Head Hand Heart cover art

Head Hand Heart

The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Head Hand Heart

By: David Goodhart
Narrated by: David Goodhart
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

A good society needs a balance between aptitudes relating to head (cognitive), hand (manual/craft) and heart (caring/emotional). In recent decades in Western societies, they have got out of kilter. One form of human aptitude - cognitive ability - has become the gold standard of human esteem.

The cognitive class now shapes society and largely in its own interests: in the knowledge economy, the over-expansion of higher education and in the very idea of a successful life. To put it bluntly: smart people have become too powerful.

David Goodhart, who in his last book described the divide between the worldviews of the Anywheres and Somewheres, now reveals the story of a cognitive takeover that has gathered pace in the past 40 years.

As recently as the 1970s most people left school without qualifications, now in the UK almost 40 per cent of jobs are graduate-only. He shows how we are now reaching 'Peak Head' as the knowledge economy needs fewer knowledge workers, yet there is a crisis of recruitment in caring jobs.

A democratic society that wants to avoid widespread disaffection must respect and reward a broad range of achievement covering both cognitive and non-cognitive aptitudes and must provide meaning and value for people who cannot or do not want to achieve in the classroom and professional career market. This is the story of the struggle for status and dignity in the 21st century.

©2020 David Goodhart (P)2020 Penguin Audio
Business & Careers Labour & Industrial Relations Political Science 21st Century Career
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Winning Minds cover art
The Weaponisation of Everything cover art
Dream Hoarders cover art
How to Listen cover art
Connect! cover art
Real Life Money cover art
Anxiety and Panic: How to Reshape Your Anxious Mind and Brain cover art
Business Is Personal cover art
I'm Worth More cover art
The Fate of Abraham cover art
It's Not About Whiteness, It's About Wealth cover art
Lost in Work cover art
An Inconvenient Minority cover art
Melting Pot or Civil War? cover art
Values, Voice and Virtue cover art
Against the Tide cover art

What listeners say about Head Hand Heart

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    58
  • 4 Stars
    16
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    48
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    52
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

timely, thought provoking and well argued

David Goodhart's latest book ploughs, in greater depth, a furrow first cut by Nassim Taleb and Peter Thiel in challenging the conventional wisdom that university education is a universal panacea for all society's ills. Whereas Taleb attacks the transparent idiocy emerging from the academy, Goodhart's perspective is more structural: while university has a role, it is singularly unsuited for the occasional training for craft and social care occupations, yet entry into these callings also is increasingly being framed by requirements for university qualification.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Clear and well argued reasons why society needs to be rebalanced across head, hand and heart skills and jobs. By doing so we will likely be happier, healthier and better off and fix the chronic shortages across the care system and construction to name but a few very topical examples.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Point of View Modifying Perspective on Meroticracy

I've struggled all my working life to get ahead in the qualification meritocracy, to the great loss of my hand and particularly heart skills. This book is s justification and an urgent call to readjust holistically on a society wide basis.

Excellently made case.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb

I found this an incredibly lucid and balanced argument. I suspected from the start that I would agree with Goodhart’s overall perspective but found some welcome challenges to my own prior thinking along the way - especially in terms the role of a liberal arts education. It was nice to have my mind changed on some important issues. The book avoids polemic and is admirably non-partisan as far as party politics is concerned. Found myself bookmarking some excellent sound bytes to pass on as my own in future conversations. I was also impressed, given the book’s pithy title and premise, with the author’s resistance to discussing the relative merits of heart jobs, head jobs and...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

One sided view, bad use of statistics

I managed to listen all, but didn't enjoy it. One sided view, it feels like the author has an idea, and use restricted limited statistics to justify it ( Statistics to base the theory). it would be much more interesting if it would be way around : theory based on statistics.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!