3/2/2024 0 Comments Humankind rutger bregmanHe does so sensitively, and with no illusions about the very real scars left by these events. By examining such atrocities, Bregman deconstructs the conditions that made participants act as they did. Importantly, Bregman dedicates a significant proportion of the work to traumatic and horrific events in human history, like the Holocaust, which provide unquestionable evidence of the potential for human evil. Bregman even takes the debate into the cultural arena, tackling the legacy of William Golding’s infamous novel, The Lord of the Flies, with a real-world example, which ended in a surprisingly different way. Bregman unashamedly goes head-to-head with several heavyweights in the debate, including Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo, whose notorious and influential psychological studies have provided some of the scientific basis for the argument that human nature is inherently ‘self-interested’. Through this multidisciplinary approach, which is the bread and butter of his work, Bregman takes the reader on a journey to dismantle the Hobbesian worldview, exploring how we can use our inherently good nature to build a better sort of society. This history provides the context for reassessing classic research on human nature, and it is skillfully weaved together with a range of new case studies from a plethora of social science disciplines. We’re taken from the appearance of the first humans through to the 2004 mayoral elections in Torres, Venezuela, with detours through the Enlightenment period, Easter Island in the eighteenth century and 1960s New York. On the other, Rousseau: it was the structures of civilisation that made humans self-interested.īregman then skillfully guides the reader on a tour through the history of humankind from prehistory to the present day. On the one hand, we have what Bregman views as the dominant Hobbesian perspective: humans left to their own devices are ultimately selfish. He uses the dichotomy of human nature as expounded by Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau as his starting point. In a moment when populism and intolerance are reaching new heights and our communications are increasingly mediated by the ‘Internet of Things’, Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History offers a refreshing, and optimistic, escape.īregman’s sixth book (his second in the English language) tackles the not insubstantial history of human nature. If you are interested in this book, you can listen to a podcast of author Rutger Bregman discussing the work at an LSE event, recorded on 1 July 2020. While finding that the book’s aim to tackle the dominant philosophical and scientific views of humankind leads the study to overlook the differing experiences of women throughout human history, Rosie Hamilton welcomes its perspective for offering a genuinely optimistic alternative that encourages readers to view the world from a different angle. In Humankind: A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman takes the reader on a journey that dismantles the assumptions of classic research on human nature that positions humans as self-interested, instead exploring how humans can use our inherently good nature to build a better society.
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