Ordinarily, we can be nice to those who we deem as beneath us if we identify with them.
That is why it is easier to be nice to your children when they are young than when they are adults.
If you have a pet, it is easy to spend your money or your resources on them too. When your pet looks at you, they see themselves in you, but they have no problem accepting that they are beneath you at the same time. It is easy to identify with someone or something that wishes to identify with you, without ever trying to rise above you.
Criminals who lie and kill and steal to climb up the food chain, will become more charitable and generous if they reach the top. Politicians too.
The top exec of big company is usually very nice to the entry level company employee when he or she engages with them personally.
If you rise to the top echeleon of society, you might even be tempted to want to save the tigers and the ocean and even the planet, simply because everything in this world might appear to be beneath you.
Most ordinary people are only horrible to you when they feel they are beneath you and trying to climb above you. Once they accept that their place is beneath you, or once the succeed in climbing above you, then they will be nice to you, provided that you stop trying to climb above them.
I think one of the truest sign of evil is that you can't even be nice to the people you deem to be beneath you, even if you see yourself in them. If you used to be low, and you had to do whatever it is that you needed to do - even nasty things - to rise to the top, when you see somebody who is low, doing whatever it takes to rise to the top, your heart is supposed to go out to them. If it doesn't, then it is a sign that there is something so damaged about you, that evil might have possessed you.
I think that one of the signs that you are a superior person, is that you are always nice to everyone, even to those who are nasty, and even if you don't see yourself in anyone, regardless of whether they think they are above or beneath you.
But this is just a theory. I think we can all consider ourselves to be alright if we are nice to others if they are nice to us, even if we are not nice to the people who are not nice to us.
But still, it is nice to have a vision of the ideal , to remind yourself why you find something missing, on days when you find something missing.
There will always be something missing, you have to to accept, for as long as you haven't reached the ideal, and know through your own experience, what it means to “give your shirt to someone who stole your coat” and forgive those who have done you harm, simply because you can find it in yourself to pity them for not knowing what they are doing.
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