By DONALD DeMARCO
The word “oxymoron” is one of those words that people persist in using wrongly. It does not mean “contradiction.” Rather, it is a figure of speech in which words of opposite meaning are used together, such as “cruel kindness,” or “virtuous to a fault.” Festina lente (make haste slowly) is a Catholic motto referring to the slow pace of progress that the Church makes through history. This figure of speech illustrates how opposite terms can actually sharpen a truth. “Deafening silence,” for example, intensifies the meaning of “silence.”
“Kill them with kindness,” usually means that the best way to disarm a person who is mistreating you is to retaliate with kindness. Killing Me Softly with His Song, Charles Fox’s and Norman Gimble’s 1973 number-one hit song, emphasizes the power of music. The words in any figure of speech are not to be taken literally, but imaginatively. They are not contradictory but evocative. Figures of speech are the lifeblood of poetry.
When it comes to law, however, words must be precise and univocal. “Killing” should mean killing, and “kindness” should mean kindness. In his book, Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom, Ronald Dworkin makes the comment that euthanasia “means killing a person out of kindness.”
In this instance, Dworkin, a legal scholar, is not using “killing out of kindness” as an oxymoron, but he uses the words “killing” and “kindness” according to their fundamental, literal meanings. The question that must be raised, however, is whether it is possible to use kindness as a motive for killing a person.
A friend of mine, who is a nun, related an experience she had when visiting an 84-year-old man in a hospital. This man informed her that he had made a choice to be euthanized. The sister, in a mild attempt to dissuade him from assisted suicide, told him that every minute of his life is valuable, that life is a gift, and that he is not the master of his life, but only the steward.
Another elderly man, sporting a yellow “Death with Dignity” sticker, overheard my friend’s words. He strongly admonished her for being so “rude” to a dying man. The term “rude” was disconcerting, my friend confided to me, since she was doing nothing more than gently discouraging him from committing suicide. She thought she was being kind, and was reproached for being “rude.”
Being rude is the opposite of being kind. Have we lost the real meanings of both of these words? Have they been hijacked to be used within a particular ideology? The word “erudite” is derived from two Latin words: ex, meaning “from,” and rudis, meaning rude or unskilled. An erudite person, then, is one who has been educated in both character and knowledge. In other words, an erudite person is not rude. My friend is clearly an erudite person and must wonder whether the moral universe has been turned upside down.
Was the sister being rude? Was the man he reproached her erudite?
Visiting the sick is a corporal work of mercy. Even this kindly act, once considered unassailable, is now held in question. The meaning of words continues to haunt us. What does the word “mercy” mean in this context? The phrase “mercy killing,” it would seem, is really a contradiction and not an oxymoron. St. Vincent de Paul tells us that we “must see Jesus Christ in the person of the sick, for Jesus Christ says He will regard as done to Him what we do for the poor and infirm.”
Thus, killing the infirm would be tantamount to killing Christ. The Gospel is clear, though people can distort language to serve their own purposes. Neither kindness, nor mercy, nor compassion justify killing. Counterfeit virtues can serve as actual vices.
Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik, who founded the Sisters of the Divine Spirit, has written what he calls “A Practical Handbook for Souls Who Dare to Transform the World, One Deed at a Time.” The title of his work is The Hidden Power of Kindness. Everything about the book is based on how kindness can make things better. Nothing could have been further from the author’s mind than to link kindness with killing.
“Kindness,” he writes, “drives gloom and darkness from souls and puts hope into fainting hearts. . . . Kindness stops the torrent of angry passion, takes the sting from failure, and kindles courageous ambition. Kindness purifies, glorifies, and ennobles all that it touches. . . . Kindness is the grand cause of God in the world.”
The Dalai Lama expressed kindness in a most fundamental manner: “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
Kindness is not heroic, costs nothing, and its source will never run dry. It should be coterminous with life itself. And its expression should not be delayed.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson once remarked, “You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”
Integrity of character and integrity of speaking go hand in hand. We are not only responsible for what we do, but also for what we say. We cannot sort out the difficulties that ethics in the modern world poses unless we use words properly. If the word “kindness” is distorted, so too, will presumed acts of kindness be distorted. Rectitude in language is indispensable for rectitude in life.
“The kindest thing a person can do for a friend,” wrote St. Thomas Aquinas, “is to lead him from error to truth.” Acts of kindness may, at times, be rebuffed. But there is no substitute for kindness. All we can do is to persist in being kind. Kindness does not kill; it soothes, comforts, encourages, and heals.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Ten Major Moral Mistakes and How They Are Destroying Society; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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