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Homo sapiens: O istorie plină de speranță

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BESTSELLER SUNDAY TIMES

CARTE RECOMANDATĂ DE GUARDIAN, TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH ȘI FINANCIAL TIMES



Există o convingere care unește stânga și dreapta, psihologii și filosofii, scriitorii și istoricii. Se află în spatele titlurilor de știri și a legilor care ne conduc viața. De la Machiavelli la Hobbes, de la Freud la Dawkins, rădăcinile acestei convingeri sunt adânc îngropate în gândirea occidentală. Oamenii, am fost cu toții învățați, sunt prin natura lor egoiști și conduși de propriul interes.

Homo Sapiens aduce un nou argument: că este realist, dar și revoluționar, să presupunem că oamenii sunt buni. Instinctul de a coopera mai degrabă decât de a concura, de a avea încredere mai degrabă decât de a nu se încrede, are o bază evoluționistă, care merge înapoi până la Homo sapiens. Dacă gândim cel mai rău despre alții, scoatem la lumină ce e mai rău și în politica și economia noastră.

În această carte pe cale de a deveni extrem de importantă, autorul de bestselleruri internaționale Rutger Bregman folosește unele dintre cele mai cunoscute studii și evenimente din lume și le repune în context, oferind o nouă perspectivă asupra ultimilor 200 000 de ani de istorie a omenirii. De la adevăratul Împărat al muștelor la Blitz, de la o fermă de vulpi siberiene la o faimoasă crimă din New York, de la mașina de administrat șocuri a lui Stanley Milgram de la Yale la experimentul din închisoare al celor de la Stanford, Bregman ne arată modul în care încrederea în bunătatea și altruismul umane poate constitui un nou fel de a gândi – și de a acționa, ca bază pentru a ajunge la adevărata schimbare în societatea noastră.

Este momentul unei noi viziuni asupra naturii umane.



„Cum să câștigi prieteni și să salvezi umanitatea.“ Literary Review



„Aceasta este cartea de care avem nevoie acum.“ Daily Telegraph



„Lasă la o parte ziarul pentru o clipă și citește această carte.“ Barry Schwartz, psiholog



„Un istoric optimist care cerne trecutul pentru a dovedi că omenirea ar putea să nu fie atât de rea... O lectură superbă – proaspătă, accesibilă și plină de povești minunate.“ Sunday Times



„Aceasta este cartea de care avem nevoie acum... Antrenantă, optimistă... Dacă Bregman are dreptate, această carte poate transforma lumea într-un loc mai bun.“ Telegraph



„Plină de povești impresionante despre bunătatea umană... Cartea lui Bregman este o lectură captivantă și reprezintă o erată necesară la istoria omenirii.“ The Times



RUTGER BREGMAN, istoric și colaborator la Correspondent, este unul dintre cei mai importanți tineri gânditori europeni. Ultima sa carte, Utopie pentru realiști, apărută în 2020 la Editura Litera, a fost bestseller Sunday Times și New York Times și a fost tradusă în 32 de limbi. De asemenea, Istoria progresului a câştigat Premiul belgian Liberales pentru cea mai bună carte de non-ficţiune în 2013, Bregman fiind nominalizat de două ori pentru prestigiosul Premiu al Presei Europene pentru activitatea sa jurnalistică de la Correspondent. Bregman trăiește în Olanda.



@rcbregman | rutgerbregman.com

432 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2019

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About the author

Rutger Bregman

13 books4,385 followers
Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian, author and journalist. He studied at Utrecht University and the University of California, Los Angeles and is known for popularizing topics related to social and economic innovation measures and their history through, among others, universal basic income and shorter work weeks.

Rutger Bregman is a journalist at The Correspondent, and one of Europe's most prominent young thinkers. He has published four books on history, philosophy, and economics.

---------------------------------------------------------

Rutger Bregman studeerde aan de universiteit van Utrecht en Los Angeles, en doceerde aan de Universiteit van Utrecht. Hij schrijft voor nrc.next, Het Parool, de Volkskrant, Trouw en De Groene Amsterdammer.

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Profile Image for Jenna ❤ ❀  ❤.
853 reviews1,499 followers
July 28, 2020
You know that person who's always so happy no matter what? Maybe it's the colleague who is bright and cheery at 8:00 every Monday morning when everyone else is struggling just to open their eyes and get their third cup of coffee down? 

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Or that really annoying person who always urges you to look on the bright side. Oh, your arm fell off? No worries, you have another! Oh, your second arm fell off too? Well, just think of all the fun you're going to have learning how to use your feet to open doors, feed yourself, and wipe your own ass!


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I don't know about you, but those kinds of people are just far too optimistic for me. If you're one of those people, well, maybe you can learn to tone it down a bit when you find yourself living in the real world with other human beings.

Humankind: A Hopeful History is the book equivalent of that overly optimistic person.

Author Rutger Bregman is certain the human species is inherently good. Most people, deep down, are really good people who care about others and want to help everyone and treat each other fairly.

Growing up, I thought the exact opposite. Most people were bad and not to be trusted. Then, as an adult, I started seeing good in people. Maybe I didn't trust most people, but I let myself believe that there are a lot of genuinely good people in the world and maybe even there are more good than bad.

Then along came trump and showed me how mistaken I was. Even some people I thought were good went to his side, ignoring the harm he does to minorities and even relishing in his hatred and cruelty towards them. 

After that, along came Covid-19. Now we really see how many people care absolutely nothing about their fellow human beings. They do not care if they pass the virus on to others, some of whom might die, because they just don't like wearing a mask. (That is at least many Americans. The fact that other countries impose steep fines for not wearing a mask makes me think that it's not just Americans who are that self-centered, and others would go without too if not for those fines.)

Yes, they are actually okay with being inadvertently responsible for someone else's death so that they don't have to be inconvenienced.  My faith in the inherent goodness of most human beings has plummeted. 

I'm eager to know what Mr. Bregman would have to say today. Would he write the same book? Probably. 

So let's get to it.

Mr. Bregman starts with the premise that people are basically good and then pulls up all these studies to "prove" his point. Most of the studies he talks about are ones I've come across in other books, but he claims the exact opposite results. Who is correct in their conclusions? I would like to believe Mr. Bregman is, but I rarely did.

He seems to cherry pick the things that support his premise while throwing out everything that goes against it. 

He also makes some wild assertions such as, "Basically, our ancestors were allergic to inequality".  He's talking about our hunter gatherer ancestors and makes the claim that for most of human history, people lived in a veritable Paradise. That mythological Garden of Eden. Everyone got along, sharing, and doing their part, and kissing, and hugging, and singing Kumbaya, and being the very best of friends.

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He even goes so far as to claim that babies in hunter gatherer societies were different! When talking about a study that shows human infants have a clear preference for those most like them, he tells us that it just wasn't so for most of human history. He offers not one iota of proof for this, just assures us that babies today who are born into big, anonymous cities are different than babies that were born in the forest with a small tribe of other human beings.

At times it was like reading a religious apologist. 

That said, it was enjoyable to read this book. It's interesting. It's written well. Even if I disagree with most of Bregman's conclusions, the book encouraged me to think about things in a different way.

I think the author is correct in his assertion that the media shows us the negative and leaves out the positive. I accept his conclusion that most people would find it difficult to take the life of another human being --IF they had to do it face-to-face. We see with the pandemic that many, many people really do not care what happens to anyone besides themselves or at least outside their own circle of close family and friends. They are okay with being responsible for someone's death even if they wouldn't pull out a gun and shoot someone.

That doesn't make me feel very optimistic about humanity.

I believe Mr. Bregman is correct -- the stats support it -- we live in the safest era, with far fewer people dying from violence inflicted by another than at any other time during civilization.

I just can't share his optimistic conclusion that humans are basically good and caring people. Some are, some aren't. 

It's almost amusing how he runs around in circles trying to explain away such atrocities as the Holocaust in a world where just about everyone is good. It's like arguing for a benevolent creator who purposely created such things as cancer in children and parasitic wasps that lay their eggs inside caterpillars, slowly and horrifically murdering them as the baby wasps eat their way out.

Maybe I'm cynical, which Bregman assures us is lazy. He asserts that, "If you believe most people are rotten, you don't need to get worked up about injustice. The world is going to hell anyway". I disagree. The more injustice I see in the world, the more I realise how much work there is to be done and the more I wish to be able to do something about it.

If we ignore all the very real suffering humans inflict upon each other and other living creatures, we don't see where change needs to be made and we don't take responsibility for trying to bring about change. 

Mr. Bregman's ideas seem lazy to me. For instance.... his solution for racism? Just let racists hang out with people of color. While not coming out and directly saying that people of color are responsible for eliminating racism, that is what he is implying. Why should people of color have to hang out with people who hate them (or LGBQT+ with people who hate us) in order to change their minds? It is not minorities who should shoulder the responsibility for change. I had to deduct a star from the rating for that BS.

He blows off hatred of minorities by saying it wouldn't exist if we lived in small bands of people and yet at the same time among people who are very unlike us. 

Yeh, I don't understand that either.

So, my conclusion is that humans are capable of both good and bad. We are capable of love and kindness and compassion but also capable of the opposite. There is no neat and tidy way to account for war and genocide while claiming people are mostly all good. We are complicated. Life is complicated. It's a big grey area; human nature doesn't come in black and white, all good or all bad.
 
Do I recommend the book? Absolutely. I'm glad I read it, even if it didn't succeed in changing my mind. 
Profile Image for Maggie Stiefvater.
Author 60 books170k followers
August 11, 2021
This books handles a subject I’ve always been interested in: how we become the stories we tell about ourselves. I’ve long been intrigued by Beem’s theory of personality, that our personality is a decision we make every day, and this book continues that conversation. Are humans actually bad, Bregman asks, or are they just becoming bad because we keep telling stories about how humans tend toward badness? What if we instead tell ourselves stories about all the times humans could have chosen selfishness & instead trended toward community?

