Book review – Human kind

Historian Rutger Bregman’s studies have shown that right from the time of the ancient Greeks the great thinkers like Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Luther, Nietzsche, and Freud have doctrined that humans are innately selfish. A negative outlook which permeated Christianity from its early days Augustine writing: ’no one is free from sin’. 

Bregman’s book is about a radical idea – it sets out to prove that most people, deep down, are pretty decent. The question he asks is : are we humans more inclined to be good or evil? He set about carefully studying history for examples one way or another. 

It is not until reaching the 1700s that Bregman could find a philosopher who shared his positive view of human nature, the French Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  By then Bregman already had strong evidence to back Rousseau’s contentions.

This generously long (470 pages) book records in interesting detail actual events through the ages to support his view. Many of these had been ‘hushed up’ at the time as they didn’t serve the current leaders aims.  Along with these are descriptions of the results of numerous current experiments carried out by university researchers, plus the writings of more recent philosophers. 

The book describes events which down through the ages showed how people’s instincts  acted oppositely to what the negative philosophers would have predicted. These stories are as diverse as secret experiments at Stamford University, the mystery of Easter Island, a group long term island marooning or soldiers make for a very interesting, thought provoking read 

  There is an interesting chapter on why good people go bad, this also with numerous examples. Along with a chapter on the best remedy for hate and injustice and a chapter on what a true democracy looks like. 

This is a well written and easily read book and a great antidote to the gloom merchants which these days seem to pervade the media. Richard Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level writes: ‘This is a wonderful  and uplifting book. I only want all my friends and relations to read it, but everyone else as well. It is an essential part of the campaign for a better world’

I’ll leave the last words to Stephen Fry: ‘Hugely, highly, happily recommended’.

Mike Beckett