A FINANCIAL TIMES AND TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 The acclaimed new book from the
celebrated author of The Road to Somewhere 'Brilliant will become a classic' Daily Telegraph
'Utterly compelling ... one of the most important intellectuals in the country if not Europe'
Sunday Times The coronavirus pandemic taught us something we ought already to have known: that
care workers supermarket shelf-stackers delivery drivers and cleaners are doing essential
work that keeps us all alive fed and cared for. Until recently much of this work was regarded
as menial by the the same society that now lauds them as 'key workers'. Why are they so
undervalued? In this timely and original analysis David Goodhart divides human aptitudes into
three: Head (cognitive) Hand (manual and craft) and Heart (caring emotional). It's common
sense that a good society needs to recognise the value of all three but in recent decades they
have got badly out of kilter. Cognitive ability has become the gold standard of human esteem.
The cognitive class now shapes society largely in its own interests by prioritizing the
knowledge economy ever-expanding higher education and shaping the very idea of a successful
life. To put it bluntly: smart people have become too powerful. Head Hand Heart tells the
story of the cognitive takeover that has gathered pace over the past forty years. As recently
as the 1970s most people left school without qualifications but now 40 per cent of all jobs
are graduate-only. A good society must re-imagine the meaning of skilled work so that people
who work with their hands and hearts are valued alongside workers who manipulate data. Our
societies need to spread status more widely and provide meaning and value for people who
cannot or do not want to achieve in the classroom and the professions. This is the story of
the central struggle for status and dignity in the twenty-first century.