It’s an interesting book to read on the heels of Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World, a book I just read on the psychology of popularity. POPULAR’s author says that childhood popularity predicts adulthood success, based upon a wide-ranging survey where adults who reported being popular as children ended up happier and more well-adjusted. When I read POPULAR, I thought: there’s the rub! That self-reported study doesn’t prove popular kids become well adjusted adults. It proves that well adjusted adults remember themselves as popular, which is not exactly the same thing. We don’t know if they WERE popular; we just know that’s the story they told about themselves. And yeah, it does seem like people who remember the past in a positive light are more likely to expect—& thus create—a positive future.

“Believe what people tell you about themselves,” a woman once told me, about a decade ago. Later, she told me, “women don’t really make friends with other women.” Still later, she said, “Scorpio women like you & me are always unhappy, everything is a tool or a grudge.” At the time, I was young and naive; I disagreed because those things weren’t true of me. But I realize know that she was telling me about herself, whether or not she knew it. “Believe what people tell you about themselves,” because the stories might not be true YET, but they are trying to make them so, good and bad.

Later, that woman killed herself. I think about her nearly every week, if there was a way I could have intervened. Maybe yes, maybe no, but because of her I know to ask: what stories are you telling about yourself and others?

I highly recommend this book. Even if you don't agree entirely with its thesis (and perhaps especially if you don't), I think it's a wildly engaging entry point into crucial, excellent conversations. Pop nonfic at its best.
Profile Image for Anne.
364 reviews57 followers
November 6, 2019
Dit is een recensie die alleen over de stijl van De meeste mensen deugen gaat. Ik heb niets te zeggen over de inhoud, behalve dat ik het een interessant en onderhoudend boek vond, met name de analyses in grofweg de eerste helft van het boek.

Maar qua stijl was ik helaas onaangenaam verrast. Zelden was ik het zo roerend eens met een column als die van hoogleraar Lotte Jensen in de Volkskrant (zie link onderaan). In deze column bekritiseert ze namelijk Rutger Bregmans non-fictie bestseller De meeste mensen deugen puur op het taalgebruik. Ze zegt dat ze het idee had “een Amerikaans boek te lezen”, mede doordat er drie stijlfiguren “overvloedig” voorkomen: uitroepen, ultrakorte zinnen, en “veel nadruk op persoonlijke ervaringen”. Ik wil daar zelf nog het overmatig gebruik van (retorische) vragen aan toevoegen, en ik zal wat voorbeelden geven (want kritiek is geen goede kritiek zonder bewijs en argumentatie).

1) Uitroepen “die de lezer moeten aanmoedigen door te lezen” (Jensen).

“En dat is nog niet alles.” (Bregman 235)
“Pas toen gebeurde het ondenkbare.” (216)
“Het antwoord luidt ja, ja en ja.” (346)

Het boek staat vol met deze uitroepen. Het ontbreken van uitroeptekens wil niet zeggen dat het geen uitroepen zijn - uitroeptekens zijn uit den boze in dit soort teksten, dus het zijn de inhoud en de lengte van deze zinnen die het tot een uitroep maken.

2) Ultrakorte zinnen: losse voorbeelden hiervan geven is vrij nutteloos. De ultrakorte zinnen zijn door de hele tekst gestrooid. Het gaat er overigens bij bijna al deze punten van kritiek op de stijl niet om dat hij deze technieken gebruikt, het gaat erom dat hij ze overmatig gebruikt.

3) Nadruk op persoonlijke ervaringen:

“Mijn mond viel open toen ik deze passage las.” (190)
“Laat ik maar gewoon eerlijk zijn.” (207)
“Maar toen gebeurde het volgende, in de stad waar ik zelf werkte.” (233)

4) (Retorische) vragen:
Er staan enorm veel (retorische) vragen in dit boek, dus ik kies er maar een:

“Is er soms iets unieks aan de Nederlandse cultuur, of deze Amsterdamse buurt, of deze vier mannen – íéts wat de uitzondering kan verklaren?
Niets blijkt minder waar.” (235)

Nogmaals, veel stijlkeuzes zijn alleen verkeerd als ze overmatig worden gebruikt. Bovendien is het bovenstaande voorbeeld een soort stilistische non sequitur. Want wat precies blijkt er minder waar? Hij ontkracht niet een stelling, hij ontkracht de impliciete stelling die verborgen zit in de retorische vraag. Kort gezegd past het antwoord niet bij de vraag, en dat is best slordig.

Verder is Bregman een groot fan van een losse, dramatische zin tussen paragrafen in, en van cursieve woorden om nadruk te leggen. Hij houdt ook van van zinnen die geen zinnen zijn: “En hoeveel ruimte er is om het anders te doen” bijvoorbeeld (329).

Heel af en toe gebruikt hij zelfs neerbuigende taal – soms naar de lezer, soms naar anderen. De lezer wordt bijvoorbeeld op de volgende manier betutteld: “een ‘trans-craniële magnetische stimulatie’-machine, een moeilijk woord voor een apparaat waarmee hersenfuncties worden getest’ ” (278). “Een moeilijk woord voor” vind ik neerbuigend in een boek voor volwassenen, en de naam van de machine tussen haakjes zetten creëert een afstand tussen Bregman en het gene dat hij omschrijft, en tegelijkertijd verkort het de afstand tussen Bregman en zijn lezers: hij schaart zich zo op een subtiele manier achter de mensen van wie hij aanneemt dat ze het woord niet kennen.

Een ander sprekend voorbeeld is zijn houding tegenover een boek van Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature. Om de een of andere reden wordt namelijk meerdere keren de omvang van het boek benadrukt: het is “een massieve pil van 802 pagina’s […] Je zou er zou iemand mee kunnen doodslaan” (p. 110). Het wordt nog minstens drie keer op zo’n sturende manier omschreven, als “dat dikke boek” (110), “dat loodzware boek” (117) en “die pil van 802 pagina’s” (120). Bregman benadrukt tevens dat het “talloze grafieken en tabellen” (110) en “klinkende statistieken” (117) bevat. Hij waarschuwt de lezer voorafgaand aan zijn analyse van Pinkers boek ook: “Dit wordt een beetje technisch, maar het is cruciaal om te begrijpen waar hij de fout in ging” (121). Het is een mogelijkheid dat Bregman hier zichzelf een valse bescheidenheid toekent, in de trant van “pfoe, nou, ik vind het ook maar een lastig hoor jongens, zo’n dik boek, met al dat… wetenschappelijk onderzoek”. Dit zou, net als het bovenstaande voorbeeld, een manier kunnen zijn om de lezer met hem als auteur te laten identificeren: hij schat in wat de lezer zou kunnen denken als deze informatie op een droge manier wordt gepresenteerd, en verandert zijn houding aan de hand van deze aanname. Het kan ook een manier zijn om Pinker te beledigen – immers, het boek beslaat 800 pagina’s vol “grafieken en tabellen” en toch haalt Bregman het in een paar pagina’s onderuit – maar dat lijkt me minder waarschijnlijk. Bregman gaat maar heel zelden over op ad hominem argumenten in dit boek.

Kort samengevat: het hele boek is ontzettend informeel geschreven, en ik denk oprecht dat alle stijlkeuzes in dienst staan van de informele stijl, en dat die bedoeld is om zo veel mogelijk lezers geboeid te houden.

Als dat Bregmans doel was, is het gelukt. Het is een erg makkelijk leesbaar boek: het houdt je aandacht vast en weet droge theorie om te vormen tot spannende anekdotes die je het liefst meteen wil delen met de eerste de beste persoon die je tegenkomt. Het is ook echt een interessant boek, met een enorme variatie aan voorbeelden die tot de verbeelding spreken. Ik begrijp waarom het een bestseller is geworden: het is een boek over een uniek onderwerp, dat ook nog eens erg toegankelijk is. Ik heb totaal geen bezwaren tegen de toegankelijkheid van het boek, maar ik denk dat Bregman is doorgeschoten in zijn keuze voor een informele stijl, en dat deze stijl afbreuk doet aan zijn boodschap. Mooi (of op zijn minst correct) taalgebruik hoeft helemaal niet moeilijk of vervreemdend te zijn: het is juist een manier om de boodschap kracht bij te zetten.






De column van Lotte Jensen:
https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/...
Profile Image for Trevor.
1,332 reviews22.6k followers
November 27, 2020
I wish I hadn’t recently read Calling Bullshit. According to that book, I really ought to be applying the sharpest possible criticism to this book. The reason being that this book confirms so many of my own prejudices. In fact, I’ve used many of the arguments used here (and even the same examples) in my own life. For example, over the last few years I’ve been asked to give the opening lecture on the importance of literacy to undergrad education students at work. Mostly, I look at how social class impacts student literacy and how more equal societies have better literacy outcomes. But part of that lecture also involves me telling students about Pygmalion in the Classroom. This book covers that story too, explaining how Rosenthal gave a new kind of IQ test to some groups of students that would show which of them were about to go through something of a learning spurt and then out-perform their peers. The psychologists involved in the experiment then told the students’ teachers this was about to happen. And then, a while later, when the psychologists came back to check their results, they found that the kids identified had, indeed, done extremely well. It was just that there had never been a new kind of IQ test, the whole thing had been a test of teacher expectations and the impact of those on their students. The kids the teachers treated as if there were smart, ended up proving to be smart. Rosenthal did not believe it would be ethical to test the opposite hypothesis, you know, tell the teachers which kids were stupid and see what happens – which, given the other stories from the time documented in this book (the Milgram shock test and the Stanford Prison Guard extravaganza) he was clearly a social psychologist ahead of his time. All the same, we have the results of those experiments already – Claude Steele discusses those at length in his work on stereotype threat. Now, there’s a book you should read too.

