HumanKind: Be Both

Some words have more than one meaning, like bat.

A bat can be a flying rodent or a piece of wood you hit a cricket or baseball with. The different uses of the word have the same three letters, but they mean very different things. They aren't related at all, other than in their spelling and pronunciation.

But sometimes there is a word that appears like it has two distinct and separate meanings but they can both be traced back to the same origin.

KIND is a word like that.

The word is used as an adjective and sometimes as a noun. For instance, kind (adj.) behaviour is characterised by being friendly, or deliberately doing good things for people. But when used as a noun, kind means a group of things with similar characteristics – a category or class. For instance "These apples are all the same kind – they are all Granny Smith apples."

If you read my articles and posts on a regular basis or watch my videos, you'll know that I love to unpack words and look at them in different ways. So often their etymologies and histories can teach us things, or help us to see the concepts in a new light. So I went on a deep dive to explore if kind and kind are related, and they are! On the surface, these look like completely different meanings. But they weren't always, they share the same root and there is a very clear connection to be made as to why we use the same word in such different ways. I think we can learn a lot about being part of humankind by combining both of the modern uses of kindness.

KIND as a NOUN

In the use of the word to denote a group/class/category of things, kind is etymologically rooted in German and Old English. And it is a word relating to family — the word survives today in “kin” (as in “next of kin”). In Afrikaans, Dutch and German we see the root word translated and maintained in the word for a child, quite literally spelt the exact same way “kind," we see this in American English in the use of the word "kindergarten", or, in my own country my favourite use is “kinder surprise”! 😂

KIND as an ADJECTIVE or ADVERB

In the adjectival or adverbial form (being a kind person, or behaving kindly) comes from the same root as the etymology for the noun. You see, originally behaving kindly, was a way of showing you were of the same kind (n). It was originally used as “the feeling we have for those in our kind” (family, tribe or culture.) Being of the "same kind," and feeling that kinship, resulted in a way of being, and acting, towards that person — positively. When we are connected to someone in our group, so the theory goes, we are more likely to be trusting and empathetic. We will more easily feel and show vulnerability. We will share our resources, and believe the best of them. We feel kindness with those in our kind, and we feel kindness towards those of our kind, and our behaviour is of a certain kind as a result – kind. However, traditionally with a stranger, we were more likely to be guarded, to be suspicious, to not feel the same connection in kind.

But that was then. Now we use the words a bit differently.

Because languages evolve, today we don’t just use kind and kindness as the word for how we interact with our own kin, we have extended it to how we can engage even with strangers. Today we wouldn't associate kind behaviour as being something we reserve just for our own family or tribe. This is a good thing. Now we expect people to behave kindly with everyone. Kind is the new cool, after all.

But, with the widened usage of the word to include our interactions with the stranger, I think we have lost a little bit of the original implicit connection. Perhaps we have lost a little of the original NOUN intention in the word?

If those who are like us are in our kind, and it results in feelings of kindness towards them, then can we not reverse engineer the process, to help us think differently about those who are "other" to us?

Yes, we can. We are human beings after all, the most incredible creature ever made – we can do almost anything.

If it is possible to act kindly to the "other" we can also learn to see them as the same as us. To be kind can be a way of identifying WITH the other, AS the "other" — in the same group. When we show kindness we can choose to mean by our actions: "I am the same kind as you, so I will treat you kindly, like family.

Being kind is not an action — it’s a way of seeing.

Kindness is a lens for unity – to honour those around us with the ultimate compliment “I see you, I see we are the same. I value you as I value myself.”

HumanKind: be both.

Theran is the Chief Humanising Officer for Mygrow, the Emotional
Intelligence Platform. At Mygrow we care about helping people be
better, and seeing companies grow. We want to build an Emotionally Intelligent world. Feel free to reach out to us if youare interested in finding out how we can help you create "The team you always wanted." Visit www.mygrow.me or email us at hello@mygrow.me