Here’s three ideas that come up:

This reminds me of the Fool’s Choice: you either lie and keep friends or you tell the truth and lose friends.

Similarly, I suppose that people who see kindness as a sign of naiveness have not learned how hostage negotiators do their work. A good hostage negotiator will act kindly, but they’re anything but naive.

Finally, I suppose whoever is deciding to ‘walk over kind people’ has lots of fears and a fragile identity they need to protect.

Let me know if you’re interested in learning about where these ideas come from.