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It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

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Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#51

Post by harrygold »

jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

As "Brave New World" author Aldous Huxley said of the human condition before his death "..try to be a little kinder"

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#53

Post by jdietrich »

nollidge wrote: post #45
jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

I don't see what your anecdote has to do with kindness. Presumably both Guttmann and his colleagues were all kind enough to want to reduce suffering; Guttmann just happened to be more correct about how to do so. Neither approach was more or less kind than the other, but one was more effective .

The effective approach was seen as deeply unkind, for reasons I elucidated - it resulted in a great amount of suffering in the short-term, for reasons which seemed futile to everyone but Guttmann.

Kindness is essentially a static phenomenon - it can offer nothing more than a slight temporary improvement. Clever is permanent and revolutionary. Clever is what eliminates smallpox, clever is what puts airbags in cars, clever digs irrigation ditches and makes pesticides.

Kindness is personified by Mother Teresa - a well-meaning person who can offer only succour to the dying. Clever is Guy Henry Faget discovering promin and Calmette and Guerin creating a TB vaccine.

Clever goes totally unnoticed most of the time, but its impact immeasurably outweighs compassion. How many humanitarians do you need to feed as many mouths as Norman Borlaug did? Who did more to alleviate suffering due to HIV/AIDS, the hospice movement or GlaxoSmithkline?

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#54

Post by momotomo »

jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

There are a lot of schools of thought that address the paradox of short term sufferings involvement in the overall scheme of kindness. Buddhism refers to it as "idiot kindness" or "idiot compassion" if you're kind in the short term without considering the long term value of it.

True kindness is a long winded, structured and considerate thing. Feeding a junky drugs because it makes them feel better is an example of it done wrong, I would still entirely consider it kind and compassionate to will someone through a process such as what you've illustrated here if you had a genuine understanding that it was going to provide them these kind of benefits.

Clever and kind are never that clear or opposed in the sense of dichotomy. At the extremes of it maybe 'clever' looks like not helping people at all because it frees up resources for the rest of the community, or 'kind' is euthanasia. The subjectivity of it all is the integral, and hardest, part of the process of assessing what's 'best' for an individual.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#56

Post by [deleted] »

jdietrich wrote: post #53
nollidge wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what your anecdote has to do with kindness. Presumably both Guttmann and his colleagues were all kind enough to want to reduce suffering; Guttmann just happened to be more correct about how to do so. Neither approach was more or less kind than the other, but one was more effective .

The effective approach was seen as deeply unkind, for reasons I elucidated - it resulted in a great amount of suffering in the short-term, for reasons which seemed futile to everyone but Guttmann. Kindness is essentially a static phenomenon - it can offer nothing more than a slight temporary improvement. Clever is permanent and revolutionary. Clever is what eliminates smallpox, clever is what puts airbags in cars, cl…

[deleted]

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#57

Post by brandoncapecci »

mcantelon wrote: post #50
sp332 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He refused his doctors' advice about surgery. He said it was because he was scared and didn't want to face reality, but not taking care of yourself for the sake of your family seems like a jerk move to me.

There are likely "nice" people out there with irrational aversions to Western medicine as well.

Otherwise nice. It's seems more likely that the sick just aren't clever enough to see what a dick move it is to give up. "Aversion to western medicine"... suicide... what's the difference?

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#58

Post by Lagged2Death »

I see the reaction to Sue Fortier's gesture as an example of ... the hunger among customers, employees, and all of us to engage with companies on more than just dollars-and-cents terms.

Ick. I think people want to feel like they are dealing with fellow human beings, not with "companies."

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#59

Post by ArcticCelt »

jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

Your anecdote gave a different result than the one in the story. This doesn't prove or disprove that it's better to be nice or clever. It only tells that there is no absolute rules like "it's better to X than X". Those rules help to illustrate some points but none are perfect science.

Re: It's More Important to Be Kind Than Clever

#60

Post by cglee »

columbo wrote: post #46
jdietrich wrote: post #38

No. It is never more important to be kind than clever. Never. We have a clear example of this at the moment, with the Paralympic games. The founder of the games, Dr Ludwig Guttmann, revolutionised the care of spinal injury in the UK. Until his innovations, a patient with a spinal cord injury had a life expectancy of less than two years, with most patients dying from bedsores and urinary tract infections. Guttmann's m…

The problem with single words is it is very easy to lost on the definitions. Kindness, cleverness... what does that mean? Here's how I would have worded it. Given a company of a 100 people working on the same product, which do you think would have a higher chance of being successful: 1) Everyone has a varying degree of intelligence but all of them shared the same (positive) moral compass 2) Everyone shares the same (…

This is very well put.
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