The central contention of this book fits well with Rosenthal’s hypothesis that people often respond in ways that will confirm our expectations of them. Actually, even that is too soft a version of what this book argues. It actually argues that people mostly behave better than we expect them to. He does this by discussing how few people in wars actually end up shooting their guns. Of course, most professional soldiers now shoot to kill all of the time – but that’s because they have been trained to be basically inhuman machines. Getting a normal person to kill another normal person is a remarkably difficult thing to do. Given the suicide rates of returned soldiers, we probably shouldn’t be too proud of what we do to make them killing machines. His point throughout this book is that humans just don’t prove to be anywhere near as blood thirsty or as nasty as we like to think of ourselves.

The only people who come out of this book badly are BMW drivers – I did start off by saying this book goes out of its way to confirm all of my prejudices, didn’t I? The only time I thought I was definitely going to die while driving my car was when a BMW driver (presumably one with a very small penis) decided he could race past a tram on the wrong side of the road – a side of the road I was driving down with my two daughters and two of their friends. The only thoughts in my head at the time were the faces of the parents of the children in my car once their parents were told of their deaths in my car and a series of unprintable swear words followed by ‘….BMW drivers’.

I really liked this book. It presents interesting counterarguments to Jared Diamond, Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins. How can that be a bad thing? You might decide to avoid this book because you are already certain it clearly presents an all-too-Pollyanna vision of human nature. You would be wrong to assume that. This is a lovely little book that is likely to make you question some of the things you think you know about what it means to be human. And that can’t be a bad thing either.
Profile Image for Magda Michielsens.
26 reviews13 followers
December 30, 2019
De Meeste Mensen Deugen, zegt Rutger Bregman.
Ik heb het gesprek gezien met auteur Rutger Bregman (4 september 2019) in DWDD, waarin hij zijn boek presenteerde. Op basis daarvan heb ik het boek gekocht en gelezen. Matthijs van Nieuwkerk was heel enthousiast. Dat maakte mij nieuwsgierig maar ook op mijn hoede.
Er zit mij van in het begin van het boek iets dwars:
Het vertrekpunt van de auteur is de stelling dat de gangbare opvatting is dat de mens slecht is. Zijn stelling daarentegen is dat ‘De meeste mensen deugen’, en dat zou iets zijn dat overal ontkend wordt, dat zou een revolutionaire opvatting zijn.
Ik ben verbaasd over dat vertrekpunt. In mijn hoofd zitten Rousseau, Make Love not War, de 60s, de hippies, vrijzinnigheid zonder zondeval, het humanisme. Waarom zou je denken dat de meeste mensen denken dat de meeste mensen niet deugen? Ik heb dat niet op school geleerd. Misschien hebben enkel de christenen en de moslims dat op school geleerd, maar ik in alle geval niet. Niet op de lagere school, niet op de middelbare school en niet op de universiteit. En nu, nu ik mij probeer los te maken van mijn linkse opleiding waarin iedereen goed is behalve wie misleid wordt en slecht behandeld (onderdrukt en uitgebuit), nu komt Rutger Bregman mij vertellen dat dat een originele revolutionaire gedachte is.
Ik zet mijn verbazing opzij en Ik aanvaard het perspectief van waaruit de auteur werkt en ben geïnteresseerd in wat hij te zeggen heeft.
Het gevolg is dat ik veel te weten kom over de basisexperimenten en theorieën van de Amerikaanse sociale psychologie. Waarom zijn juist sociaalpsychologen altijd zo'n bedriegers, vraag ik mij af, denkend aan de recente schandalen in Nederland. Waarom juist zij?
Ik heb lesgegeven over de theorieën en de experimenten, over Zimbardo, Sherif, Allport, Milgram, het gevangenisexperiment, het conformisme, het toedienen van elektrische schokken, …
Het waren waarschuwingen over waar mensen toe in staat zijn. Alleen, nu de logboeken van de experimenten vrij zijn gekomen, blijkt het voor het grootste deel bedrog en onzorgvuldigheid te zijn geweest.
Tot op een bepaald punt was nooit iemand dieper onderzoek gaan doen over de kwaliteit van de experimenten en de studies. Vergelijk het met het voor zoete koek aannemen van de wreedheid en het asociaal gedrag van vleesetende mensen, zoals nog niet zo lang geleden Nederlandse sociaalpsychologen ‘ontdekt’ hadden. Ook ik deed geen verder onderzoek naar de degelijkheid van de Amerikaanse experimenten, hoewel ik in dezelfde tijd dat ik er les over gaf ook veel gelezen heb over de ethiek van experimenteel (sociaal) psychologische onderzoek. Ook Johan Braeckman nam de resultaten voor wijsheid aan. Hij maakte zelfs een televisieprogramma waarin hij naar het Laboratorium van Milgram reisde en ons uitlegde hoe belangrijk de experimenten van Milgram zijn (het Canvas-programma "De herontdekking van de wereld")
Er is iets vreemds met Rutger Bregmans interpretatie van de experimenten van Milgram. Hij zegt dat de resultaten van de experimenten steeds aangegrepen zijn door autoritaire mensen, die pleiten voor meer gezag, meer onderdrukking, meer discipline, meer directeuren, meer managers, omdat ze weten dat de doorsnee mensen niet te vertrouwen zijn. Milgram als voer voor rechtse types dus, volgens Bregman. Milgram bewijst zogezegd ‘de alledaagsheid van het kwaad’ en daarom moeten we de mens met autoriteit in toom houden.
Zulke interpretaties heb ik echter nooit gezien en nooit bedacht.
Wat ik wel gezien heb is de volgende interpretatie: de mens is gevoelig voor autoriteit, autoriteiten zijn vaak slechte mensen, dus moeten we (1) de individuele mens sterk maken zodat hij die valse autoriteit doorziet en weerstaat; (2) moeten we stevige structuren bouwen en ondersteunen zodat de individuele mens niet ten prooi valt aan die autoriteit. In mijn geheugen zijn de resultaten van Milgram altijd gebruikt als een steun voor links om de democratie te versterken en controleorganen te institutionaliseren.

Vandaag, ongeacht de interpretatie van Milgram, weten we dat de theorie van ‘de alledaagsheid van het kwaad’ kletskoek was. We weten dat sinds uitgezocht is dat Eichman geen doordeweekse gewone man was die verschrikkelijke dingen heeft gedaan, maar een overtuigde nazi (zie o.a. de interviews met vader Sassen). Rutgers Bregmans interpretatie van Milgram is een voorbeeld van de manier waarop hij alle informatie naar zijn hand probeert te zetten.
‘De meeste mensen deugen’ wordt geprezen voor zijn toegankelijke stijl. Het is een journalistiek boek, geen academisch. Ik kan daar niet goed tegen. Ik wil meer precisie, meer bronnen, minder anekdotes. Minder verhaal en meer feiten. En ik wil vooral een beter en dieper doordenken van de voorbeelden die aangehaald worden. Voorbeelden die moeten aantonen dat ook leden van de Farc kunnen deugen (gevoelig zijn voor sentiment, blijkt dat te betekenen), zijn volgens mij complexer dan een mooi verhaal over een positieve reclamecampagne die meehielp om de terroristen uit de jungle te lokken.
Van bij de aanvang van het boek lijkt de auteur op zoek naar de menselijke essentie. ‘In essentie is de mens goed’. En als er nu eens geen essentie was en de ene mens soms zus en de andere (of dezelfde) soms zo, naargelang de aanleg, naargelang de lichamelijke toestand op een bepaald ogenblik, naargelang de opvoeding, naargelang het sociale netwerk, naargelang de persoonlijke relaties en bijbehorende emoties ... Hele filosofische bibliotheken zijn over die essentie vol geschreven, maar Bregman stoort er zich niet aan.
De media vormen één van de factoren die de meeste mensen doet denken dat de meeste mensen slecht zijn. De auteur legt goed uit hoe de media werken (hoe het nieuws geselecteerd wordt, wat wel vermeld wordt en wat niet, alles wat normaal - en/of goed - is wordt niet besproken). Sonja Barend wist het al, in de jaren tussen 1977 en 1981, met haar ‘Sonja’s Goed Nieuws Show’ en Rutger Bregman weet het dus ook. Hij legt het goed uit, maar het roept wel een vraag op.
Gaat zijn boek over het feit dat in de realiteit de meeste mensen deugen of gaat het over het feit dat de meeste mensen denken dat de meeste mensen (al dan niet) deugen.
Het eerste is een empirisch feit, dat eventueel gemeten kan worden. Je maakt een operationele definitie van ‘deugen’ en je screent en turft en dan weet je of de meeste mensen deugen of niet.
Het tweede gaat over het mensbeeld dat mensen in hun hoofd hebben.
Het zijn twee verschillende werelden, elk met verschillende implicaties.
Een pedagogisch project bijvoorbeeld om het deugen van de mens te verbeteren is iets anders dan een pedagogisch project om de mensen positiever te laten denken over andere mensen.
Goedheid en empathie, dat haalt hij nogal eens door elkaar. Het ene is een maat voor het andere, en omgekeerd bij Bregman. Nochtans worden alle mooie argumenten die bij Paul Bloom (2018) werden aangedragen ‘Against Empathy’ door Bregman niet weerhouden in verband met ‘Against Goodness’. Nochtans is er een volkswijsheid die zegt: "Veel te goed is half zot."
In Kairos van Joke Hermsen staat ook zo'n reeks voorstellen in verband met wat je kan doen om beter te leven, om een goed mens te zijn, om het goede te doen. Van schoonheid genieten, een buurtwerking opzetten, gebruikt speelgoed herverdelen, een zelfstandige werking van wijkverpleegkundigen opzetten, in een commune gaan wonen, samen eten en om beurt voor de anderen koken, lenen, uitwisselen, helpen, samen, samen, samen, kleinschalig en zuinig, democratisch, egalitair, divers en inclusief. Ik overdrijf, omdat ik er kregelig van word.
Ik heb in de jaren 60s niets anders gehoord, en toen ik in de jaren 1980s in Nijmegen ging werken en wonen was het weer (of nog altijd) aan de orde van de dag. En nu doen Joke Hermsen en Rutger Bregman of het vandaag wordt uitgevonden, ‘vanuit de basis’ groeit en het een nieuwe strategie is. Resistence aan de keukentafel.
‘De meeste mensen deugen’, OK, stel dat ik het wil geloven. Dan nog denk ik: maar leden van IS niet. We hebben ze de laatste jaren Het Kwaad zien bedrijven.
Alles wat ‘menselijk’ is (ratio en mededogen) is hen vreemd, als het er al was dan is het eruit gedrild. Het is hen met het boek in de hand, intentioneel, dogmatisch, geprogrammeerd, vreemd. Net zoals dat ook in sektes wordt aangetoond blijkt het mogelijk om mensen te indoctrineren. Men kan ze indoctrineren tot het Kwaad. (Zou er dan toch een menselijke essentie zijn, deze misschien ?)

