This is not expression of a value judgment or a misanthropic sentiment. I simply don’t believe that random acts of kindness exist. If the phrase is intended to identify a category of actions, I don’t believe that category exists — it is a conceptual void.
To make my position clear, it is necessary to examine the concepts of randomness, kindness and action.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “random” as “having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard.” The earliest sources of the word go back to Anglo-Norman times when it denoted “speed, haste ..., impetuousness, violence.” These meanings seem to be at odds with the feel-good aura surrounding our common understanding of “random act of kindness.”
Furthermore, actions that have “no definite aim or purpose,” that are performed “without method or conscious choice” sound more pathological than kind. Humans act either from unconscious patterns that have emerged from our cultural and linguistic contexts, our social circumstances and our personal histories, or from conscious volition shaped by the same forces. We act based on our sense of what is appropriate in a given situation.
If acts of kindness are random, then they are removed from the realm of consciousness. They are somehow unaccountable, they just mysteriously happen. Perhaps what we intend by “random” is better expressed as “spontaneous,” meaning that we should act kindly at the moment we see the opportunity, that we should not just shake our heads and hope that someone else, or a charity or the government should do something.
The OED defines “kind” as “exhibiting a friendly or benevolent disposition by one’s conduct to a person or animal.” Going back to Old English times, “kind” denotes something “that is, or exists, in accordance with nature or the usual course of things.” Of course the noun from which the adjective is derived has the meaning, “A subdivision of a race of the same descent; a family, clan, tribe, etc. Also... One’s family, clan, kin, or kinsfolk.”
So it would seem that “kindness” is acting “in accordance with nature or the usual course of things” in relation to those whom we identify as “kin.” The concept of “kindness,” then, arises from fellow-feeling, a sense of kinship that acknowledges our relationship with another. Particularly important here is that kindness is not something extraordinary: it is natural; it is the “usual course of things.”
To exhibit “a friendly or benevolent disposition,” we must first be benevolently disposed. This comes from our upbringing, our education and how we have lived our lives. And we have to understand who stands within our circle of kinship; we have to think carefully about who we consider to be of our kind. We have to consider also the distinction between kindness and condescension. One cannot condescend to an equal, to one of one’s own kind. Condescension presupposes an otherness, a gap between individuals.
Kindness requires fellow-feeling, the feeling that the “other” is not radically other, that the parties to the act of kindness are kin. Because kindness is “in accordance with nature” it should not be a source of pride; it is simply what we should do. Feeling good should not motivate an act of kindness, but feeling good will often result from acts consistent with one’s nature. To commit a true act of kindness, we are challenged to consider how we are positioned in relationship to others. An action is not kind that does not benefit the recipient: self-serving acts are not kindness. They express ego, not kinship.
“Action” is the broadest concept in this phrase. It is “something done or performed.” It can be distinguished from an intention, which is only a potential action. In the modern world action can also be distinguished from novel types of symbolic expression, such as “liking” or “hashtagging” something. These are “virtual” actions, which do not even reach the level of intention in that no further thought or action is required or even necessarily contemplated. In the context of the phrase “random act of kindness,” an action must be more than symbolic or intentional; it must become manifest.
Furthermore, an act is an event viewed in isolation. There is nothing wrong with a spontaneous and isolated act of kinship (it is, after all, our nature), but if there are issues about which we care, we cannot adequately address them with isolated acts. If there are issues that affect our kind, then it would be more appropriate to complement our spontaneous acts of kinship with kindness that unfolds in an organized and committed way.
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It would be appropriate for a university to devote more than a week and demonstrate more than a hashtag commitment to exploring our kinship, understanding kindness and marshaling our considerable institutional resources to encourage and support the good work.
Kindness is intentional. It expresses fellow-feeling. It is our nature. There is nothing random about it. The phrase “random act of kindness” was coined, I would assume, as a counterpoint to the notion of “random act of violence” in a commendable attempt to encourage people to be kind rather than violent. But “random act of violence” is a category as void as “random act of kindness.” Such acts do not exist.
Categorizing acts as “random” takes them out of the realm of deliberation; it makes them somehow mysterious and unaccountable. But acts that are violent arise from the same cultural, social and personal contexts as acts that are kind. Categorizing either of them as “random” places them in a non-existent conceptual space; it gives the illusion that they somehow just happen, that there are no causes or reasons for them, that because they are random, we can do nothing about them.
Most insidiously, it keeps us from thinking deeply about the causes of violence and the role of kindness. Thinking deeply and being kind should be things that our university takes seriously every week.
Dan Young, Ph.D., is the director of the Research Service-Learning Program at UNM
