The Soft-Hard Oxymoron in Rigorous Kindness (part 1)

In a 2010 presentation to the Council of Liberal Judaism, we (Pete and Richard) presented an understanding of Liberal Judaism and its potential. A key concept in that presentation was to view Liberal Judaism as requiring, even embracing, what would qualify as oxymorons:

Confidently uncertain; securely on the edge; decisively involving; speedily serene; paradoxically clear; particularly universalistic; ritually ethical (and ethically ritual); seriously enjoyable; deeply accessible; etc.

Since then, we have added further examples to that list, such as ‘inconsistently fair’, but the fundamental concept remains true. Life, perhaps always, but certainly in the rapidly evolving world of the 21st century, involves embracing seemingly mutually exclusive concepts and perhaps reframing them in such ways that they help us navigate a confusing and stormy world.

In this article, I wish to introduce the concept of soft-hard thinking and its application at the individual level. A second article will follow soon, which will show how this thinking can be applied at the societal level, as a help towards a better, more rigorously kind local and national life.

Jewishly speaking, this is about re-framing the yetzer ha-tov (the good inclination) and the yetzer ha-ra (the bad inclination) in adults. From rabbinic times onwards, a child was seen as being born with the yetzer ha-ra, a natural awareness of its own needs and an unfettered desire to meet them. As the child matures reaching the age of Bar or Bat Mitzvah, they begin to develop their yetzer ha-tov. This is their ability to discern for themselves and learn what law states and what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.[1]

Watching little children display kindness suggests that the long-held rabbinic view might warrant updating, which is a story for a different article. For this one, the important message is that both the inclination towards good and the inclination towards bad are accepted as essential to human life.[2]

Within the Jewish yetzer ha-tov / ha-ra model, it might be fairer to say that the good inclination is about our will to help others or say / do things that benefit others, rather than ourselves. Similarly, the bad inclination has examples in rabbinic literature of it being beneficial, including “were it not for the evil inclination, a man (sic.) would not build a house, take a wife, beget children, or engage in commerce.”[3] This is not so much a manifestation of evil as a suggestion that we must be at times selfish or ‘hard’, to balance with those selfless or ‘soft’ acts.

We need to sustain a balance of attending to our own needs and also attending to the needs of others. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the analogy of the oxygen mask on planes became one that was used more often. Just as the safety message always instructs parents, for example, to put on their own oxygen mask before helping anyone else, so self-care (ostensibly an expression of selfishness) is actually the foundation upon which our capability and capacity to help others is based. Im ein ani li mi li…

Instead of seeing such concepts as ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ as opposites, we can help ourselves and others to re-frame them as complementary parts of a whole. As we grow our knowledge, understanding and skill in all the aspects of Rigorous Kindness, so we become more able to blend together soft and hard, confident and uncertain, decisive and consensus-seeking, or any such seemingly mutually exclusive polar opposites.

Roger Fisher and William Ury, in “Getting to Yes”[4] posit a third way, which is to be principled, rather than soft or hard. Their model also suggests a ‘both / and’ formulation, rather than an ‘either / or’. They describe the idea of being ‘soft on the person, hard on the problem’. In our model, this will mean always seeking to be kind to the person, even if we have to be very firm about the problems their words or deeds have caused. In our model, too, ad hominem attacks are to be avoided, while positing robustly a different point of view or stating facts of which the other person has shown ignorance (they are not ignorant, it is just that they have not shown knowledge of these facts in what they said or did!).

The above paragraph might be guilty of a further assumption that, I would suggest, has blighted liberal (and Liberal) engagement in civil society. This is the conviction that well-marshalled and presented facts and logic will carry the day. Increasingly, and a variety of disciplines are suggesting this, a well-told story is more powerful than all the facts and data that come up against it. During the Covid pandemic era, the logic and scientific data in favour of vaccination was all too often outweighed by a viral story about how one individual was adversely affected by a vaccine (not necessarily the currently debated one) and therefore refuses the Covid vaccine, and advises others to do likewise. tense

This will be explored further in the second article. Here and now, let me give an example of applying the soft-hard thinking of Rigorous Kindness in our personal lives.

The Soft – Hard Oxymoron at the Interpersonal Level

As an example, let’s explore one of those ‘difficult conversations’ that we would all rather not have. If there is a person with bad breath – who is the better friend – someone who just tolerates the bad breath for months or years, knowing that the friend will more than likely be ostracised in other settings, or someone who is willing to sit down and talk about the halitosis with their friend and help them to remedy it?

This might be a time for what is known colloquially as “cruel to be kind” for we find ourselves in the delicate intricacy of applied kindness. Making our kindness more rigorous involves learning how to navigate our way through this sort of example. The soft option might be to avoid the conversation and to continue to tolerate the bad breath, while the hard option would be to drop the friendship.

In contrast to both of those, the soft – hard option is to be kind (soft) to the person and to continue the friendship while being clear (hard) about the existence and consequences of the bad breath problem, with the aim of eradicating the bad breath to the benefit of your friend and everyone around them.

To achieve this dual goal, you might need to be willing to be part of the team to support them while they tackle the problem. You will probably need some research on the problem of bad breath, its causes and its remedies, using your judgement as to when you introduce this information into the conversation. 

Making space for a conversation with this friend will probably feel very uncomfortable and will require some practical and mental preparation and maybe even rehearsals. Valuing them as a friend and caring about them will be a first set of messages to give. Affirming the relationship is the ‘soft on the person’ part. This sets the scene in which you can explain to them that one concern you hold for them is that they often have noticeably bad breath, which makes it uncomfortable to be close to them. You might ask if they’ve experienced people stepping back during a conversation, especially if you’ve seen that happen or have done it yourself.

At an individual level, working on turning the soft-hard oxymoron into a way of relating to others is rigorous kindness at work. Having given just one example of the way in which applying this thinking might help our relationships, I hope you can see how it can help on a wider basis. Returning to the Jewish terms, this means we all have to own both the yetzer ha-tov and the yetzer ha-ra within us. Like any skill or muscle, we need to develop and strengthen it through practice.

This willingness to build our skills is part of the rigour in Rigorous Kindness and why we find the oxymoron inherent in Rigorous Kindness so important. 

RJ – rev 6/8/23

[1] Here, we might note that the age of criminal responsibility is (currently, and in the view of many people, wholly inappropriately) set at age 10 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, when the United Nations and others see that 12 should be the absolute minimum age at which children are held legally responsible for their own actions.

[2] A parallel might be drawn to the oriental concept of yin and yang. In the symbolic representation of yin and yang, the white (yang) is masculine and the black (yin) is feminine – both are essential, neither is lesser in any way.

[3] Genesis Rabbah 9:7, also Eccles. Rabbah 3:11

[4] Getting To Yes Fisher R. and Ury W. (Arrow Books, 1987) is a product of work done by the Harvard Negotiating Project, which underpinned, for example, the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1975.