Классная книга для подростков, для тех, кто хочет разобраться в настройках своего морально-этического компаса, понять, что такое хорошо & что такое плохо в каких контекстах.

На эту тему почитайте также Hanna Arendt «Eichmann in Jerusalem: a Report on the Banality of Evil», Philip Zimbardo «The Lucifer Effect». Сюда же, пожалуй, возьму книгу Melody Beattie «Codependent Mo More». 

Возвращаясь к «The Art of Being Kind», вот пара цитат из книги:

«Ethics is not always a question of simple maths.»

«Sometimes it is a matter of following norms and rules, and sometimes of breaking these principles. Sometimes it means weighing negative consequences for some people against positive effects for others. It can also be about how much you should look after yourself and your own interests in relation to other people’s.»

«Every day is full of ethical dilemmas, and it is as well to be aware of the fact.»

«Principles, norms, rules and laws give us guidance, but they do not give us all the answers.»

«Sympathy is about feeling with or for someone, whereas empathy is about feeling as though we were inside someone.»

«There are studies which show that a well-developed ability to empathise can protect us against burn-out.»

«…both parties win when one asks the other for advice. The person who asks gets advice and the chance to air their thoughts. The person whose advice is sought usually feels honoured to have been asked, and in return gets the chance to grow and develop in the exchange of thoughts with another person.»

«…intuition = an overriding tool…»

«…qualities that can be misinterpreted as kindness involve such elements as a lack of intelligence, weakness, manipulation and a lack of integrity. I call this ‘false kindness’…»

«False kindness as an inability to say ‘No’.»

«Genuine kindness means having the courage to stand up for what is right.»

«During WW2 Swedish foreign policy was primarily concerned with keeping the country outside the war. One consequence of this strategy was that Sweden sold iron-ore to Germany, which was then used to produce weapons and other military equipment. This helped prolong the war. The protection of the Swedish people may therefore have had negative consequences for the rest of the world.»

«Not to take a stand can sometimes be as great a crime as the crime itself.»

«Yehuda Bauer: ‘We are all potential victims, potential culprits, potential observers.»

«False kindness masquerading as goodness.»

«The original communist idea was to topple an unfair and evil social system and create a utopian paradise on earth, where people could live in justice and equality. With the long-term goal of creating something good, the exact opposite has been created: a society without freedom, built on fear and oppression and with an excess of suffering.»

«As the British historian Christopher Dawson puts it: ‘As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy’.»

«The United Nations was created after the WW2 with the aim of securing peace in the world, if necessary with military means. This sounds very impressive. But: Rwanda in 1994, Srebrenica in 1993, Sudan in 2003.» И добавлю от себя, Ukraine 2022 — now. А ООН всё продолжает высказывать озабоченность & бездействовать.

«UN, a global organization which is intended to work for peace and freedom, and which does not fulfil its obligations.»

«Perhaps only true democracies ought to be permitted to join the UN, and all dictatorships, non-democratic communist states, repressive regimes and so on be left outside until they have become functioning democracies with freedom and human rights.»

«’It’s the thought that counts’ – don’t buy that excuse! Because it is not the thought that counts – it is the deed.»

«A kind person is sometimes forced to do the right thing by ‘doing wrong’.»

«In the 1970s Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University conducted an experiment which showed that ordinary people can become extremely aggressive under specific circumstances, and that this aggression can tip over into sadism. This does not just apply to ‘other people’ – we all harbor an innate aggression. We often control it in order to function in social contexts, but occasionally the lid is lifted and we act aggressively, sometimes in ways that surprise even us.»

«By nature human beings have an aggressive side. The characteristic that allowed us to defeat threatening animals, hunt for food and create beneficial competition, which has hastened our development, has also been the great curse on humanity.»

«Anger is an emotion over which we have no direct control.»

«Research has shown that our willingness to help decreases in relation to how many other people there are in the vicinity who could possibly help.»

«Research has shown that the feeling of working for the common good is strongest in groups consisting of up to 150 people. If the total number is greater, then the feeling of community decreases and individualism increases.»

«It has been shown by studying both types of twins that approximately half of characteristics, such as altruism, the ability to nurture and empathy are determined by our genes. The degree of aggression is similarly half-determined by inheritance.»

«We do not have to receive large material rewards in order to become positively inclined towards those around us: diners in restaurants give more tips on sunny days than when it is cloudy.»

«We treat those around us well if we ourselves are treated well. It does not seem to make any difference whether we are treated well by a fellow human being or a piece of machinery.»

«Doctors who are given small gifts – sweets, for instance, – and then perform a diagnosis do so faster and better than doctors who have not received a gift. Those doctors who received a gift were also less likely to draw quick conclusions.»

«Confucius proposed that man is good by nature, but that a lack of knowledge could lead to evil.»

«Taoism: ‘The man who has wisdom does not sin, he ceases to do evil and through his wisdom annuls the evils of his former life’.»

«There seems to be a link between generosity in an economic sense and a general desire to share what you have.»

«Generosity is a one-way act without any expectation of getting anything back.»

«Three things characterize good criticism. The first is that it is given in private. The second is that it is given in order that the recipient should grow. The third is that good criticism should be given with sympathy or consideration.»

«’Impostor syndrome’: we believe we are surrounded by competent and clever people. There is just one exception – me. My big fear is that I will one day be discovered.»

«If a genocide is under way, our politicians ought not merely to consider various economic sanctions. There are situations when we must use force. But there is always an afterwards, when we must do what we can to create good relations.»

«After WW1, a peace treaty signed in Versailles left a disarmed Germany with a loss of land, a large economic debt to the rest of the world and a damaged self-image. The humiliation gave rise to Nazism and the WW2. After WW2, the USA made a great effort to rebuild Germany and the rest of western Europe. The structure which made it possible for the defeated country to reconstruct & resume its place among the nations of the world. And this help to European countries in turn led to an improvement in the American economy.»

«Saying ‘I know just how it feels’ to another person is a form of intolerance, because it assumes that we all share the same inner world.»

«Viktor Frankl: ‘success does not come because we strive for it, but because we strive to do what feels meaningful to us’.»

«We do not always see how much of what we do is meaningful and important.»

«We can all find meaning in ‘humble’ things.»

«From the wall of a public toilet: ‘I have never met anyone who on their deathbed wished that they spent more time at the office.»