Waarom zegt de auteur er niets over? Hij hoeft geen antwoorden paraat te hebben, maar hij zou ten minste de vraag moeten stellen wat er allemaal onderzocht zou moeten worden om zijn theorie over ‘de mens is van nature goed’ een beetje sluitend te maken.
In de teksten en lezingen die ik geschreven heb over ‘solidariteit’ zeg ik ook dat samenwerken en elkaar helpen voor de mens ‘natuurlijk’ is. Het is een evolutionaire troef geweest, het is noodzakelijk, het heeft overleving betekend. Als je het niet deed kwamen er geen fitte kinderen en kleinkinderen. Maar je mag niet overal solidair zijn, niet altijd en niet met iedereen. Het evolutionair voordeel is niet het samenwerken met en helpen van iedereen. Het is het selectief samenwerken en het selectief helpen.
Van tevoren heb ik er onvoldoende stil bij gestaan dat de auteur werkt voor ‘De Correspondent’. Dat had mij nog wantrouwiger moeten maken dan het enthousiasme van Matthijs van Nieuwkerk. Ik heb dus – zoals ik had kunnen verwachten had ik kritischer geweest bij mijn voorbereiding van de lectuur – meer ideologie dan wetenschap tot me genomen. Toch ben ik blij dat ik het boek heb gelezen. Ik ben blij met de onthullingen over de grondleggers van de sociale psychologie, ik ben blij met de weetjes, en ik ben blij met de inzichten die wat mij stoorde in het boek mij hebben opgeleverd. Een wijsheid van Etienne Vermeersch, “Ook je tegenstander kan verlichting brengen” verzoent mij met het boek.

Referenties
Beeckman, Tinneke (2019). “Ook je tegenstander kan verlichting brengen”, column DS, 10 okt.
Bloom, Paul (2018). Against Empathy. The Case for Rational Compassion. The Bodley Head.
Bregman, Rutger (2019). De meeste mensen deugen. Een nieuwe geschiedenis van de mens. De Correspondent bv.
Vermeersch, Etienne (2019). Nagelaten geschriften. Samengesteld door Johan Braeckman en Dirk Verhofstadt. Houtekiet.
Jensen, Lotte (hoogleraar Nederlandse literatuur- en cultuurgeschiedenis) https://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/...
Profile Image for Emma.
988 reviews1,065 followers
June 9, 2020
Some great stories, but anecdotes don't make a sustained argument and the whole isn't entirely convincing. Even so, it's the perfect time for a healthy dose of optimism and if there's anything this book does well it's showing how hope and positivity can breed more. So go forth and be the good you want to see in the world. You might just inspire others to do the same.

ARC via Netgalley
Profile Image for Mehrsa.
2,235 reviews3,634 followers
June 18, 2020
To be honest, I picked up this book to hate-read it. I thought it would be more Pinker and and that Lars guy saying how everything is better now and will everyone just shut up sort of stuff. But I actually really loved the book--that is, I loved the first 2/3rds of the book. The last 1/3rd was way too cute and optimistic for my cold cynical heart. The book is not making the claim that Pinker is making. The book is a point by point debunking of a Hobbsian worldview and the sham "studies" and stories that have upheld it. This is important because this bleak worldview has led us into bad policies and behaviors because we assume that if the police state was slackened, there would be absolute mayhem and murder in the streets. That is just not true.
Profile Image for Jan.
128 reviews20 followers
August 19, 2020
Bregmans book is immensely populair at this moment in Holland. The central thesis is clear from the title, freely translated: Most people are OK. Bregmans, is a journalist and historic from Holland who gained fame by explicitering the need for tax reforms at Davos. In this book he argues that most people are OK in two different ways.

1. By summarizing study results that proof our good nature, that is, an preference for social cooperative behaviour and aversion to violence
2. Secondly by trashing exemplary research into the dark human nature and present examples that show the good nature of humans

For me his thesis is ridiculous. In our daily life we approach most people like they are OK. We don’t distrust our colleagues when they asked for help and there are always people standing up in public transport to free a seat for those who need it. These are the kind examples he gives of good behaviour.

Still, maybe this is not the kind of behaviour Bregmans wants to talk about. In the beginning of the book he states (from an personal email of a university teacher) that 97% of people belief that we are inclined to act fully in self-interest in panic situations.

However for this argument the research he presents is less convincing. This is because the ‘proof’ of our good nature falls mostly in the category ‘a la café’ and because he is not able to explicate these results in an synthesized framework.

Secondly because by trashing the research methods of i.e. Zimbardo’s prison experiment (where splitting up a group into prisoners and guards results into violence) he claims to prove that people are not inclined to show bad behavior. This however, is false reasoning, since the results of the Zimbardo experiment where always a presentation of how the context can make people bad. This is still standing, even if the researches (career driven lying pricks) where pushing for escalation. They where just a power structure within the context.

As Rutger Bregman states he hopes to follow Bentrand Russel’s maxim to never get distracted by what he believes. It is a pity that he doesn’t live up to this. As he states in the preface, his goal in this book is not to prove that people are angels, more that we have an preference for te good (p.31). He fails to do this because:

- He fails to make proper conclusions but merely summarizes a lot of research (which is interesting for sure!). But not explicitly derive the conclusion that this means ‘we’ are inclined to do the good in panic situations
- This leaves him with the meaningless proposition that most people are (most of the time) OK. What do you mean OK? When are we not OK? What does this mean for our OKness in general? (This defect of the book was, for me, compensated by the last couple of chapters where the question is no longer the prove of the central thesis, but how vitreous behavior can be stimulated)
- The question of evil is never a question of quantity but of quality. One person starting a fight in a bar can ruin the night for 30 OK-people. Magnifying the good intentions of the rest is not the point here. He does not address this but talks as if bad an good are leveled in equal measure. For example, the good behavior of (a lot) of people during WO II does not lessen the fact of the Holocaust.

It is noteworthy that this book is so popular. Why so? De meeste mensen deugen is written in a way that makes you feel like a marathon runner. You just kill the thing in a few hours, and this made me feel good indeed.

But this cannot be the only reason. What got my attention is the dualism created in the book between we (the 99%) and the leaders, scientist and politicians (the 1%). The most people are OK, but leaders… oef, the chances are high that they are psychopaths. In this way this book is a warm blanket that works as a sedative. We don’t have to feel guilty, because we are inclined to the good.[1]

So, should you read this book? I think so. Rutger Berman is a great collector of research and is able to summarize the information so you can read it with ease. On the other hand, be aware that this book is an ideological pamphlet and the results of most research can be interpreted in multiple ways. So, practice benevolence, but not everything is OK and not only the powerful are evil.

