metaphor,
the one about the plumber.

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But somewhere, when we are kind,

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we do an existential
experiment like a siphon.

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We siphon ourselves of ourselves
and that leaves room to welcome others.

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And so, in conclusion,
I'll say three things:

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"a kind person only has one eye",
my Grandmother said.

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I loved my Grandmother but she was wrong.

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I think it's the cynic that only has
one eye and is a huge Cyclops.

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I think that the kind person
has three eyes:

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they have two, plus the one from the heart
that's in the middle, the third eye.

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And if kindness has any merit,

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it's to provide cohesion
between the old societies of honor,

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and our civilization of happiness.

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I find you all very kind
for coming. (Laughter)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)