when nice ain't so nice

When Nice Ain’t So Nice

By Elouise Bell

The problem with Nice isn’t that it’s sometimes wimpy; the problem is that Nice can be dangerous. More crimes have been committed behind the mask of niceness than behind all the ski masks worn to all the convenience store stickups ever perpetrated.

I don’t actually intend to talk about literal crimes here, but as long as the subject came up, it’s worth mentioning that until the roof caved in, everybody said Utah corporate conman Grant Affleck was a really nice guy. (Nice cuts both ways in giving Utah its title as Fraud Capital of the nation: we produce cone men so nice they can’t be doubted, and victims so nice they “can’t say no.”) Documents forger and bomb killer Mark Hoffman, they said, was nice. Likewise convicted child sex abuser Alan Hadfield- so nice that an entire community rose up to vilify the victims and slander the messenger rather than accept the verdict on their nice-guy neighbor. And, apparently, Ted Bundy was as nice as they come.

I first identified niceness as a culprit with the help of a colleague, Karen Lynn. I told Karen that some of today’s college students seem pleasant enough, but somehow unpleasantly resistant at the same time, in a way that was unclear but very real.

“Oh, I know what you mean,” Karen said. “The students smile very politely, and the unspoken message goes like this: ‘I am a very nice person. I’m sure you are a very nice person too. Therefore I am sure you will give me a nice grade. And if you don’t- what’s wrong with you?” Niceness in some student’s minds fulfills all obligations that one might otherwise expect to see paid in the coin of effort, intelligence, and results. (Incidentally, John Ciardi spotted the problem in the same setting. He wrote a fine poem called “On Flunking a Nice Boy Out of School.” I read it to students from time to time. Some laugh. Some sulk, suggesting tacitly that even reading the poem is not very nice of me.) But I look beyond the classroom to find the arena where niceness is most harmful.

C.S. Lewis praises courage as the virtue that protects all other virtues. That is, it is courage which enables us to be truthful when speaking the truth may be risky; it is courage that backs up loyalty when loyalty is unpopular; it is certainly courage which makes patriotism meaningful in times of danger. By the same logic, I believe it is niceness which can corrupt all the other virtues. Niceness edits the truth, dilutes loyalty, makes a caricature of patriotism. It hobbles Justice, short-circuits Honor, and counterfeits Mercy, Compassion and Love.

Nice is, among other things, a logic-proof argument (chronically nice students seem puzzled when I try to explain the rational of penalties for late work; my reasons are all so irrelevant to their niceness), an undiscerning critique (Wayne Booth’s mother used to chide him: “Why must you be so critical in your reviews?”), and a silken shackle on the legs of millions of women.

(The list of things nice women don’t do includes, but is not limited to, thinking, speaking, moving- in the romantic context- arguing, competing, winning, and laughing out loud. I had a very nice woman tell me once, after I had given some foolish presentation or another to her women’s group: “That was hilarious! Really hilarious! I almost laughed out loud!” Heaven forfend!)

Niceness begins in the home; it is taught as a prime doctrine of the “poisonous pedagogy” Alice Miller exposes. Miller, a brilliant Swiss psychologist whose work is assuming major proportions in the field, has traced much neurosis to the philosophy, dominant throughout most of this century, that the role of the child is to be docile, obedient, and subservient to the parent, whose word is law. The “poisonous pedagogy” teaches children, in other words, to be “nice.” It demands that children not resist the status quo, not take any direct action against whatever injustices are going down. Thus it indirectly but inevitably encourages covert action, manipulation, passive-aggression, duplicity and denial. (My mother used to say in so many words: “Be nice. Don’t argue with your father. Agree with him, then slip out the back door and do what you like, like your brother’s do.” She also said to me with a simper: “Your father is the head of the home, remember that. And I’m the neck that moves the head!” My response to such advice was often a single, very unnice word.)

