Five reasons why I hate “niceness” as a measure of people.
1. “Nice” is such a loaded term and nice does not equate to good. Remember the expression smiling assassin? Or people that put you down “nicely”? Delivering feedback well is positive but smeared with too much nice is just plain condescending.
2. “Nice” can be a heavily gendered way to refer to people. Women are expected to be nice all the time – even when experiencing shit behaviour. Don’t believe me? Ffs. Read! Talk to a woman or ten about this.
3. “Nice guys always come last”. See number 2 above. Nice women are expected, NOT NICE behaviour from a man supposedly gets them ahead. This usage can particularly fuck off. It’s time we stopped rewarding men for being assholes and stopped punishing women for speaking up. Not good for men, not good for women, not good for people.
4. “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all”. Okay but I tried complimenting racist behaviour (not) and it just emboldened the racist clown. So maybe this another one of those old school false equivalencies we can throw in the bin now. And burn it.
5. “Nice” is often fake and fleeting. “Niceties” are what some use to tolerate people rather than learn to accept and adapt. Again see number one – “they were very nice about how they told me I was too fat to date them until I called them on it then they went full nasty”. Seriously, nice can be a proper passive aggressive to exclude people and feel better about it – rather than engage in a meaningful way.
In conclusion, don’t get me wrong – I like “GENUINELY nice” behaviour, but just don’t use it as a meaningful measure of human behaviour but another generalisation. We don’t have a nice-o-meter and I’m tired of it being used to measure people’s worth. Sometimes our circumstances preclude “nice” and honest emotion is required. Much like any generalisation about behaviour – nice can be weaponised!
Jacci Pillar 