martes, 24 de febrero de 2009

Kindness is the key to happiness

Last weekend I came across these lines that made me smile.

These lines where well explained on The Guardian weekly review. The authors of this reflexion are Adam Phillips (psychoanalyst) and Barbara Taylor (historian, specifically a historian of ideas).
They make the case for putting altruism above individualism.

I could find a shorter review at
The Guardian/ The Observer on line paper.


Between them ( Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor) they explore the concept of "kindness", its status among human attributes and the value that has been ascribed to it over the years. "Kindness" is a rough equivalent of the Christian non-erotic love, or charity, though it was embraced as a virtue and a source of pleasure by Cicero, for one, and by the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius, before it was extolled famously by St Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians. Charity, except in the limited context of organisations such as Oxfam or Mind, is not an attribute much favoured today, being thought inimical to equality and the recognition of rights.

The Guardian/ The Observer on line paper.


Nice link to another reflexion on this:
Love is the Answer - Love is the Answer - Love is the Answer
http://heraldoflight.wordpress.com/pensees/