As I look around the neighborhood, the campus, the community, and the church, I see one result of these teachings in the way nice people act when they disagree: sentimentally or deviously towards those we encounter face to face, and hostility towards those we don’t know. For thirty years I have been upset and puzzled by the fiercely hostile tone of many Letters to the Editor of BYU’s student newspaper. These letters are not merely impassioned, not just full of youthful vigor and sass, not purely angry. They are hostile and mean-spirited. Whether discussing red tape in the Administration Building, parking on campus, or pricing in the Bookstore, the letters drip with innuendo, invective and scripture-laden scourging. All this from neatly dressed, smiling youths who hold doors open for each other and walk clear across campus to turn in stray Number Two pencils to the Lost- and Found depository.

This same pattern shows up even more dangerously on our highways. The heavy artillery has so far blasted away only on the California freeways, but the nice, friendly, zucchini-sharing people of the Utah culture are not immune to the hostility that spurts out at strangers once we are behind the wheel. Afoot and at home in our own neighborhoods, we silently and smilingly put up with each others dogs that howl all night, kids that trample our flower gardens, teens that sun-bathe and wash their cars to ear-shattering heavy metal music. But when we drive out of those neighborhoods, any stranger becomes fair game for our angry honking, cutting in, heading off, not-so-muted swearing, and flipping the bird. I am suggesting that there is a connection. If niceness did not forbid our direct assertion on dog howls and childish vandalism, perhaps there wouldn’t be quite so much hostility stored up waiting to slosh out on Interstate-15.

Nice takes other tolls. According to an article in the Deseret News, 11 October 1989, pharmaceutical houses have hard data showing that Utahns (with a national reputation as your generic nice people) use huge quantities of tranquilizers and anti-depressants, far more per capita than the populations of other states. Depression of course has many causes, but repressed anger is among the foremost. Anger is punished and prohibited from childhood in cultures that teach the poisonous pedagogy and preach the creed of niceness. I fantasize about what life in Happy Valley might be like if the lid of niceness were eased off the pressure cooker of emotions.

I worry about hostility on the highways and depression in the home. I worry about battering and abuse, both physical and sexual, that seem to be on the rise in places where you wouldn’t expect it. For instance, I learned (without seeking the information) that in my very nice young-executive neighborhood of about fifteen homes, at least five wives are beaten regularly by their husbands. One of the nicest men in the ward has been convicted of sexual molestation. Absolutely the nicest elder I knew in the mission field afterward had to uproot his wife and family and give up his profession because he had been found guilty of molesting preschoolers. I seriously wonder: if these men had been under less pressure to be “nice,” would they have been more in touch with their dark sides-the dark that we all have- and thus more able to deal directly with violent impulses before they became actions?

If the cultural mandate to be Nice has driven men’s darker side into hiding, what can we say about women, who aren’t even supposed to have dark sides? Passive aggression is one of the milder manifestations of Niceness, seen in the woman who wouldn’t say no to anyone, but who will repeatedly keep you waiting an hour, or “accidentally” smash the fender on your borrowed car, or “forget” an important responsibility she promised to manage. More deadly is the Nice Lady who never raises her voice, never utters the slightest profanity, but whose devastating words and emotional abuse leave permanent scars as disfiguring to the soul as any physical battering is to the body. (Shakespeare’s comment on the matter: “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”)

And thus we come to the quick of this terrible ulcer. The creed of niceness does damage to the Self, to the soul. The struggle for personal authenticity is a lifelong one, the true Hero Journey we all must take if life is to have meaning. And the demons with which we grapple in the underworld have many shapes. Some have names long memorialized in literature: Pride, Sloth, Envy, Avarice. Others are more pastel despots: Conformity, Busyness. And Niceness.

How does Niceness threaten the hero on the journey? The quest is for the authentic Self to discover as many of the particulars as possible from an infinite number of particulars, and especially certain crucial particulars about that totally unique, eternally individual, unceasingly changing Self. And as if this labor we not Herculean enough, the Hero, even as she seeks the True Self, must somehow nurture-that I, foster the growth of-the avasive, elusive Self. Niceness threatens by saying there is no True Self, or that the True Self is synonymous with the Natural Man (and thus an enemy to God), or that the False Self is what we ought to seek.

