The philosophy of kindness | Emmanuel Jaffelin | TEDxParisSalon

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Emmanuel Jaffelin defends an ethic of the "gentleman" which takes root in this "minor virtue", kindness, but which would define a more accessible moral than the unrealistically demanding standards of sainthood.

Hello.

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

She immediately added, "And I have two!"

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

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

Thierry Lhermitte said,

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

And from that we took that kindness

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

Kindness signifies gullibility,
naivety, mushiness,

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

So why am I interested in kindness?

It's still a mystery today.

But nevertheless,
I have started a conversion.

I don't know if you remember,

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

that happened the 13th of November.

It completely went unnoticed on my part.

At the time, I was working on cordiality.

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

An editor friend had noticed.

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

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

With that, I returned
to my studies with nonchalance,

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

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

So I opened a dictionary.

Went to the letter K
in a philosophy dictionary,

in two philosophy dictionaries,

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

the National Library of France,

and I found nothing on "kindness".

So I continued my quest further,

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

Since the Neanderthals, nothing.

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

maybe there is a passage, a paragraph?"

And nothing.

And then I understood
that my contempt for kindness

was the fruit of my culture,
my philosophical culture.

And I became interested
in the history of kindness.

I found that its history
was passionate, thrilling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

a Roman, a Christian, and a Medieval.

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

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

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

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

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

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

will become tarnished.

Firstly, it denotes someone
who belongs to the family,

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

Then, one thing leads to another,

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

then the nations that are
outside the Empire.

So we can see that "gentīlis"
denotes a noble

just as much as the lowest in society.

Second root: the Christian.

Christians were looking
for a term, like the Jews,

to denote those who aren't Christian.

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

"Goyim" in plural.

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

namely: "gentīlis".

So, a gentile is someone
who is not Christian.

They aren't necessarily mean,

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

Differently than Judaism,
the gentiles can be converted.

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

even though he is Jewish
and speaks Greek.

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

to the correct faith.

So that's it for Christianity.

Saint Thomas wrote
a great deal against the gentiles.

Third root: Medieval.

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

He practiced two virtues:
honor and charity.

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

He turned towards Rome,
historically, spiritually,

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

It's Guillaume Budé, from the Renaissance,

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

So the gentleman is the aristocrat.

And what I find comical:

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

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

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

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

that come together
and are structured by Christianity.

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

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

It is longer...

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

From the Renaissance,

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

noblemen will be structured
around the king.

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

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

put on a wig, high heels,

and so will become
a Tartuffe, a hypocrite.

And noblemen will thus end.

In 1789,

aristocracy was put away with,

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

as a refined lifestyle,
as an aristocratic lifestyle.

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

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

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

and a republican virtue.

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

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

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

There is of course
the idea of benevolence.

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

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

it's just giving a hand."

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

It's a realistic moral.

It's a post-modern moral.

It's a moral without guilt."

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

those that I teach,
as a philosophy professor.

Some morals that aren't realistic:

the ataraxia of the Stoics,

the apathy of the Epicureans,

or those morals that raised
humanity above itself,

that were forges
with the three monotheisms,

and that tell us from morning to night,

and from birth until death
what we have to do.

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

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

And these little subtleties
create a good mood in society.

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

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

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

and certainly not when I need to be.

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

Why is it also a moral of power?

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

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

to use them, to indenture them.

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

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

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

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

We look outside ourselves
to find what we lack.

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

I will won't draw you a picture.

I think that the kind person
is someone that gives.

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

in a state of generosity,

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

That is why it's a moral of power.

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

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

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

You look at how the knob is made,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's wanting people's
happiness despite them.

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

She wants people's happiness despite them,

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

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

It's not really tepidness.

It's warm because it's intelligence:

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

And what is it to be kind?

I'll give a short and sweet definition.

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

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

there we have our Amélie.

If we are asked, on the other hand,

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

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

But through this kindness,
we raise ourselves.

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

this little virtue that was forgotten,
that was outdated,

is to say that we struggle
updating kindness in France,

because we have two reservations:

the first coming from cynical ideology,

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

The second comes from the heritage
of the French Revolution

that extols an absolute egalitarianism.

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

it's gone into our DNA.

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

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

And so we don't like serving.

I'll use the example of the café waiter.

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

Sartre, in "Being and Nothingness".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so, to be kind is to accept servitude.

As La Boétie said,
it shows voluntary servitude,

it's putting your knee on the ground.

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

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

to empty us of ourselves.

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

But somewhere, when we are kind,

we do an existential
experiment like a siphon.

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

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

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

I loved my Grandmother but she was wrong.

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

I think that the kind person
has three eyes:

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

And if kindness has any merit,

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

and our civilization of happiness.

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

Thank you.

(Applause)