I have to say: It's really annoying that some idiot who wrote a book in the 90's has resulted in everyone redefining "nice", when they should have invented a new word.
As far as the English language goes, what you define as "kind" is also "nice".
As far as the English language goes, what you define as "kind" is also "nice".
Kind: of a sympathetic or helpful nature
Nice: pleasing, agreeable
I would argue that they are actually different.
The given example for nice
> nice would be to let the person working for you continue to perform poorly without feedback, being "nice" to them, but privately considering them incompetent.
Is actually being hypocritical, not nice. The nice person would still tell the under performing person what's what, they'd just not be rude about it.
You can also create a scenario in which being kind becomes detrimental if taken to the extreme. However, the author of that book decided that being nice was bad, and being kind was good. This understandably continues to annoy people when this frankly dumb definition is brought up.
Kind is only the exception to the norm if you're in a crappy culture. In some places the ethic is such that kindness is the norm.
don't know why we need to quibble about the meaning of "nice" or invent a new word when polite will do
politeness, unlike kindness or niceness, has no implication of intent, only tone, which is what's trying to be conveyed
The point is that nice is a pretty broad term. It can mean agreeable but that's merely one use of the word. You can be nice and not agreeable.