Permit me a metaphor. Imagine a mother, a Queen, if you like, who awakens from the sleep that follows childbirth to discover that her child has been abducted, carried away. At first there are some signs of the child-a cry down a long corridor, a blanket woven for the baby and discovered on the lawn, perhaps a scent of baby’s breath on the night air. These eventually stop. Time passes. The mother searches night and day. And every now and then she hears from the child-a lisping voice over a telephone line, garbled with static; torn parts of a hand-written note; sometimes even a little gift, sent with love. And the mother continues to hunt for her child to follow clues, and to send the child, by whatever means-on the phone in the fleeting moments permitted, by thought transference, by prayer-all the love and support she can muster, as the search continues.

Now imagine that, in the midst of these labors, the mother is repeatedly beset by concerned people-most prominently the Queen Mother and her consort-who urge her to break off her search, who try to press a different child on her, insisting that this one is much “nicer” than her own, scolding her, saying she is selfish, willful, possibly even crazy to go on with her search. If the opposition is persistent, the Queen may eventually come to believe she is crazy,

Source:http://mfarnworth.com/470Readings/WhenNiceAin'tSoNice.htm

rise to your potential

My dear young and not so young Brothers and Sisters: Sister Tobler and I have come to this remarkable school with much joy and anticipation. We were here a number of years ago, but much has changed with respect to the campus, the size of the student body and the expansion of the faculty and administration for what has become a full-fledged university. We have watched as each step has unfolded and felt a sense of admiration and deep respect for those who have guided the many academic and campus changes over the past several years.

It is always a joy to be with President and Sister Bednar who have been deeply involved in all that has taken place here over the past number of years. We would also like to mention the joy we have had in working with two wonderful couples who have been associated with BYU–Idaho for many years. President and Sister Kinghorn of the Albania Tirana Mission and President and Sister Strong of the Croatia Zagreb Mission are dear to our hearts as we saw their great faith and commitment in presiding over those missions and the Church in the Europe Central Area. Now we are all awaiting the start of a new House of the Lord with all of its blessings to the student body, faculty and surrounding members in this area. Having been involved in the groundbreaking, construction and dedication or rededication of four temples in Europe over the past several years, we know the great joy this brings to all who prepare to walk through those sacred doors.

As we look into your wonderful faces today, we can't help but be reminded of the great heritage and transcendent prospects we individually have. Most of you today are on the very front end of both understanding and preparing for the potential to become what most of you, and I

would say, most of us, do not yet fully comprehend. Hopefully today we can receive impressions through the power of the Holy Ghost of the unusual potential, both temporally and eternally, in each of us, and be committed to leave no stones unturned in achieving that potential in an acceptable and moral way.

Many years ago when I was a very young teenager, I thought often about what would ever become of me. I felt academically capable, but realized that socially I was a slow developer as many of my school mates will remember and readily confirm. I was born into a wonderful family, the second of four children. Our parents were good people and excellent teachers- both had taught school for a number of years. They had a keen sense of what was right and what was wrong and reinforced those values constantly as we were growing up. Sometimes we would, in a tongue in cheek sense, think of their strong views as the Gospel of Mother Louise and of Father Don. Both were committed to the Gospel and the Church, and we were without any doubts about their commitments. We were coached well, and sometimes firmly when needed, and we knew they expected us to develop our individual capabilities and potential. I remember on several occasions, Mother would remind us about the importance of self-confidence and believing in our potential by saying, “if you don't think you are somebody, no one else will either.” This was not a commission to have an ego trip or to develop a superiority complex.

Even with all of this good teaching and example, there remained for me a deep wonder of what should or could I do with my life. How would I earn a living for a family in the coming years and how could I gain a higher level of confidence in myself and be able to develop trust in others who could play significant roles in my life? While I had many thoughts about how I would cope in world, I would also wonder when older people would talk in sacrament meeting about reaching, in the end, the blessing of eternal life not just for me but for as yet a family that was not yet in the process of formation. Perhaps you have also faced similar questions about your futures.

Now, almost sixty years later I can look back and see and understand some things I didn't understand too well at the time. I'd like to share a few thoughts about these important matters with you today. There may be nothing particularly profound, but maybe they might be helpful in some small way.

