Book description
The pleasures of kindness have been well known since the dawn of
western thought. Kindness, declared Marcus Aurelius, was mankind's
'greatest delight' - and centuries-worth of thinkers and writers have
echoed him. But today many people seem to find these pleasures
literally incredible. Instead of embracing the benefits of altruism,
as a species we seem to be becoming deeply and fundamentally
antagonistic to each other, with motives that are generally
self-seeking. This book explains how and why this has come about, and
argues that the affectionate life - a life lived in instinctive
sympathetic identification with the vulnerabilities and attractions of
others - is the one we should all be inclined to live.
'We mutually belong to one another,' as the philosopher Alan Ryan
writes, and the good life is one 'that reflects this truth'. What the
Victorians called 'open-heartedness' and the Christians 'caritas'
remains essential to our emotional and mental health, for reasons both
obvious and hidden, argue the authors of this elegant and
indispensable exploration of the concept of kindness.
Praise for Side Effects: 'Erudite sparks from art, literature,
science and philosophy . . . refreshingly lucid observations . . .
Phillips is riveting . . . he bangs nails on heads, and into coffins,
with such eloquent precision' Telegraph 'Frequent moments of brilliance,
sentences that sing out as containing perfect sense . . . brilliant,
baffling and fascinating' Observer Adam Phillips is a psychoanalyst
and the author of twelve previous books, all widely acclaimed, including
On Kissing
,
Tickling and Being Bored
,
Going Sane
and most recently
Side Effects
. Barbara Taylor is a historian who has published several well known
books on the history of feminism, including an award-winning study of
nineteenth century socialist feminism,
Eve and the New Jerusalem
, and an intellectual biography of the pioneer feminist Mary
Wollstonecraft.
