Kindness Wars

<p>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 <i>between </i>kindness and other societal values and ideologies) and (2) what it means to be kind (i.e. the wars <i>within </i>kindness over different ideas as to what it means to be kind and to whom). Using a conflict theoretical perspective <i>Kindness Wars </i>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.</p>