_________
[1] This is ideology and false with our direct experience. Though we think most people are OK we all now some examples where somebody is (as we say in Holland) ‘licking up, and kicking down’. Or for me growing up with brothers. I showed virtuous behavior, as well as evil sadistic behaviour to my younger brothers (not something i am proud about).
Profile Image for Mohammad Hrabal.
326 reviews227 followers
June 7, 2022
کتاب آدمی یک تاریخ نوید بخش، از همه لحاظ، چه از نظر ظاهری، مانند کیفیت کاغذ، جلد، صحافی، فونت و چه از نظر ویژگی‌هایی مانند محتوا (که هر پاراگراف آن رفرنس داشت) و ترجمه (مزدا موحد، فرهنگ نشر نو)، فوق العاده بود. از خواندنش بسیار لذت بردم و به شما هم توصیه می‌کنم.
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عجیب است که از همه آرمان‌هایم دست برنداشته‌ام، چقدر بی‌ربط و غیر عملی به‌نظر می‌آیند. اما هنوز به آن‌ها چنگ زده‌ام چون هنوز، با وجود همه آنچه رخ داده، باور دارم که مردم در کنه وجودشان خوب هستند آن فرانک (۱۹۲۹-۱۹۴۵). صفحه ۱۶۳ کتاب
به‌عبارت‌دیگر، اگر به‌اندازه‌ی کافی به مردم فشار وارد کنی، اگر هل بدهی و سیخونک بزنی، تله بگذاری و دستکاری کنی، در واقع بیشتر ما توان انجام شرارت را داریم. سنگ‌فرش مسیر جهنم، خیرخواهی است ولی شر زیرپوستی نیست، تلاش زیادی برای بروز آن لازم است. و مهم‌تر از همه این‌که شر را باید در نیکوکاری استتار کرد. صفحه ۱۹۷ کتاب
کوشیده‌ام که به اعمال انسان نخندم، از برایشان گریه هم نکنم، بدان‌ها نفرت نیز نورزم، بلکه بکوشم درکشان کنم. باروخ اسپینوزا (۱۶۳۲-۱۶۷۷). صفحه ۲۲۵ کتاب
بارها و بارها به داشتن رهبران بهتر امیدوار می‌شویم ولی اغلب این امیدها به یاس تبدیل می‌شوند. پروفسور کلتنر می‌گوید دلیلش این است که قدرت باعث می‌شود افراد آن مهربانی و فروتنی را که باعث انتخاب شدنشان شده بود از دست بدهند، شاید هم از اول این صفات مناسب را نداشتند. صفحه ۲۶۸ کتاب
از این به بعد می‌توانستید با هر کس که میل دارید تجارت کنید و دین و ایدئولوژی او اهمیتی نداشت. یک اثر جنبی این بود که در همان کشورهای دارای حاکمیت نیرومند قانون که تضمین می‌کردند قواعد و قراردادها تبعیت شوند، باور به خدایی منتقم کاهش یافت. نقش خدای پدر با ایمان به دولت جایگزین شد و پس ‌از روشنگری، دین درنتیجه‌ی آن تمثالی مهربان‌تر به خود گرفت. این روزها کمتر دولتی هنوز در برابر نظر داوری کننده صانع سر خم می‌کند و به‌جای صلای جنگ‌های خونین صلیبی، پاپ‌ها سخنانی دلگرم کننده‌ درباره‌ی «انقلابی از مهر» ایراد می‌کنند. آیا این‌که بیشترین تراکم خدا ناباوران در کشورهایی مثل دانمارک یا سوئد است، اتفاقی است؟ این کشورها مستحکم‌ترین حکومت و معتمدترین دیوان‌سالاری را دارند. در همچو کشورهایی، دین جایگزین پیدا کرده است. به همان شکلی که روزی تولید انبوه صنعت‌کاران سنتی را کنار زد، دیوان سالاران جای خداوند را گرفته‌اند. صفحات ۲۷۶-۲۷۷ کتاب
بی‌بی‌سی در سال ۱۹۵۹ از راسل پرسید که برای نسل‌های آتی چه توصیه‌ای دارد. پاسخ داد: "هنگام مطالعه هر موضوعی یا در نظر گرفتن هر فلسفه‌ای، فقط از خود بپرسید واقعیات چیستند و حقیقتی که آن واقعیات نشان می‌دهند چیست. هرگز اجازه ندهید آنچه دوست دارید به آن باور داشته باشید، یا آنچه فکر می‌کنید اگر باور شود برای اجتماع آثاری مفید خواهد داشت، شما را گمراه کند، بلکه فقط و منحصراً به واقعیات نگاه کنید." این کلمات روی من تأثیر زیادی گذاشت. صفحه ۲۸۲ کتاب
تعامل با غریبه‌ها چیزی است که باید بیاموزیم، ترجیحاً از کودکی. بهترین حالت این است که هر جوان بتواند مثل آبرام ویین در دوران دانشگاهش سفر کند. مارک تواین این را در سال ۱۸۶۷ متوجه شده بود و نوشت: «سفر قاتل تعصب، تحجر و کوته‌فکری است.» این بدان معنی نیست که لازم است خودمان را عوض کنیم. برعکس. یکی از شاخص‌ترین یافته‌های علم تماس این است که تعصب را فقط هنگامی می‌توان حذف کرد که فردیت خود را حفظ کنیم. باید متوجه باشیم که ایرادی ندارد که همه با هم فرق داریم. می‌توانیم خانه‌هایی محکم با پایه‌های مقاوم برای هویت خود بسازیم. بعد می‌توانیم درها را باز کنیم. صفحه ۳۹۷ کتاب
پس واقع‌بین باشید. شجاع باشید. و به سرشت راستین خود وفادار باشید و اعتماد کنید. علنا نیکی کنید و از نیکی خود شرمنده نباشید. شاید در آغاز شما را زودباور و ساده‌لوح بدانند ولی به خاطر داشته باشید که آنچه امروز ساده‌لوحانه است، فردا ممکن است عقل سلیم باشد. صفحه ۴۳۳ کتاب
Profile Image for K.J. Charles.
Author 63 books9,743 followers
Read
October 26, 2022
An attempt to recast history to persuade us that humans are basically a kind, egalitarian co-operative breed who, left to themselves, would support one another in a non-violent way, only unfortunately we invented agriculture, and lots of oppressive negative power structures flowed from that. The problem with this is, we were left to ourselves and what we did was invent agriculture and embrace the resulting power structures.

The basic thesis makes extraordinarily sweeping claims about what everyone in prehistory was like before the invention of agriculture. This includes the 'fact' that they didn't hit their kids or make them do any work to help out (?), and a long list of traits needed to be chosen a leader 10,000 years ago ('charismatic, wise, tactful, humble'). Right, sure, we definitely know this.

You will gather I mostly found this irritating, which is in itself irritating because I am in fact on board with a lot of the central thesis. I want to believe. I liked the debunking of many of the touchstone 'people are bad' anecdotes (the Stamford prison experiment, the Kitty Genovese story, Easter Island, Milgram). But there is a slight sense of 'all these psychological experiments and anecdotes going against my thesis are flawed, here are some new psychological experiments and anecdotes that support my thesis' which leaves me wondering when the new ones will get debunked.

And fundamentally, my problem is that the thesis "we would be a kind and co-operative species if it wasn't for the circumstances we as a species have created and embraced in vast quantities such as slavery, colonialism, genocide, bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny" is that it rather resembles Terry Pratchett's Hogswatch song, "Wouldn't It Be Nice If Everyone Was Nice?" I absolutely believe that people can be better, and that given better conditions many of us we would be. But we also have a fairly strong track record of being offered better conditions, saying, 'Nah', and choosing to carry on a worse path. And that's as human as anything.
Profile Image for Michael Perkins.
Author 5 books421 followers
January 24, 2023
The author totally outwitted Tucker Carlson, who lost his cool, and refused to air the episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nFI...

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What we are seeing right now...

"The nocebo effect is that ideas are never merely ideas. We are what we believe. We find what we go looking for. And what we predict, comes to pass. If we believe most people can’t be trusted, that’s how we’ll treat each other, to everyone’s detriment. Few ideas have as much power to shape the world as our view of other people. Because ultimately, you get what you expect to get. It’s a mean world syndrome, whose clinical symptoms are cynicism, misanthropy and pessimism."

"Imagine for a moment that a new drug comes on the market. It’s super-addictive, and in no time everyone’s hooked. Scientists investigate and soon conclude that the drug causes, I quote, ‘a misperception of risk, anxiety, lower mood levels, learned helplessness, contempt and hostility towards others, and desensitization'......That drug is the news."

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Human beings, it turns out, are ultra-social learning machines. We’re born to learn, to bond and to play. This is our true superpower, because sociable people aren’t only more fun to be around, in the end they’re smarter, too.

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"Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking." (Steve Jobs)

Many of us are resistant to religious dogma. Perhaps there are other sources of dogma we should question, as well, including some that came from my Boomer generation.

"The Selfish Gene? It fit right in with 1970s-era thinking– a time hailed as the ‘Me Decade’ by the New York magazine. In the late 1990s, an avid Richard Dawkins fan decided to put his take on Dawkins ideas into practice. Rather than making him feel pessimistic, the book inspired CEO Jeffrey Skilling to run an entire corporation– the energy giant Enron– on the mechanism of greed.

Skilling set up a ‘Rank & Yank’ system for performance reviews at Enron. A score of 1 placed you among the company’s top performers and gave you a fat bonus. A score of 5 put you at the bottom, a group ‘sent to Siberia’– besides being humiliated, if you couldn’t find another position within two weeks you were fired. The result was a Hobbesian business culture with cut-throat competition between employees. In late 2001 the news broke that Enron had been engaging in massive accounting fraud. When the dust finally settled, Skilling was in prison.

Science has advanced considerably since the 1970s. In subsequent editions of The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins scrapped his assertions about humans’ innate selfishness, and the theory has lost credence with biologists."

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Humankind is a wonderfully iconoclastic book. The book is fluidly written and I have learned a ton. My favorite book of the year so far.

Podcast interview with the author. What I find persuasive here is that other countries are operating on different assumptions, better assumptions than we are in the U.S., and getting much better results. We always make excuses for why we can't change, say to implement true gun safety. We cling too readily to our cynicism, when maybe we are looking at the world all wrong.

This captures best the flavor of the book than I could in a written review.

https://pitchforkeconomics.com/episod...

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“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” ― Howard Zinn

The real Lord of the Flies....

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

click "I'll do it later" to see the whole article
Profile Image for Todd.
122 reviews96 followers
June 13, 2021
Well, we gave him a shot. I really wanted to like Bregman and his hopeful history. While the book was highly entertaining, ultimately his approach is too simplistic, cherry-picked, and optimistic for my skeptical critical heart.

On the upside, Bregman is a fantastic writer; you can easily get lost in his stories and his ability to weave his pop social science narrative together. At the same time, you have to appreciate his ambitions and intentions. In this work, Bregman started out promising enough, charting a course between Hobbes and Rousseau, in light of the findings of modern social science. At first, his formula is enticing; he takes a well-known doctrine or a well-established story in our collective psyche, picks apart its flaws and shortcomings, and attempts to revise the narrative in light of a counterexample or anecdote of his own. In fact, some of his conclusions have independently been generating support for decades, such as the benefits of the Scandanavian corrections model over the modern American prison model.

However, after the third or fourth pass through the formula, it becomes clear that Bregman is going full-on Gladwell with his treatment and use of the formula. We should be cautious with this approach to pop social science. Just because the original conclusion has been discredited, this does not mean the opposite conclusion is necessarily true; in reality, there are a continuum of possibilities in between and an array of other possibilities on entirely other planes. For instance, it was really entertaining revisiting the Lord of the Flies, and it is undoubtedly true that Golding drew up the narrative and allegory to support a particular interpretation of the human experience. However, Bregman bringing forth a single example of several real boys getting stuck on an island and having a by and large more favorable experience does not support a sweeping generalization in the opposite direction. There are all sorts of other factors that could have led to a cooperative experience in real life for the real trapped boys, and nothing is to say that other boys or girls trapped on a different deserted island would not have an entirely different experience. As a rule, sweeping conclusions are not generally supported by a single case study or historical anecdote.

