1st Edition
Kindness Wars The History and Political Economy of Human Caring
Kindness Wars rescues our understanding of kindness from the clutches of an intellectually and morally myopic popular psychology and returns it to the stage of big ideas, in keeping with the important Enlightenment-era debates about human nature and possibilities. Cazenave conceptualizes kindness not just as a benevolent feeling, a caring thought, or a generous action but as a worldview, a theory, or an ideology that explains who we are and justifies how we treat others. Here “kindness wars” refer to the millennia-old “kindness theory” and ideological conflicts over what kind of societies humans can and should have. The book’s title denotes the two types of kindness wars it analyzes, conflict over (1) whether to be kind or not (i.e., the conflicts between kindness and other societal values and ideologies) and (2) what it means to be kind (i.e., the wars within kindness over different ideas as to what it means to be kind and to whom). Using a conflict theoretical perspective, Kindness Wars examines the history of the kindness concept; its many struggles with opposing notions of our true nature and possibilities; and what the lessons of that history and those battles offer us toward the development of a large, robust, and politically engaged conceptualization of kindness.
Preface and Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Kindness Wars: An Introduction
Chapter 2 The Evolution of Human Kindness from Before History
Chapter 3 The Political Construction of Kindness: From Thucydides to Hobbes
Chapter 4 Self-Interest Versus the Common Good: The Enlightenment Debates
Chapter 5 Industrialization, Socialism, and Social Darwinism in 19th-Century Social Thought
Chapter 6 Wars, Hyper-Capitalism, and Human Rights in the 20th Century and Beyond
Chapter 7 Making Black Lives Matter: Kindness Battles in 21st-Century America
Chapter 8 The Future Of Kindness: Toward the Construction of Kinder Societies
About the Author
Index
Biography
Noel A. Cazenave is Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. In addition to his other books, numerous journal articles, book chapters, and various other publications, Professor Cazenave coauthored Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America’s Poor, which won five book awards, and has most recently published Killing African Americans: Police and Vigilante Violence as a Racial Control Mechanism.
"Noel A. Cazenave brings his magnificent investigation of the evolution of kindness and the ways in which western culture and ideas have too often undermined it to a new threshold of relevance. He boldly engages the deep racial, class and economic divisions that the United States and the world must contend with in an urgent, wise and effective manner to solve the problems of in-group myopia that need to be wisely addressed in education and society. Kindness really is our greatest human asset. This book is immensely important for those who are wanting to couple kindness with the realism of hope rather than with the superficiality of dispositional optimism. It takes a great sociologist like Cazenave to lead the way forward into a new era. With this book he rises into the highest ranks of the great sociologists of kindness and altruistic love."
- Stephen G. Post, PhD, Professor and Director, Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care & Bioethics, Stony Brook University
"Noel Cazenave's Kindness Wars is a majestic work of political and social theory. Written in highly accessible language, it starts by surveying debates about human nature, moves through arguments in antiquity and then on to political theory as it developed in the early modern period and the enlightenment, culminating with a sustained analysis of the current political scene. Throughout it unflaggingly sustains its original and highly inventive framing that kindness is contingent upon the social context in which individuals get to act (on their own and in solidarity with others). There are many take-aways including how the class-based nature of western capitalist societies poses a persistent constraint on people's ability to practice kindness. This book is written to be widely read and surely deserves to be."
- Sanford Schram, Professor of Political Science, Hunter College, City University of New York
"Through the unique lens of a conflict theoretical perspective, Dr. Cazenave explores not only the definition of kindness but also the question of what it means to be kind and whether to be kind at all. As he notes, the millennia old "kindness theory" permeates history defining what is a kind society. This volume is an intellectual tour de force reviewing the politically-engaged conceptualizations of kindness at the center of the Enlightenment-era and other Western political and economic debates and giving us a far different perspective about human beings, possibilities and kindness than most are aware. Through this volume we have a roadmap to create a worldwide and enduring kindness revolution. A must read."
- Professor James R. Doty, Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery and Director and Founder of The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford University School of Medicine
