Book contents
- Intelligent Kindness
- Reviews
- Intelligent Kindness
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Foreword
- Authors’ Note
- Chapter 1 The Heart of the Matter
- Chapter 2 Rescuing Kindness
- Chapter 3 A Politics of Kindness
- Chapter 4 Building the Case for Kindness
- Chapter 5 Managing Feelings of Love and Hate
- Chapter 6 The Emotional Life of Teams
- Chapter 7 Cooperation and Fragmentation
- Chapter 8 On the Edges of Kinship
- Chapter 9 Unsettling Times
- Chapter 10 Free to Serve the Public?
- Chapter 11 Blame
- Chapter 12 The Hostile Environment
- Chapter 13 The Pull towards Perversion
- Chapter 14 Cultivating Intelligent Kindness
- Chapter 15 Rehabilitating the Welfare State
- Index
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgements
- References
Chapter 12 - The Hostile Environment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2020
- Intelligent Kindness
- Reviews
- Intelligent Kindness
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Foreword
- Authors’ Note
- Chapter 1 The Heart of the Matter
- Chapter 2 Rescuing Kindness
- Chapter 3 A Politics of Kindness
- Chapter 4 Building the Case for Kindness
- Chapter 5 Managing Feelings of Love and Hate
- Chapter 6 The Emotional Life of Teams
- Chapter 7 Cooperation and Fragmentation
- Chapter 8 On the Edges of Kinship
- Chapter 9 Unsettling Times
- Chapter 10 Free to Serve the Public?
- Chapter 11 Blame
- Chapter 12 The Hostile Environment
- Chapter 13 The Pull towards Perversion
- Chapter 14 Cultivating Intelligent Kindness
- Chapter 15 Rehabilitating the Welfare State
- Index
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgements
- References
Summary
So far we have considered how kindness can be compromised by various pressures: individual and group dynamics, the demands of the work, poorly managed organisational change, industrialised ‘target cultures’, and blame. Now we will look at when kindness itself is under direct attack; when as a matter of operational policy, or for political reasons, the explicit intention is to be unkind, shaming or confrontational. When this happens it is usually framed as some form of ‘self-defence’.
The term ‘hostile environment’ gained popular recognition in the context of UK immigration policy from 2012 until its unravelling in 2018. The Home Office explicitly used unkindness as a tool of public policy, an approach that may also be finding its way into the ‘Welfare State’: and so requires careful consideration.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Intelligent KindnessRehabilitating the Welfare State, pp. 171 - 184Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020