The Endgame

Newsletter #50 - Kindness

Toronto, December 17, 2023

Kindness

Kindness, the dictionary tells us, is “the quality of being generous, helpful, and caring about other people...”

“Generous, helpful, and caring.” Nice qualities to be sure, but sounds a bit quaint don’t you think, pie-in-the-sky, aspirational, hortatory, not to be taken too seriously, loved your sermon Reverend, see you next Sunday, maybe.

Kindness can be trite, the expression of superficial and saccharine sentiments, the stuff of greeting cards. It can be insincere and manipulative, a tool of persuasion. And doesn’t the very idea of kindness ignore the reality of life? Don’t we live in a zero-sum world, where competing forces fight ruthlessly for dominance, where dog eats dog and only the strong prosper? No room for kindness there (unless tactical). Don’t preach kindness to a young and aggressive capitalist attempting to make his way in business, or someone trying to survive on a street corner in the poorest part of town. Your gain is their loss. Your weakness is their strength. They know that.

Kindness is an individual quality, not something that applies easily to groups or institutions. Whoever heard of a kind corporation, or labour union, or a kind government, or country? These organizations are not supposed to be kind. They’re supposed to be tough, to promote aggressively the interests they represent. Mind you, moderate and left-wing political parties sometimes claim to be kind. You are excused if you think this claimed kindness is synthetic. Those of the centre and left want to put political daylight between themselves and the mean right-wingers with slicked-back hair and no sense of humour. Corporations also sometimes mouth commitment to kindness and similar virtues when it suits their purpose. Senior executives wax lyrical about this stuff at shareholder and employee meetings. Do we believe them?

Even if you are personally inclined to kindness, you may be pushed in a different direction in the workplace. In some circumstances, confrontation will be seen as necessary and smart. (For a compelling example, see Rob Copeland’s recent book The Fund, about Ray Dalio and the Bridgewater Associates hedge fund.) Kindness will be held against you. Your boss won’t appreciate your finer instincts. Your opponent won’t buckle in the face of gentleness. As Hogan Ross tells his brother Cashel in William Boyd’s fine new novel The Romantic, “there comes a moment in any dispute, argument, negotiation—what you will—when main force is the only way to make people see sense.” (That approach doesn’t work out too well for Cashel.)

Maybe you think that my analysis of kindness is harsh and bitter, or, at least, overstated.  You’re right. So let me strike a different note. What I have written is contrary to what we learn from experience and know in our hearts. We know that it is essential both to give and receive genuine kindness. Genuine kindness is not targeted or tactical kindness, not noblesse oblige, but general and random gentleness. Only then is life supportable.

The problem is, how are we to be kind in the cruel world we inhabit?

Note to readers

This is the last Endgame for 2023. See you early in January. Happy holidays!

Notes from readers

Newsletter #49 about homelessness struck a chord with some. It had about 1100 views.

“Poignant and timely,” wrote one reader.

“Heart-breakingly appropriate,” wrote another.

Another said, “A friend of mine told me his father, an active communist in the 1950s, had a suitcase ready in case the RCMP came for him during the night.”

One commented, “This is so beautiful... You are playing notes you don’t often play in a key you seldom explore.”

An Edmonton reader wrote: “I was just about to sit down and ghost write a column for a local community paper about living in an affordable housing complex in Edmonton’s inner city.  I work at the apartment building in question helping the 200 or so residents to connect to services and, yes, create a sense of community - or home.  Your column provides inspiration.”

The effervescent and remarkable David Wolinsky, he of the frequent memo “Intermittent random thoughts from my shelter in place shelter,” wrote: “I am attaching at the end of this morning’s memo our friend Philip Slayton’s recent Endgame column for those of you who aren’t yet subscribers to his column and haven’t read his books. Giving myself the benefit of doubt, I am at best a humorist. Sadly not all the time, but I try. And in my defence, I do believe that humour is often an excellent way to address a problem. I am not however a writer. Read Philip’s most excellent column attached, and you will immediately understand the difference between a humorist and a brilliant writer.” David’s a brilliant humorist, with a book coming out shortly.

The Endgame 2023 Annual Report

This is Endgame #50. The first Endgame newsletter was published on December 5, 2022. I’ve posted a brief essay (generally about 650 words) almost every Sunday morning since then. This gives me a chance to reflect systematically on ideas that interest me. It’s a way of keeping in touch with people I want to keep in touch with. And it’s an opportunity to practise the craft of writing. I plan to keep writing The Endgame for a while, but one day I’ll stop.

The Endgame is free. That won’t change, although I’m a bit embarrassed about my relationship with the publisher, Substack. Substack is a business and it wants those who write on the platform to charge for subscriptions (it takes a percentage). Sorry, Substack. A few—a very few—of my free subscribers have indicated they would like to pay something for The Endgame. Those generous souls could send a modest donation to a favourite charity of mine, the Medina Children’s Library in Fez, Morocco, which provides free books to local children under the age of twelve.

Substack is good at providing statistics. It tells me that, as of today, I have 604 subscribers, across 32 US states and 43 countries (5 per cent of subscribers are in Austria—who are you?). But all you have to do to be a subscriber is tick a box, so it doesn’t mean much. And when I look at the list of subscribers, I see that many have never opened a newsletter.

So far the most popular Endgame was #24 – The Constant Gardener (May 14, 2023), with 1,189 views. People love anything about gardens and gardening. Recent posts have been getting between 800 and 1,200 views. I see that the “30 day open rate” is slipping, as is the “30 day views.” I’m not sure what to make of that. Maybe people are getting tired of the whole damn thing. I’m not tired of it—yet.