How kindness took a hold: A sociology of emotions, attachment and everyday enchantment

Abstract

How are we to understand the contemporary preoccupation—at least in many English-speaking societies—with ‘random acts of kindness’ and the idea of kindness more generally? Should this be seen as a challenge to the logic of capitalism or reinforcing of it, an example of commodification of emotion within our everyday lives? By introducing and mapping the contours of an emergent ‘kindness industry’, placing emotion (and enchantment) at the heart of how attachment to the idea of kindness is theorised, and marshalling existing empirical research on contemporary framings of everyday kindness, I argue that there is a need for a critical sociological engagement with the ‘pro-social’ that does justice to its profound ambivalence. In the case of contemporary kindness this involves understanding both the regulatory nature of the enchantment sold by a kindness industry and the problem-solving potential of the enchantment of kindness in the everyday, where it both helps address contemporary feelings of hopelessness and shame and facilitates the possibility of making life materially liveable.