Humankind: A Hopeful History

I have always subscribed to the veneer theory, to the belief that people are absolutely horrible, and we mustn’t trust anyone unless we know how to ‘outmaneuver’ them. I went ahead and got a copy of this book on Kindle anyway after reading an FT interview with the author 2 days ago. That article piqued my curiosity at the right moment in time. This book has been difficult because it’s different. Because it challenges every belief I had, premised on Hobbes, Machiavelli, the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Kitty Genovese incident, the ‘Broken Windows’ theory, and a lifetime of being trained & reminded not to trust ‘others’ in our ‘dog eat dog’ world. But in essence that’s what good books do, isn’t it? Just as travel is anathema to prejudice, a good book opens your mind. I’m going to re-read this book, and recommend it to everyone I know. I don’t believe the world is sunshine and roses (I write this review in a COVID-19 era of lockdowns and economic malaise, where protests rage around the world against the death of George Floyd). This book doesn’t make all the horrible things happening vanish, it sprinkles fairy dust on nothing. It simply presents a different perspective, a perspective that I would have ridiculed and mocked mercilessly as recently as a week ago. But after speeding through this book, I mean it when I say that this is the first time in a long time I have felt truly hopeful for a better future, for the possibility of change for the better.

Rutger Bregman turns so many of our assumptions about human beings upside down. He starts with a real life \”Lord of the Flies\” scenario which ends He very differently (and much better) than the popular book of that name. He demonstrates how we are wired to be kind, and it is our artificial society, not our innate nature, that causes the hostilities, infighting, wars and cruelty. He shows how many famous experiments on human nature have been debunked, but are still cited widely while the studies disproving them have been buried (e.g. the \”Stanford Prison Experiment\” was a hoax, basically). He shows why compassion is far more constructive than empathy in human relations, and points to solutions for major societal problems of today including racism, prison issues, and the inflammatory nature of social media. Overall an amazing book.

First the good things: it\’s a well-written, entertaining book. I guess reader\’s opinion of it\’s originality will depend on said reader\’s own view on human kindness – I especially recommend the book to those who suspect that humans are not as bad as media portray them, but never heard how some of the most notorious \”proofs\” of man\’s natural depravity were debunked. For others, it might be an eye-opener, for some – a nice confirmation that they are not alone in feeling rather optimistic. This is a book with an agenda, a pleasant one. It\’s well documented and although the author does not hide his preferences, he does not shrink from frank discussion on numerous examples of humans\’ bad deeds. Of course there are simplifications and omissions, but it was impossible from the start to analyse every aspect in detail – the book would have run into 30th volume. Personally, I was well prepared to like the book and agree with the author. There were, however, some parts of the book which I cannot write off as simplifications and omissions. First of all, the book is absolutely, shamelessly West-oriented. Asia, with all humanitarian philosophies that originated there, gets few mentions, all of them firmly negative. (I don\’t count the Bible as Asian in origin). Casual mention of \”Polish concentration camps\” indicates sloppy writing, editing or translation. Other parts of the book make it clear that the writer does know whose the camps really were and does not confuse perpetrators and victims. The mistake (if it was a mistake, not lack on information about political and legal situation in occupied Poland) does make one wonder about other facts presented in the book. People interested in human prehistory might look forward to writer\’s conclusions about beginning of settled life and what we call civilisation. Why, he asks \”did we exchange our nomadic life of leisure and good health for a life of toil and trouble as farmers?\” Apparently, there were soon too many humans (which somehow is not a proof that farming gave advantage to settled humans over hunters and foragers), the humans who wanted to return to previous mode of life couldn\’t do so because other people disliked trespassers (a no-explanation of how farming expanded from original starting point in Euphrates to corn fields in Aztec Empire) and humans lost ability to forage (even though it\’s still a popular pastime in some parts of Europe and almost an industry in Sweden). The biggest no-no for me: in a hunter-gatherer tribe a man had made himself obnoxious. Every adult in the tribe took part in lynching him. Is it given as an example that not all is rosy in hunter societies? No! The author is not for a moment advocating such way of solving conflicts, but thinks it was practical solution to the problem the tribe faced. A lynch and a society where staggering 100% of adult population are killers, given as a proof of how nomadic way of life is better than civilisation. Absolutely last thing I expected from a self-declared humanitarian.

This is an uplifting and hopeful book which has arrived at just the right time to lift spirits and to increase solidarity. It picks interesting and varied case studies to make its points, arguing the central thesis that even in what appear to be the worse situations, humans kind nature always bobs to the surface. I am enjoying reading it, however it is not really an academic text, more a text written for the popular market. It is painted in broad brushstrokes and there is a lack of nuance. Each case study seems to follow the same story arc of an incident of human cruelty being subverted to reveal an underlying human kindness in quite an artificial way in places. For instance in introducing the horror of the German concentration camps it asks how this could have happened in one of the most wealthy and advanced countries of the world. This is inaccurate though. Germany immediately before the war was in the grip of a worldwide depression and poor through paying war reparations in the aftermath of WW1. This was part of the socio-economic situation that allowed the National Socialists to rise to power. Rutger is a great storty-teller, though not a historian. A good book, though not wholly as nuanced as it could be.

An interesting read but the author didn\’t convince me of mankind\’s goodness. My own experience tells me that Homo puppy (author\’s terminology) is anything but. He also left out of his book the sorry tale of the mutineers of the Bounty who sailed to Pitcairn island. Within a few years half of the men had been murdered by the other half, the remainder murdered by the women who sailed to Pitcairn with them, only one of the mutineers survived. And yes, this remaining mutineer did influence in a positive way the children of the mutineers born on the island who by all accounts were found living peacefully with each other 17 years after the mutineers landed there. But the mutineers did not revert to \’homo puppy\’ there, despite no longer being \’under the lash\’, no pooling resources, no co-operation, just suspicion, hatred and jealousy and finally murder most foul. Perhaps they were just a bad lot and they are the exception to the rule as espoused by the author but my experience of 70 years of other peoples selfish nature is at odds with his research.

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