First, I have learned how important it really is to develop a healthy belief in ourselves. Some seem to be born with it. Others may have to work much harder at this important task. It is not just to believe in ourselves, but also to believe and see ourselves as capable of achieving good and lofty goals. This is not an encouragement to develop an arrogant pride or ego with all of the unfortunate implications, but it is an encouragement to have a healthy, even inspiring, regard for who we are and what we can do. For many years, I have found encouragement from the Lord's statement of His reliance on humble but confident people. In the Doctrine and Covenants, section 1, we have all read many times these choice verses speaking about the unfolding Restoration preparatory to the Second Coming of the Lord:

Therefore, I the Lord, knowing the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the earth, called upon my servant

Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven, and gave him commandments;

And also gave commandments to others, that they should proclaim these things unto the world; and all this that it might be fulfilled, which was written by the prophets-

The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones (Doctrine and Covenants 1:17-19, emphasis added).

We must believe in ourselves and realize that even in our weakness, the Lord is able and will make us strong and effective people.

I have also learned that a very high cost is associated with depreciating ourselves, or as some say, beating up on ourselves often unjustly. Now it is easier for me to understand and believe that when we become so negative and injurious to ourselves, our Father in Heaven must wonder, how can a spirit son or daughter, carrying my genetics in their spirit, think of themselves in such a way? He knows, and we know, we have flaws which must be dealt with. But He knows, and we should know, that we are valuable and capable children of a loving Father in Heaven.

In developing a healthy belief in ourselves, there is a helpful gospel parallel with respect to the process of how we come to believe in the Savior, our Redeemer. Just as a wanting to believe in the Savior precedes the establishment of a faith in Christ and His Gospel, a desire to believe in oneself must become kindling to the larger fire of truly having an active, deep faith in ourselves. To assist us in the quest for having a deep faith in ourselves, Heavenly Father, knowing our strengths and our weaknesses, often places people in our lives to stimulate our belief in ourselves. That stimulation may come from a number of sources or people. It may come from a Primary or Sunday School teacher. It may come from a Bishop. It may be a Stake Patriarch. It may be your Priesthood Advisor or a Young Women's leader. It may be a Mission President. It may be your Mom and Dad. From whatever credible source it may come, please do not take lightly the impressions or counsel which come of the Holy Ghost to you through their outreaching love and concerns. You might be tempted to be a bit cynical or give little worth to some of the things that they might say to you. Be accepting and appreciate of their outreach. Be believing and not cynical.

I am reminded of the wonderful teaching of Alma about the progression as we move from believing to having strong and active faith. He pleads with us to be positive and even to experiment:

But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words (Alma 32:27).

Excerpt from Rise to Your Potential by: Elder D. Lee Tobler

love and self esteem

It is the nature of language that several concepts can share one word, and that is certainly true with the word love. It has many meanings. When Paul told us that "God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7), for instance, he was talking about love that is a reaction to something. that use of the word indicates that one is extremely please with whatever it is that one is responding to. It is human to want to evoke a response. Our experience is, therefore , that someone;s pleasurable reaction to us may be a motivator. It is not, however, an energizer, because with a desire for response as motivation, the risk of not pleasing is what looms largest. That is anxiety producing. We are only truly, righteously energized by being freed of self-consciousness.

The love that we talk of when we are hearing for peace, the love that energizes and empowers another human being by giving a base of security, is the kind of love John was talking about when he said, "For God so loved the world, that he have his only begotten Son" (John 3:16). That gift of love is a gift given freely to all--unconditional physical redemption from the Fall coupled with the opportunity to seek spiritual redemption as well. No matter to what unloveable depths we allow ourselves to sink, God's loving hand is still extended to us, with the invitation to repent and come unto him. This loving incitation is withheld only in the most extreme circumstances. And even those extreme circumstances we know in advance to avoid. His love is completely reliable. Because his love is constant and dependable--because we can rely upon its always being there--we can forget ourselves and get to work. Our efforts can be directed to showing him we return his love instead of trying to get him to love us. He already loves us. It comes out of his divine heart--not out of our lovability.

The kind of love, however tender, that is a response, that is based on another's lovability, may be only admiration. Admiration brings with it the stress of self-consciousness. When we get our security from being admired, we learn that we must continue to be seen as admirable in order to feel secure. we have no control over the caprice of another's perception, so our foundation feels shaky. Our whole attention has to be directed to our self's survival. It's a barrier to peace.

