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On Kindness. Adam Phillips & Barbara Taylor (2009)

by Adam Phillips(Favorite Author)

3.38 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0141039337 (ISBN13: 9780141039336)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Penguin Books

review 1: A slim but provocative little volume exploring the history and the value of kindness, which Phillips and Taylor define as "fellow feeling." The authors make a good case for the importance of kindness as a both an interpersonal and a political value, but warn (through an interesting exploration of psychoanalytic thought) that kindness must be a form of accepting people on their own terms, rather than "magical kindness," which is the idea that very young children have that through kindness, they will be able to secure absolute protection and validation from their parents.
review 2: This book was a huge disappointment. I went into it expecting a wide-ranging examination of the phenomenon of kindness between human beings - why it happens, how it feels, how it binds... more us together. Instead, I was met with a very spotty thirty page review of kindness in philosophy followed by a teeth-grindingly tedious seventy-page look at kindness through the lens of Freudian psychoanalysis. (Why is kindness often difficult between romantic partners? Hint: It's your mother!) Seriously: This was the longest short book I've ever read. Not recommended. less

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