Reply to Being kind is more important than being right?

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "Being kind is more important than being right?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But OP, the poster does come with context.  It's just that you missed it.

The phrase (and the poster font, too) is a reference to the fiction book read by many elementary students, Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  You should read it - it's a quick and easy read.  [/quote]

Thank you. I'm kind of shocked at how many parents are posters on the thread don't get this[/quote]

Ironically, it seems they are choosing to be neither kind nor right....[/quote]

OP here. Thanks for pointing this out. I did not reply to the first poster who posted this theory because I didn't want to go down this tangent. But since others have seen fit to pile on...

One of the things I did after seeing this poster is to Google the phrase, since it seems to be one of those motivational quotes, although it is not attributed at all on the poster, which shows a lack of integrity on the part of the poster maker, but that's not really important in our present context. Here's an image of the poster I found online:

[img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/01/70/d7/0170d75c8026e0f4ce97c69d2dbddc70.png[/img]

One of the first results that popped up is a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said "To be kind is more important than to be right. Many times, what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens." Note that this whole quote provides important additional context in the second sentence, which I agree with.

Digging more deeply, I found that the exact direct quote of "being kind is more important than being right" is attributed to Andy Rooney of 60 minutes fame. However, this quote being attributed to him has been found to be the work of one of those "forward this email to your friends/family" campaigns:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/what-ive-learned/

Therefore, it was not really an Andy Rooney quote, but a false attribution.

Now, I do agree that there is a strong parallel with the message of this quote with the kindness message in the book Wonder, but it's clear to me that this poster is not a quote or reference to wonder. Maybe the teacher who put the poster up thought it was a good reference so I'll give the benefit of the doubt here.
[/quote]

The history of the quote is irrelevant. OF COURSE this is directly from Wonder, at least in the kids' world and context. Most of them have read the book by middle school and are familiar with the quote and context.

I just asked my 11 year old if he was familiar with the quote and he was like, " that's from Wonder."

So you are getting pedantic and espousing a rather angry faux philosophy over nothing. Esp without knowing how it is as discussed or handled at school. [/quote]

OP here. I don't understand why you are saying that I'm angry. I am just quoting some facts I found after doing some research into the history of the quote. History of quotable quotes is extremely important in establish context of meaning. Is quoting of facts or being factual viewed as angry now days? If so that would certainly explain the attitude of viewing kindness as being more important than being right.

No one is advocating to be unkind, just that being kind isn't always more important than being right.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics