“The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles.”
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, Anne Applebaum (2007). “The Gulag Archipelago Volume 2: An Experiment in Literary Investigation”, Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Recently, I was part of a discussion which found as its theme the necessity to be kind in our speech regardless of what is being faced. Of course the point I kept trying to make is that the issue of kindness is not singular but multifaceted. For example, if I am speaking kindly to someone who is advocating the pursuit of egalitarianism I am at the same time, by default, speaking unkindly to those who will suffer underneath the boot of egalitarianism. A timid defense of patriarchy as God’s designed social order pursued out of a misplaced desire to be kind is at the same time to act unkindly towards God, His truth, and those who will be trodden down by our insistence on “kindness.”
Secondly, keep in mind that no matter how kind we are in disagreeing with the barefaced barbarians they are going still going to run screaming from the conversation that we were “not nice,” and were “unkind.” It is the nature of the current enemy to insist that all disagreement with them is, at the very least, a microaggression that leaves them feeling “triggered.” There is no amount of kindness that can be extended to these bare-faced barbarians which is not going to be turned into “oppression” in their minds. So, if we are going to be accused no matter what of being “unkind,” and of “microaggression,” then we might as well, as they say, “get our money’s worth.”
Solzhenitsyn’s complaint captures my point. Here we are in the beginning throes of civilizational war, indeed right upon the cusp of when the hot war will soon start — a war that is against the God of the Bible’s order and structure — and we have people whose chief concern is being kind in conversation to the imps and demons who are seeking to claw down civilization and ultimately tear down Christ from His throne. This is misplaced timidity against the onslaught of a long-brewing revival of bare-faced barbarity. This is to add concern for being nice to Solzhenitsyn’s concessions and smiles.
Ecclesiastes teaches;
3. A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
8 A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.
There is a time for unkind words to God’s enemies precisely as a means of being kind to God’s friends. Barefaced barbarity is not going to be halted by “please,” and “thank you.” Indeed, barefaced barbarity is not going to be halted by direct words directly spoken. However, direct words directly spoken to the barefaced barbarians who are God’s enemies will put them on notice that they will not conquer without resistance. Direct words directly spoken also may be a means by which God’s friends take heart and find their own courage to rise above ungodly “niceness,” and so speak the truth to the barefaced barbarians.
I should end with a codicil. This is not a call for insensitivity. Nor is it a call for being mean. It simply is a recognition that at this point in the fall of Western Civilization we have far greater things to worry about then being kind to the barefaced barbarians who would if they could, put us in re-education camps.