I was tending my grandson recently, a favorite activity of mine, and I picked him up from preschool. He was wearing a yellow crown emblazoned with big blue letters: "I AM SPECIAL." I thought at once about the badges I had put on the coats of my youth conference attendees. I thought about our missionary who reached the point of not trying to be "special" anymore. I thought about how I would love to have relieved my precious grandson of the pressure to be special. How much better it would have been if the crown had said, "I AM SPECIAL TO MY TEACHER." He would then have known that he was valued without condition, without burden. It is such a small difference in semantics, but such a large difference in comfort. It changes how we receive the expressions of love from others, and it changes how we give expressions of love as well.

Energizing, empowering, security-giving love come out of the lover. We love not because someone is lovable but because we are able to love.

Sometimes, not separating the meanings of the word love, we work at finding people's lovable qualities and try to concentrate on them so that we can, as we believe, learn to love them in a security-giving way. When we do that, however, we are not really working at loving in the way that we have been commanded, but as admiring. The commandment is to love one another, "as I have loved you." I am confidant that we it means the way the Lord has loved all of us--not just the cheerful givers, though he wants us all to be that; not just those who obey, though he wants us all to do that. He is not commanding us to admire one another, but to be there for one another, as he is there for us--love always at the ready. The love must come out of our hearts, not out of our reaction. If we could not love on command, the Lord would not have commanded us to love.

When we love without the necessity for others to be lovable, we will see their virtues, not look for them. What's more, the list of virtues will grow, because we will be giving them the security from which they can risk proving the Lord's promise: "Be he that doeth truth cometh to the light" (John 3:21)

Or in other words, he that does obey or he that is a cheerful giver gains access to the love that has always been there--available and constant.

...If I am "loved" because I have great musical talent, for instance, how do I feel if I make a mistake in my performance? Might it lessen my desire to risk performing again, or perhaps pressure me to perform well again to feed my insatiable need for recognition?

That's what nonreactive, unconditional love does. It energizes. It empowers. It eliminates the fear of risk, the fear of doing, as when Isaiah by the Lord's mercy, was given strength to say "Here am I; send me" (Isa. 6:8) Unconditional love eliminates the insatiable need for recognition. It makes it possible to get one's strength from the Lord and to keep the commandments: "Perfect love casteth out fear:because fear hath torment"

We must not talk in terms of our own status. We must resist the temptation to mingle the wordily philosophies of men with the doctrines of the Kingdom. It will not bring us the peace for which we yearn. It will leave us either with an insatiable desire to be wonderful or nice or it will leave us exhausted from measuring what we do. We need to think instead, I am a child of God. I am love and grateful--even in my fallen state.

Status is unnecessary. The peace of the atonement of Christ can take the place of both measurement and paralyzing guilt in our lives. Striving to become fully complete children of Christ as well as children of our Father in Heaven is an easy yoke and a light burden. We have eternity; there are not clocks in the garden of eternal life. And we are so very greatly loved. Alma expressed it so beautifully: "yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things: (Alma 26:12)

We live in a society that is saturated with the wordly view. The search for self-esteem is widely used a substitute for the Savior's atonement. Teachers, programs, and friends will engage in well-intentioned flattery and its resulting encouragement of self-focus (pg 125.)

Taken from The Myth of Self-Esteem by: Ester Rasband

a quote on self reliance

We seem to be developing an epidemic of "counselitis" which drains spiritual strength from the Church much like the common cold drains more strength out of humanity than any other disease.

That, some may assume, is not serious. It is very serious!

On one hand, we counsel bishops to avoid abuses in welfare help. On the other hand, some bishops dole out counsel and advise without considering that the member should dove the problem himself....

It is easier then to show them how to help themselves, and more than that, how to help others. That is the greatest therapy...

We have become very anxious over the amount of counseling that we seem to need in the Church. Our members becoming dependent...

We must not set up a network of counseling services without at the same time emphasizing the principle of emotional self reliance and individual independence.

If we lose our emotional and spiritual independence, our self-reliance, we can be weakened quite as much, perhaps even more, than when we become dependent materially.

Boyd K. Packer, "Solving Emotional Problems," Ensign, May 1978