One of the overriding arguments in the book comes across as an attempt to knock over a straw man that Bregman labels “veneer theory” following primatologist Frans de Waal. The biggest problem is that humans and their behavior, in their complexity, fall somewhere in between Hobbes and Rousseau. So while "veneer theory" in many circumstances is untrue that there is just a thin veneer of civilization separating us and a state of anarchy, this does not mean that people on the contrary have a tendency to band together in a time of crisis. In fact, the recent public health crisis provided ample ammunition to remain skeptical in that regard. Despite true bravery by many in the front-line healthcare workforce, the American experience of the global pandemic in 2020 shows how people can fail to come together as a nation in just such a time of crisis. In general, people behaved as they behaved before the crisis; they did not show more regard for their fellow citizens dying in nursing homes and hospitals, but they also did not necessarily show less regard than prior to the pandemic.

In talking about a book on hope and optimism, it would seem fitting to end on an upbeat note. For the most part, Bregman provided an entertaining and at times edifying work. While we do need to take his revisionist history with many grains of salt, we can enjoy the ride and be entertained by his gifts for storytelling and his skills and facility with writing and oratory.
Profile Image for Clif Hostetler.
1,139 reviews853 followers
April 8, 2021
If you wish to believe that people are naturally good but you can’t because of the counter examples in the news and you’ve been taught otherwise in history, sociology, and psychology school classes, then you need to read this book. This book makes a convincing case that humans are by nature friendly and peaceful creatures, and most of the counter examples are caused by pressures of civilization for which evolution of the human brain has left us ill-prepared.

Bregman makes the case that a probable reason Homo sapiens prevailed during the prehistory era over Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Homo erectus is because we were hard-wired to be social, work in groups, and consider what’s best for the collective community. This predisposition worked well over many years while humans lived as hunter-gatherers. But these same tendencies led to violent behavior when subjected to the territorial concerns and concentrated populations of the civilized world. The predisposition for protecting the collective community in the hunter-gatherer world transformed into xenophobia in the civilized world.

The book attacks the commonly accepted truths about human nature described in the novel Lord of the Flies , and presents as a counter example a true historical instance of young boys marooned on an island in which successful cooperation was exhibited. Also, a reinterpretation of the true facts surrounding the famous 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese is provided that demonstrates the tendency of news articles to exaggerate and falsify sensational aspects of a story.

Bregman also deconstructs the bad science and/or lazy reportage contained in many famous sociological case studies that have claimed that civilization is but a thin fragile coating protecting us from dangerous human nature. Some of the better known debunked studies are the Stanford Prison experiment and the Milgram experiment. The book also makes the case that the chief motivation for soldiers to fight in war is the spirit of camaraderie, not ideology.

The second part of the book is devoted to proposing ways to structure work, school, and organizations that can utilize true human nature for optimum beneficial results. Many of these example argue that when we expect better, we very often get better. Examples given include an exemplary Norwegian prison, Nelson Mandela and the end of Apartheid in South Africa, challenging playgrounds for children, and unstructured schools.

Bregman repeatedly notes that even though civilization has bred into the human brain a suspicion of people outside of our own group, our prejudices tend to fall away once we come to know those “others.”
“Contact engenders more trust, more solidarity, and more mutual kindness. It helps you see the world through other people’s eyes.”
He also notes that,
“It’s when a crisis hits…that we humans become our best selves.”
Profile Image for Marc.
3,182 reviews1,484 followers
March 6, 2024
I'm going to be honest: while reading this book I regularly was annoyed by the pedantic tone and the naive one-sidedness. Don’t misunderstand me: I find it quite refreshing that Bregman wants to counteract the cynical, pessimistic view of humanity and of current state of affairs, a negative view that is constantly fed by the news media and largely also by social media. But he makes the mistake of wanting to prove that.
His discourse mainly consists of challenging some of the negative prejudices about humanity, for example through quite harsh criticism on famous experiments in the social sciences such as the Milgram experiment or the Stanford Prison experiment, or by debunking myths like the one of the mass murder on Easter Island. His story telling is captivating, in a smooth style and with some excitement as he pretends to be the first one who succeeds in revealing the truth. Quod non: almost no aspect that Bregman touches upon is original, let alone the result of his own fieldwork. On top of that, there’s a lot of cherry-picking involved in the author’s crusade.
Maybe I'm too harsh and I should just appreciate that Bregman firmly questions the so-called “veneer theory”, namely that civilization is but a thin layer that quickly peels off in crisis situations. But from that to the these that this immediately proves that “most people are good” (as the original Dutch title reads) is another matter. I fear that the issue at hand will forever be a question of ‘faith’: either you believe in it or you don't. Because the examples Bregman cites, such as the idyllic prisons in Norway or the advertising campaign that supposedly put an end to the FARC war in Colombia, are not entirely convincing.
Still, I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This book contains some good ideas and proposals that are indeed essential to creating a better world. For example, that the concept of trust is a much better foundation than hate, and that trust can (and should) be made at least as contagious, is a valuable insight. To end: it's a cliché, I know, but you have people who will always think the glass is half empty, and you have people like Bregman who resolutely go for the half-full one. By nature I belong to the latter group (That's why I gave this a 3 stars rating, pretty positive in my rating system). It is perhaps to the credit of this book that it has not shaken my faith in that. Because faith it is!
Profile Image for Liong.
183 reviews205 followers
December 19, 2022
I recommend reading this book if you read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

Another good book. about humankind's history.
Profile Image for Frank Kool.
102 reviews12 followers
January 15, 2020
Op het eerste gezicht lijkt er weinig aan de hand te zijn met DMMD: het is zo'n degelijk theorie-van-alles boek waarin geschiedenis, filosofie, en wetenschap bij elkaar komen. Zo'n leerzame bestseller die je met plezier leest en daarna met trots op de boekenplank legt.
Maar dat beeld verdwijnt snel als je door de eerste hoofdstukken heen bent gekomen. Mein Gott!, wat is de stijl van dit boek een drama. Kort samengevat: dit boek is kinderachtig, sentimenteel, en bevooroordeeld.

Kinderachtig
Ik ben er inmiddels van overtuigd dat Bregman ooit is afgewezen bij de auditie voor presentator van Klokhuis en hij uit frustratie maar boeken is gaan schrijven. De kneuterigheid druipt van iedere bladzijde. Zinnen die beginnen met "Oké" of "Dus ja", die korte zinnetjes overal om het kernwoord van een paragraaf duidelijk te maken. Steeds weer die leidende vragen. "En hoe zit het hiermee? Het antwoord:..." "En wat gebeurde er toen? Toen gebeurde er..."

Er is iets defensief aan de manier waarop Bregman zich tot de lezer richt, alsof hij bang is om te worden ontmaskerd als zo'n saaie, overgeleerde grijsaard die niet weet hoe hij VET COOL MET DE KIDS moet zijn. Als hij er niet omheen kan om over een boek van een wetenschapper te praten lijkt hij de lezer en zichzelf voor al dat academische geweld te willen beschermen. Oef, zo'n vuistdikke pil van maar liefst achthonderd bladzijden, met kleine lettertjes nog wel, en héél véél grafieken en tabellen, je zou er iemand mee dood kunnen slaan! Gelukkig weet Bregman dit monster met anderhalve alinea en een paar voetnoten onderuit te halen. Andere wetenschappelijke publicaties komen er niet beter vanaf. "Stoffig en academisch", zegt hij tot twee keer toe, "niet bepaald een pageturner" lezen we elders. Het boek pretendeert niets minder te zijn dan "Een nieuwe geschiedenis van de mens" maar ondertussen doet de auteur alsof hij een te toffe jongen is om degelijk academisch onderzoek te doen.

Dit geneuzel grenst het hele boek door op het randje van betutteling, een grens die abrupt achter ons wordt gelaten met de volgende zin:
Drie Amerikaanse neurologen zetten in 2014 zowel machtige als niet zo machtige mensen onder een 'transcraniële magnetische stimulatie-machine', een moeilijk woord voor een apparaat waarmee hersenfuncties worden getest.

"Een moeilijk woord voor" is iets wat je tegen een kind in groep 6 zegt, om dit te gebruiken bij volwassenen die voor hun lol geschiedenisboeken lezen is pure minachting voor het publiek.

Sentimenteel
Zoveel in dit boek speelt in op gevoel, op loze empathie. De meest nutteloze toevoegingen aan de tekst zijn de delen waarin Bregman je op de hoogte stelt van wat er in hem omging tijdens zijn onderzoek. "Toen ik mij hier verder in verdiepte werd ik verdrietig", "Toen ik dit las viel mijn mond open van verbazing." Man, rapporteer gewoon de feiten en bewaar de rest voor je dagboek. Alsof hij een parodie van Dan Brown schrijft laat hij herhaaldelijk paragrafen eindigen met dooddoeners als: "Pas toen gebeurde het ondenkbare." (Wat is overigens de functie van het woordje 'pas' in deze zin? Liet het ondenkbare soms al die tijd op zich wachten?). Bregman waarschuwt voor sensatiebeluste media, maar als hij het laatste uur van 'Kitty' Genovese beschrijft zuigt hij het volgende uit zijn duim:
Kitty heeft haast, omdat ze sinds middernacht één jaar verkering heeft met Mary Ann. Kitty verlangt ernaar tegen haar vriendin aan te kruipen.

Dat u het goed begrijpt: dit zou de gedachtengang zijn van iemand die een uur later dood werd aangetroffen. Niemand weet waar Kitty aan dacht toen ze die avond naar huis ging, dit is louter sentimenteel gezwets.

Bevooroordeeld
Halverwege het boek 'bekent' de auteur dat hij er vooraf al op uit was om het cynisch mensdenken te weerleggen (alsof dit nog niet duidelijk was). Bregman is op een missie, en filosofen als Machiavelli en Hobbes, religieuze ideeën als de zonde, en psychologen zoals Zimbardo, Milgram, en Sherif moeten het allemaal ontgelden.

