St Lawrence distributing alms: fresco by Fra Angelico (1447-1449) Photograph: /Corbis
This turned up on a couple of blogs last week and struck me as one of the freshest insights I’ve read in a while.
Kindness has gone out of fashion. In the age of the rampant free market and the selfish gene, compassion is seen as either narcissism or weakness. So why have we become so suspicious of one of our most basic – and pleasurable – human qualities, ask Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor
Love thy neighbour: Why have we become so suspicious of kindness? | Books | The Guardian
Filed under: Big Picture, Kindess
The Dog's Bollocks 
If and when or, if OR when, (whatiffer), people show me kindness I have a tendency to weep. Which is pretty pathetic, but certainly says something. But in answer to your question, its probably got a lot to do with our Australian Values of which we have, as you know,the exclusive rights. That and our stoic, dumbstruck tendency to STFU and mind our own business. Plus we’ve seen and heard those reports from more important countries than us, where people simply step over the recently run over body on the street or in our case, tell the poor bastard whose just been mauled by a shark to try a bit harder and swim faster. This ensures we are part of a truly global cosmopolitan world and are hip etc. We are simply following suit, because we wouldn’t want to stand out or anything.
I blame the neocons. It doesn’t make economic sense to do anybody any freebie favours. But we’ve been here before. I remember a time when altruism was being pushed as a way to make one feel better about oneself, but it never really took off. Why bother?