If we equate being nice with being kind (in Latin, benignitas), I suppose we could think niceness is, if not a virtue, at least virtuous. St. Paul numbers kindness among the fruits of the Holy Spirit. It is a manifestation of charity and even of justice, for when we are kind we afford our fellow the respect that is his due as a man. We treat him with a species of gentleness because we seek to act like gentlemen - that is, with a certain refinement of character and a well-honed discretion that guides our dealings with one another with a view to the benefit of others before ourselves.

Kindness, however, is never soft or squishy. It is, rather, like a finely tempered blade that shaves away all that is rough and ungainly in our character. When used with others, it, at times, pierces with a precise cut, but not in order to injure. Its action is surgical, inflicting pain only with a view to correction and healing. Kindness does not seek to cause pain for its own sake, but does not avoid pain all costs. It is sometimes necessary to be cruel to be kind.

Niceness, at least as it is normally conceived, seeks to avoid pain at all costs. It not only avoids pain, but even the hint of discomfort. Niceness is the highest moral expression of bourgeois society, a society that sees comfort and ease as the highest goods. And modern society is bourgeois in the highest degree. It is unguent-soaked, padded, temperature-controlled, luxuriant, tidy, well-groomed; it is mediocre par excellence. It is no surprise, then, that modern society values niceness so highly. To be nice is to be non-judgmental, pliant, stroking, and affirming. It allows for no negativity, for negativity is uncomfortable.

This is why those who dare speak out against immoral actions or wrong thinking are so roundly (and often un-nicely) condemned. I do not speak of those who indulge in rank insult against individuals when they inveigh against immorality or error. These merely vent their spleens, which is just another form of self-indulgence. I speak, rather, of those who merely speak uncomfortable truths - who call, for instance, homosexual desire disordered affection, or indiscriminate warfare murder, or abortion maternal betrayal, or paying unjust wages theft. Those who speak moral truths, even in kindness, spoil the pleasant little dinner party that bourgeois society seeks to create. They introduce distasteful and offensive topics into the inane conversation around the cocktail bar. They tear away gauzy veil that hides us from ourselves.

Oddly, the guardians of niceness invoke Jesus against those who speak in His name. One wonders where they get this Jesus, whether they draw their image of him from Jefferson's reduction of the Gospels instead of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Theirs is not the Jesus who called the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites, who cleansed the temple with a whip, who told the woman taken in adultery to sin no more, who charged the rich, young ruler to sell all he had, give to the poor, and "follow me," or who said, "if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out." Their Jesus came not to bring a sword, but peace.

Modern men are like Achab, king of Israel, who preferred the false prophets who foretold victory over the king of Syria to the one prophet who spoke truth. When Achab's ally, Josaphat, king of Judah, asked, after hearing the prophets' upbeat and inspiring predictions, "is there not here some prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire by him?" Achab replied, "There is one man left... Micheas, the son of Jemla: but I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good to me, but evil."

The Old Testament prophets spoke hard words, for they spoke in the name of the Father who chastises because He loves and "scourgeth every son whom He receives." After all, this is the same Father who did not spare even His own Son, but gave Him up as a ransom for many. In His mercy He treats us in the same way, for we are His sons.

God is not bourgeois, and He is not nice. In his "Ascetic Discourse," found in the collection of the writings of Fathers, called the Philokalia (derived from the Greek word, philos, "brotherly love") St. John of Karpathos begs the monks to whom he wrote, "listen to the words of your heavenly Father, who in His infinite love afflicts and oppresses you with various trials... 'as I said by My Prophet, I will be your chastiser... I will meet you on the road in Egypt, testing you with afflictions. I will block your evil ways with the thorns of My providence, pricking and obstructing you with unexpected misfortunes, so that you cannot fulfill the desires of your foolish heart. I will shut up the sea of your passions with the gates of my mercy... like a wild beast I will devour you with thoughts of guilt, condemnation and remorse, as you perceive the things of which you were ignorant... Anguish shall not depart from your house - that is, from your soul and body - but they will both undergo the salutary harrowing of the bitter-sweet torments of God.'"

God is not nice, but He is kind. St. John of Karpathos continues: "'For this reason have I afflicted you,' God says, 'that I may feed you with the manna of spiritual knowledge; I have made you go hungry, so that at the end I may grant blessings to you and bring you into the kingdom on high.'"

God speaks through His servants and, finally, through His Church. This being so, His servants may not violate the kindness of their master, striking out with words of hate or of abuse. At the same time, they may not mince words for fear of offending and so fail to speak the truth. The truth may be hard, it may be uncomfortable, but it is salvific. Truth is sweet, bitter-sweet, as John of Karpathos said, like the torments of God that wound only to heal, and kill only to give life.

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