Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop and social activist par excellence, has put together a sprightly collection of essays and quotations by celebrities, political prisoners, philosophers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and others on what might happen in our world if people spread around a little human kindness. Her own view on this essential spiritual practice in all the world's religion is stated boldly:
"To me, kindness is one of the most important words in the English language. It's enormously resonant and life-enhancing. And yet, over the past generation or so, it has begun to disappear from polite discourse. It's considered insipid, almost embarrassing. People are not praised for their kindness anymore. It is often viewed as something sanctimonious, patronizing and unrealistic — as if being kind somehow ignores the basic causes of a problem in the first place. Kindness carries with it implications of noblesse oblige, even snobbery . . .
"Its power comes from its overwhelming simplicity. The kindness described in this book is often all too aware of the political or economic realities that cause pain and tragedy. Yet over and over again, we see how the simple act of reaching out as one human being to another can be a truly courageous act in the face of such odds.
"Further, kindness doesn't have to be insipid or random to be effective. Far from it: deliberate kindness can be fierce, tenacious, unexpected, unconditional and sometime positively revolutionary.
"These qualities give kindness its power to create change, to make things happen. And in a period of human history in which we are obsessed with change — personal or political — and are unsure whether it is possible at all, kindness could be our salvation."
There are chapters on what the world might look like if kindness were practiced in nature, in the health care system, in the media, in the criminal justice system, and in religion.
