Kindness Fix

Dr Jason Wood is a trained youth worker and academic and has spent over two decades teaching, researching, and campaigning on social justice issues. He is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and an Associate Professor of Social Policy at the University of Nottingham Malaysia.

• 1. Introduction2. The birth of the welfare state3. The right strikes back4. Welfare is failing5. What is compassion?6. Are we compassionate?7. The benefits of compassion8. The economic case9. Designing compassionate institutions10. Leading with compassion11. Conclusion

“Jason Wood makes the case for giving a damn - clearly, compassionately and cleverly. Just as 104 years ago Tawney wrote of those lacking sufficient compassion: '...they repeat, like parrots, the word "Productivity", because that is the word that rises first in their minds; … When they are touched by social compunction, they can think of nothing more original than the diminution of poverty, because poverty, being the opposite of the riches which they value most, seems to them the most terrible of human afflictions.' Wood talks of 'the absence of a compelling political vision' to do better, to be kind, even though, as Corbyn (the politician most closely associated with kindness worldwide) put it so simply, there is creativity, kindness and laughter in all of us." Danny Dorling, University of Oxford