Part of the Casswiki article series Cassiopaean Experiment, Fourth Way and Psychology
A “make nice program” refers to an automatic behavior tending towards avoiding conflict and making repeated concessions or tolerating consistent ill treatment.
A ‘make nice’ program is rooted in internal considering. The person running the program thinks that there is virtue in endless patience and that just a little bit more tolerance and patience will change another. This is self-serving firstly because the target is changing another, secondly because this ignores the likely impossibility of such a task, thus [preferring sweet dreams over reality](Wishful thinking). Further, there is praise to be gained before the self and before the world by displaying apparently endless patience and forebearance, which may be most flattering to a certain type of vanity.
In some cases, it is necessary for survival to avoid escalating conflict. This is not a make nice program. A make nice program is denying the existence of the danger and conflict and pretending that ignoring it or smoothing it over will make it go away. A make nice program combines elements of vanity and wishfulness.
Living a life of mechanical ‘niceness’ can be very damaging to one’s psychological and physical health. It is a common pattern of toxic relationships, where an enabling person (perhaps codependent) puts up with the abuse of a narcissist, an addict, or even a psychopath, to the detriment of health and well-being. More generally, habitually denying negative emotions appropriate to reality results in chronic stress, which also impairs immune system functioning and can even result in autoimmune diseases.