People are fundamentally decent and if we looked more favourably on human nature they’d behave even better, to everyone’s advantage. That’s the argument presented by Rutger Bregman in this stimulating treatise on reshaping society, which arrives at a good moment for two reasons. The first is that the coronavirus crisis has largely displayed people at their best, while its impact has made many yearn for a more optimistic vision of the future.
Bregman believes this is achievable, but that what’s been stopping us is a mistaken Hobbesian view of humanity, which has left the world shaped by the idea that our natural selfishness and aggression can only be contained by laws, rules and regulations. The negative results include “plagues” such as cynicism, polarisation, exclusion, self- interest and inequality, as well as bureaucracy, fear and a stifling of creative spirits.
The solution, Bregman says, should be to capitalise on people’s innate kindness in a way that could allow us to “completely rethink” the way we organise our lives, whether in schools, businesses, prisons or elsewhere.
It’s a bold case that might seem delusional and Bregman, the Dutch historian who went viral last year after he denounced tax-shy billionaires at Davos, concedes that to “stand up for human goodness means weathering a storm of ridicule” and taking on the powerful. He makes his argument with panache, however, roving millennia to use evidence from hunter-gatherer societies and modern examples, while taking on the theories of writers such as Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker.
There’s plenty of entertainment along the way in his snappy phrasing. Evolution is “a friendly game of run until you’re dead”; our male ancestors were supposedly “not machos, more like proto-feminists” and “allergic to inequality”. There are surprising targets too. Climate activists are accused of spreading a “cynicism” that risks paralysing people with despair. Empathy and xenophobia “go hand in hand” because the former blinds us to the perspectives of others.
Some weaknesses creep in. Bregman wrongly claims that ideology played “a remarkably small role” in jihadists joining Islamic State; a suspiciously precise quote about a murder comes from a book criticised for its dramatised scenes; an assertion that playgrounds with slides and swings are “a child’s nightmare” is bizarre.
Nonetheless, many will sympathise with Bregman’s support for creativity in education, the removal of healthcare bureaucracy and greater autonomy in the workplace — all of which he believes can come from trusting more. Another concluding recommendation is to learn compassion through meditation. Bregman admits this sounds “New-Agey” and there’s that feel to some of this book.
Some will regard that as a warning. But maybe he’s right. He points out, after all, that progress often begins with people who sound “preachy” and that what sounds naive can later seem common sense. Either way, as societies contemplate new ways of living in a post-coronavirus world, Bregman has given us much to consider.
Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman (Bloomsbury, £20), buy it here.