Het contrast tussen Bregmans behandeling van medestanders en tegenstanders is groot. Als het gaat om de eerdergenoemde psychologen haalt hij alles uit de kast om hun methodes in twijfel te trekken. Videobeelden worden bekeken, volledige datasets doorgenomen, deelnemers geïnterviewd, alternatieve verklaringen worden gezocht... Maar gedurende de rest van het boek heen maakt de auteur gretig gebruik van bevindingen uit de sociale psychologie alsof hier sinds de Replicatie Crisis geen vuil luchtje aan zit. Zo lezen we over onderzoeken die aantonen dat managers harder smakken, of dat mensen in een BMW minder voorrang verlenen. Hier wordt alles zondermeer aangenomen; geen streng scepticisme voor wetenschappers die in het voordeel van de deugdzame mens pleiten.

Tegenstrijdig is ook zijn behandeling van het beruchte Stanford Prison Experiment. Dat Zimbardo een charlatan is en dat sommige deelnemers acteerden, is aannemelijk. Maar wat is het nut van deze weerlegging als er in een later hoofdstuk wordt gepleit dat de meeste mensen deugen, maar dat macht corrumpeert (lees: precies wat Zimbardo beargumenteerde)? Ook de conclusie van Nelson Mandela (hoofdstuk 17) lijkt aan te sluiten op wat Zimbardo beweerde: volgens Mandela waren zijn bewakers gewoon mensen zoals jij en ik, die door het systeem waren verpest.

Dubbelzinnig is ook zijn behandeling van het christendom. Deze is schuldig aan het cynische mensbeeld door diens nadruk op de zonde, tegelijkertijd wordt de Bergrede van Jezus tot twee keer toe aangehaald om het idealistische mensbeeld te onderstrepen.

In de latere hoofdstukken neemt de kwaliteit iets toe, maar verwacht hier niet te veel van. Ieder hoofdstuk leest als het script van een TED-talk: hartverwarmende anekdotes, idealistische beloftes, verhalen die je wereldbeeld op de kop moeten zetten. Op een gegeven moment waagt Bregman zich aan een voorzichtige verdediging van “het verboden c-woord” (communisme). Het valt buiten de reikwijdte van een recensie om hier inhoudelijk op in te gaan, laat ik het erbij houden dat de auteur het verschil tussen communisme, socialisme, en marxisme niet begrepen heeft.

De slotsom
Kinderachtig, sentimenteel, en bevooroordeeld. Als je over deze drie tekortkomingen heen kijkt is er niet veel wat het boek nog de moeite waard maakt. Er zijn genoeg auteurs binnen het genre die zoveel meer kwaliteit te bieden hebben. Als je bestsellers van bijvoorbeeld Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Bill Bryson, Yuval Harari, en Jared Diamond hebt gelezen valt er in DMMD weinig nieuws te ontdekken.

Laat ik deze recensie afsluiten in de stijl van Bregman, met een leidende vraag en een flauwe toespeling:

"Dus, hoe zit het nu met dat gekke boek? Het antwoord: het deugt niet."
Profile Image for Henk.
918 reviews
May 22, 2020
Meeslepend, verassend en leest als een trein; de boodschap is mooi maar soms miste ik in het laatste stuk van dit boek de nuance - 3.5 ster
Cynisme is een ander woord voor luiheid.

Algemeen
Wat we geloven, is wat we worden. - We worden wat we onderwijzen.
Rutger Bregman pakt in De meeste mensen deugen ons mensbeeld vast en toont dat er op veel van de toonaangevende onderzoeken uit de jaren 60 veel af te dingen is. In de economie is het beeld van de rationele (ofwel de inhalige en egoïstische) mens al langer aan erosie onderhevig. De aanpak die Bregman gebruikt lijkt een beetje op die van Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, beginnend met de vroege geschiedenis van de mens en wat de wetenschap zegt over ons gedrag in nomadische samenlevingen. De visie van een oerstaat, waar het iedereen tegen iedereen was, wordt deels gelogenstraft, maar duidelijk is dat met de sedentaire vestiging de conflicten toenamen.

De wetenschap opnieuw bekeken
Er lijkt geen of zelfs een negatief verband te zijn, concludeerden de onderzoekers, tussen het nieuws en de realiteit.
Kern van het boek is het herbekijken van een aantal iconische onderzoeken, wat wel laat zien dat in sociale wetenschappen aantrekkelijke verhalen veel beter blijft hangen dan latere ontkrachting en nuancering. Ook het nieuws, in relatie tot de realiteit, wordt kritisch onder de loep genomen.

Het echte Lord of Flies verhaal uit Tonga (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) is hartverwarmend en laat ook zien dat Bregman flink in het onderzoek naar het onderwerp is gedoken, hoe anekdotisch het ook is.

Het vossen domesticering programma en dat huisdieren socialer en beter in communiceren zijn in plaats van dommer dan hun wilde soortgenoten is ook fascinerend.

Het Stanford Prisoner Experiment en het Milgram expirement met de elektroshocks worden beide ontkracht, waar dit boek als een introductie tot wetenschapsfilosofie/statistische onderzoeksmethoden voelt qua slechte set up van de onderzoeken.

Hoe legers de grootste moeite hebben hun troepen op elkaar te laten schieten en hoe de meeste doden vallen door lange afstand wapens en artillerie, terwijl bajonetten nauwelijks gebruikt worden.

Vragen die blijven
Waar we keer op keer op stuiten, zei een collega van Hamlin, is dat baby’s het gemene individu met dezelfde smaak prefereren boven het aardige individu met een andere mening.

Bregman sluit zijn ogen niet voor het feit dat onze geweldige mogelijkheden tot samenleving samengaan met een ingebouwde bias tegen de "ander". Maar vooral in de laatste hoofdstukken, over kleinschalige alternatieven voor de zorg, het gevangeniswezen, kleinschalige directe democratie en terrorisme bestrijding kwam er steeds meer een ongemakkelijk gevoel bij me naar boven.

Als intrinsieke motivatie zo krachtig en game changing is, waarom zijn dat dan gevoelsmatig zo vaak nog uitzonderingen en niet de norm. Win win win zou in onze kapitalistische samenleving net zo goed boven moeten komen drijven? En waarom adresseren we een probleem als klimaatverandering zo slecht als we gemiddeld allemaal deugen?

De laatste hoofdstukken vond ik een beetje zoet en herhalend. Zeker kan de balans meer verschuiven naar een op vertrouwen gestoeld mensbeeld maar ik denk dat er een continuum is, en dat de spreekwoordelijke "slider" niet volledig naar de andere zijde kan, om uitwassen te voorkomen.

En waarom proberen systemen zichzelf zo in stand te houden, systemen bestaan tenslotte uit mensen (die voor het grootste deel deugen)? En ergens halverwege komen we op de conclusie dat macht corrumpeert, waarom is dat zo als onze aard is om een “puppy” te zijn en samen te werken?

Waarom ook is ons nomadisch verleden meer relevant dan ons duidelijk tumultueuze sedentaire bestaan?

Allemaal vragen die in het meeslepende verhaal van Bregman niet terugkomen en me uiteindelijk het boek 3,5 ster doen geven.
Profile Image for صان.
413 reviews285 followers
January 21, 2022
بعد از خوندن این کتاب نتونستم ریویو شایسته‌ای براش بنویسم. شاید برای این که خیلی زیاد بود و خیلی چیز توش بود و من نمی‌تونستم سر جمع‌شون کنم. فکر می‌کردم اگر صبر کنم اوکی می‌شه. ولی نشد و الان خیلی گذشته و حیفه که برای این کتاب هیچی ننویسم.

این کتاب بسیار خواندنی و عالی بود به نظر من. تئوری این کتاب اینه که مهربانی کردن، علت تکامل ما بوده. ما مهربان و اهلی بودیم که تونستیم به جایی که الان هستیم برسیم. و ذات ما کلا خوبه و میل ما به مهربانی و همکاریه. برای این ادعاش از تاریخ و تکامل شروع می‌کنه، از روباه‌هایی می‌گه که وقتی اهلی‌تر می‌شن باهوش‌تر می‌شن، اجتماعی‌تر می‌شن و از مدارک دیگه. بعد میاد می‌گه پس مشاهدات ما چی می‌شه؟
چرا زندان استنفورد مردم رو اینطور به جون هم انداخت؟ حرفش اینه که اون آزمایش اصلا شیوه صحیح علمی نداشته. طوری طراحی شده بوده که جالب باشه و برای همین شرکت‌کنندگان رو جهت می‌داده به این سمت که خشونت اعمال کنن.
یا مثلا می‌گه اگر آدم‌ها رو یه جا بذاریم با منابع محدود، شروع نمی‌کنن به کشتن همدیگه و غارت و جنگل. برای همه اینا دلیل میاره و از ادعاش دفاع می‌کنه.
نظریه نیست، ادعاست، ولی به نظر من به خوبی ازش دفاع می‌کنه و خوندنش واقعا دید جدیدی به انسان می‌ده.
من هم تا قبل از این فکر می‌کردم که انسان ذاتا خودخواهه و حرف‌های این‌شکلی. ولی این کتاب نظرمو عوض کرد و تونست تا حدودی منو قانع کنه. قطعا اگر عمری باشه باز هم این کتاب رو می‌خونم و با دقت بیشتری استدلال‌هاش رو بررسی می‌کنم. بار اول که چنین کتابی رو می‌خونم صرفا می‌فهمم چی می‌گه. برای این که به دیدگاهی انتقادی نسبت بهش برسم باید باز هم بخونمش و این کتاب به نظرم اونقدر ارزشمند هست که بخوام دوباره زمان پاش بذارم.

درضمن خوندنش به شدت لذت‌بخشه و شیرین. همیشه توصیه‌ش می‌کنم.

