Infectious Generosity
Chris Anderson
Penguin Random House
Review: Lauren O’Connor-May
This social science book is short, punchy and resource heavy but easy to read.
In it, Chris Anderson argues that the internet is making our world smaller but our communities broader but it can also be used as an effective tool to teach about the transforming power of generosity.
Anderson believes that humanity has an innate capacity for generosity and that it can be the means to change our world.
He uses real-life, googleable examples to make a philosophical and psychological analysis of this theory and his foremost example is the story of TED (Techology, Education Design) which he heads.
Anderson’s ideas about generosity’s social and moral benefits are not new.
Religion has always touted the spiritual benefits of giving and several business people, including the late Raymond Ackerman, firmly believed that altruism in business is the key to success, but Anderson’s expanded take on this concept replaces religion, which he has forsworn, as the primary “spreader” and replaces it with the internet.
The book is also an invitation to the reader to start a “kindness pandemic” and end with a chapter that the reader can use for a generosity of spirit “check-up” – an examine of conscience if you will.
Anderson’s hope, positivity and enthusiasm is easily read in this book. Personally, I don’t agree with Anderson that a world shift is possible without the spiritual injection that religion provides but reading the examples that he provides in his book is certainly uplifting and encouraging.
