Adam Greenfield (adamgreenfield@social.coop)'s status on Friday, 29-Mar-2024 10:39:31 JST

In this regard, something clicked for me when, of all things, I first heard Hannibal Lecter describe Clarice Starling as “courteous and receptive to courtesy.” Lecter’s own elaborate courtesy did not, of course, interfere with him being a monster of the bloodiest sort, and that’s a principle we can attend to more generally and with great profit. But the idea that the awful grief so many of us carry all the time might be buffered, even a little, by something that amounts to a theater of kindness?