Being Nice

I buy coffee and a carrot muffin every day for breakfast from a "Pret" cafe in midtown Manhattan. As I do wherever I go, I strive to be pleasant when I get my breakfast. I see people being unpleasant sometimes and it makes me cringe. (Isn't it less stressful to be polite and helpful and sympathetic to those with whom we come into contact? And, I should point out, Pret does a great job of attracting and training its staff to be polite and courteous, too.) In any case, this morning there were no carrot muffins out on the rack so I took a blueberry muffin instead. When I stepped up to pay, the person serving me recognized me, remembered what I typically purchase, and rang up a carrot muffin. When she realized that I'd settled for blueberry she went out of her way to hunt down a carrot muffin for me. (It was delicious.)

Republican Representative Deborah Pryce in announcing her retirement today had this to say about America's increasingly media-driven campaigns of dirty politics: “I don’t think anything will change until Americans revolt and get it into their heads that they need to be informed voters instead of just listening to the paid political ads.” But she also freely admitted that she'd resorted to attack ads in order to hold onto her seat in last election, to the tune of $4.5 million. Which makes one wonder whether politicians don't also need to do a little revolting of their own. The message though is that being nice, in politics at least, doesn't pay off. That's the prevailing wisdom. I'm not sure whether any politician has yet dared to be nice in the face of his or her rival's nastiness.

Various religions have long taught the virtues of being nice, of not retaliating. The texts of Christianity (the religion with which I'm most familiar) stress the importance of being kind and peaceful even in the face of unkindness. Although, if I remember rightly from my attendance at church, long ago, as a boy, the religion seemed to attract a high proportion of petty, judgmental and holier-than-thou people. But I guess you can't necessarily blame the teachings for the people they attract!

The 2001 movie Evolution, in amongst slapstick humor and great special-effects, teases up an interesting philosophical question. The movie's premise: A meteor carrying the necessary genetic material for a very different form of life crashes into the earth. The new form of life has two characteristics that set it apart from the kinds of life forms with which we're typically familiar: 1. Life evolves exponentially faster. 2. The species are uncompromisingly unpleasant and aggressive. I was fascinated by this second characteristic (made easier to observe by the first).

In the context of the movie, life can evolve even if the members of its various species behave with uncompromising aggression. But could this be true out in the universe? Does any principle indicate that we will get further by being nice?

Here's a theory (one that I explore in greater detail in my book): Being nasty can help an individual survive in certain situations. It can help us get our coffee ahead of the next guy, or it can even make a difference between life and death — the killer instinct. But when we think about survival more broadly, in a family or social group, being nice starts to pay off. Being nice creates social bonds and payback. It leads to cooperation and sacrifice. I would argue that being nice is a much more enlightened practice than being nasty and one that pays great dividends over time.

If only politics could evolve to be more enlightened, too.