Have Courage and Be Kind… or Something.

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Let’s talk about meekness. Let’s talk about meekness in the context of Disney’s newest Cinderella movie. For the record, I loved the animated version when I was little, I think because its only monster was a mean old woman I felt I could handle. Apparently, though, five-year-old me was less of a pushover than grown-up live-action Cinderella, who is willingly remaining in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship – get this – not for the kids, but for a house. A house. And also because her only character trait is her mother’s rather vague admonition to “have courage and be kind” (and believe in magic and talk to mice – possibly not the best advisor ever).

Now, “have courage and be kind” could be construed as a description of meekness. Meekness, in its original sense, meant power held in check, power held in restraint. Think of Superman holding his upset mother as she screams at him; he could kill her, but he’s certainly not going to. That doesn’t make him weaker; it makes him more powerful, because he has control over his power instead of the other way around. Even Nietzsche advocated this sort of self-restraint over unbridled physical power, although his idea of how to use this concentrated power was rather different.

Think of chivalric ideals, where the strongest men humble themselves before their ladies instead of taking them by force. Think of all the movies you’ve seen where the main character disguised himself and didn’t use his abilities in order to gain some greater end, even when his friends or the people he’s trying to help underestimate or insult him (going back to Superman…). This is what the cross was – the greatest power on earth willingly humbled – and this is what Christian meekness is all about.

But unfortunately, although this sort of meekness still pops up in movies, it is itself underestimated and insulted. Modern culture has given another, much less healthy and heroic, meaning to meekness, and this is what we see in Cinderella – this backwards meekness. This meekness is not about restrained power at all; it is instead a negation of aggression. This makes it an intrinsically weak virtue, but more than that, when taken very far, it becomes an enjoinder to push-over-ness.

To Cinderella, being kind means not standing up for your rights, doing other people’s work, and never complaining, even if that means lying. It means letting other people control your identity. It means doing whatever you’re told without question. It means, in short, being a milksop. If we start telling people that this is what it means to have courage and be kind, no wonder they end up being craven and cruel. We have left them between a rock and a hard place.

Fortunately, meekness and kindness and courage have nothing to do with letting other people have their own way all the time. Kindness does involve having others’ best interests at heart, but by no means should you show less kindness to yourself and your own needs than you show to others; you cannot love your neighbor as yourself unless you first love yourself. Self-denial has its place in character-building; it teaches us patience and contentment. But it is not, in itself, a virtue; no virtue, rightly understood, is a negation. Virtue is a positive thing; it is evil that is the negation.

So no, being kind does not involve constantly denying yourself. Nor does having courage mean finally breaking down emotionally and bursting out with an insult because of an infatuation with a guy you’ve met all of two times. Demanding that everyone place your love life above the security and stability of the thousands of people in the kingdom is not courage. It isn’t restrained power; it’s unrestrained emotion. Meekness isn’t about this, either; it’s about using good sense and information to figure out what is best, what is right, and then channeling your abilities into that. But that sort of meekness never comes into this story.

We can do better than this, world. We can offer our daughters role models who stand up for themselves and what they believe in, and act mature and kind and feminine doing so. We can advocate making decisions based on reasoned deliberation and faith, not flights of fancy and hormonal whims. We can do with a good deal more meekness in this world.