پ.ن: الان کتابی می‌خونم به اسم «جهش اجتماعی» که توی اون می‌گه اجتماعی بودن و همکاری عامل اصلی جهش ما و برتری ما نسبت به گونه‌های دیگه بوده. این کتاب هم می‌شه گفت در راستای همین کتاب «آدمی» است و خوندن این دو در کنار هم عیش مدامیست که روشنگری خوبی هم داره.
Profile Image for Rhian Pritchard.
379 reviews82 followers
June 1, 2020
This book has taken me nearly two months to read, not because it was difficult to read (it’s not, it’s beautifully written and translated) but because the ideas required quite so long to process fully. I don’t know if anyone has spoken to me in the last two months and NOT had me recommend this book to them wholeheartedly, even when I was only about a hundred pages in. It is like reading a book that confirms and reinforces, through meticulous research, discussion and sourcing, a secret truth I have wanted to believe, deep down, all along. But it took these two months, and I imagine much longer still, to begin dismantling the ideas society has ingrained in me. I can’t write a good review of this book because it would essentially mean rewriting the book. I have nothing to add, nothing further to discuss. I just want to put it in people’s hands and let it change their lives.

And I believe Rutger Bregman is right - it is easy to be a cynic, to scoff and scorn kindness. It’s hard to be kind because it means taking responsibility - it means believing that your actions are worthwhile, when it is easier to believe that there is no point in trying, the world’s fucked anyway. I dare you to believe that it’s not true. I dare you to be an optimist - or as Rutger Bregman would have it, a realist.

This is a challenging book to read. It does not shy away from the darker sides of humanity. But it is ultimately hopeful, and the more people begin to change their minds and believe that humans are not inherently bad, the better.
Profile Image for Anniebananie.
579 reviews465 followers
January 31, 2021
Als ich durch Zufall auf dieses Buch gestoßen bin, hat mich der Klappentext sofort neugierig gemacht. Bregman´s Hypothese, dass der Mensch im Grunde gut ist, fand ich spannend, da man doch meist eher den konträren Gedanken hegt und pflegt. Daher hoffte ich, dass dieses Buch in einer doch eher tragischen und schwierigen Zeit der Menschheit einem vielleicht Hoffnung geben kann.
Anhand meiner Bewertung könnt ihr es schon vermuten: es hat mir Hoffnung gegeben. Bregman stützt seine Hypothese anhand von Beispielen und Studien aus der bisherigen Geschichte der Menschheit. Das Buch bietet dabei eine, für mich super interessante, Mischung aus Geschichte, Psychologie und Philosophie. Eine für mich vollkommen neue Art von Buch, aber es konnte mich von Anfang an fesseln. Da das Buch super strukturiert aufgebaut ist und auch nicht unnötig kompliziert geschrieben ist, konnte man dem Erzählten stets gut folgen. So manch Geschichte/Anekdote brachte mich auch zum Schmunzeln, aber vor allem die Studien, Fakten und Zahlen haben es mir angetan.
Ich für meinen Teil konnte so einiges aus diesem Buch mitnehmen und es hat mich nachhaltig zum Nachdenken angeregt und wird mich wohl so schnell auch nicht mehr loslassen. Auch weiß ich jetzt schon, dass ich dieses Buch definitiv irgendwann noch einmal lesen werde.
Profile Image for Krista.
1,448 reviews696 followers
June 4, 2020
An idealist can be right her whole life, and still be dismissed as naive. This book is intended to change that. Because what seems unreasonable, unrealistic, and impossible today, can turn out to be inevitable tomorrow. It is time for a new realism. It is time for a new view of humankind.

With the subtitle “A Hopeful History”, Humankind is exactly the kind of optimistic read I think I needed right now. With so much negative going on, I keep hearing, “What do you expect? People are the worst, a plague on the Earth!” And not only does that not solve anything, but it's so fatalistic as to suggest that nothing short of total human extinction could solve anything. With this new review of human history, Rutger Bregman not only busts a bunch of myths (and especially those based on social science experiments) about how rotten we humans are at the core, but by adding in stories of human decency and exploring some better ways of setting up entrenched institutions, Bregman shines a light on a more hopeful way forward. If the “nocebo effect” (If we believe most people can't be trusted, that's how we'll treat each other, to everyone's detriment) is as powerful as Bregman suggests, then a book like this that proves that humans are not basically evil is the first step towards building the society that works better for everyone. Just what I needed. (Note: I read an ARC from NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

There is a persistent myth that by their very nature, humans are selfish, aggressive, and quick to panic. It's what Dutch biologist Frans de Waal likes to call “Veneer theory”: the notion that civilization is nothing more than a thin veneer that will crack at the merest provocation. In actuality, the opposite is true. It's when crisis hits – when the bombs fall or the floodwaters rise – that we humans become our best selves.

For most of this study, Bregman reviews what famous thinkers, philosophers, social psychology researchers, and recent pop historians have written; often finding source material that contradicts what we've been led to believe their evidence shows. Bregman starts with the opposite philosophical poles of Hobbes (“The man who asserted that civil society alone could save us from our baser instincts”) and Rousseau (“Who declared that in our heart of hearts we're all good” and that “'civilization' is what ruins us”). Bregman decidedly comes out on the side of Rousseau (and from more recent times, on the side of Yuval Noah Harari of Sapiens fame), who all believe that the dawn of agriculture was the downfall of happy human co-existence (and Bregman even takes issue with Steven Pinker and his hopeful books about how violence has decreased over time because, according to Bregman, there's zero evidence to support the widely accepted idea that nomadic/hunter-gatherer societies were anything but peaceful). To counter the dim, but popular, view of uncontrolled humanity in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Bregman recounts the true story of a group of six Tongan boys who survived on a deserted island for over a year by creating a totally egalitarian society; to dispute the notion that men are jingoistic warmongers, he shares the incredible stats about how few soldiers in the major wars actually fired their weapons; to try and explain why it was the comparatively weak and smaller brained Homo sapiens who survived out of several competing hominids in prehistory, Bregman uses a recent study on the domestication of foxes to suggest that it came down to “survival of the friendliest”. If nothing else, Humankind is a fascinating and wide-ranging collection of stories.

I'm going to be honest. Originally, I wanted to bring Milgram's experiments crashing down. When you're writing a book that champions the good in people, there are several big challengers on your list. William Golding and his dark imagination. Richard Dawkins and his selfish gene. Jared Diamond and his demoralizing tale of Easter Island. And of course Philip Zimbardo, the world's most well-known psychologist. But topping my list was Stanley Milgram. I know of no other study as cynical, as depressing, and at the same time as famous as his experiments at the shock machine.

So, not only does Bregman confront Golding, Diamond, and Dawkins (actually, although I had never heard this, apparently Dawkins has disavowed his early notion of the “selfish gene”), but Bregman also spends a lot of the book writing about Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram's shock experiments. I remember learning about Zimbardo and Milgram in more than one Psych course – as they both demonstrated something fundamentally awful and important about us humans – but I don't remember ever being told that Zimbardo was basically a fraud who manipulated his process and his results (but sure loved the fame that followed) and it hasn't become commonly known that while, yes, test subjects under Milgram were convinced to administer ever-increasing levels of painful shocks to unseen confederates of the experimenter, the results are much more nuanced than that (for example, subjects uniformly refused to continue if they were ordered to administer the shock instead of being encouraged to do it for the good of the experiment; believing that they were being helpful caused most to continue, against their own better natures, in the name of doing something good for society at large). Apparently, these experiments are still being taught because they seem to confirm what we all know – that people are just this thin veneer of civilisation away from brutality – and that's why we don't trust each other, and that's why we allow our governments to use lethal force against other countries and our own fellow citizens.

Myths are so insidious. I remember reading somewhere recently something like, “What do you think that dude on Easter Island was thinking as he cut down his island's last tree? Could he not see that he was literally cutting down his own civilisation?” This was written in the context of climate change – and why are humans so self-interested as to continue to do those specific things that will lead to our own doom – so it was fascinating to me to read here that, although deforestation is the accepted explanation for the collapse of the Easter Island society, Bregman didn't need to dig too deeply into the evidence to discover that the islanders didn't cut down their vast forests (as Malcolm Gladwell reported and which everyone then accepted as fact) to the very last tree, but that an invasive tree rat was carried to Easter Island on Peruvian slave ships: slavers took the healthiest people and unknowingly left the rats (which had no natural predator on the island) and of course their civilisation collapsed.

Other myths that deserve to be broken: The “bystander effect”. We've probably all heard about the murder of Kitty Genovese – killed on the doorstep of her NYC apartment building while thirty-some people watched and figured someone else would call the cops – but it turns out that her murder didn't happen that way (and when someone tried to correct the official account, the leading article's writer at The New York Times refused, saying that positive details would ruin the story). Also, the “broken windows” theory of crime control: Sure, the stats for serious crime went down when this practise was adopted in NYC, but it turns out that undue pressure was put on beat cops to make massive arrests for small misdemeanors and to discourage the reporting of major crimes (and apparently it was Zimbardo, once again, who did the one flawed experiment that served as the basis for this theory?) And also the notion that mass incarceration is the only way to deal with criminals because softer rehab options don't work (the sociologist who inspired this practise, Robert Martinson, eventually killed himself when he saw how his conclusions were applied; apparently, this former civil rights activist wanted to prove that all punishment was ineffective and “everyone would realize prisons were pointless places and should all be shut down”.)

And why these myths matter today: As Bregman notes, the broken window strategy for policing is a racist system:

Data show that a mere 10 percent of people picked up for misdemeanors are white. Meanwhile, there are black teens that get stopped and frisked on a monthly basis – for years – despite never having committed an offense. Broken windows has poisoned relations between law enforcement and minorities, saddled untold poor with fines they can't pay, and also had fatal consequences, as in the case of Eric Garner, who died in 2014 while being arrested for allegedly selling loose cigarettes.

In an earlier story, Bregman recounts the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina – when, despite terrible newstories of opportunistic murders, rape, and looting – it turns out that most residents acted with “courage and charity”. Even so, first responders were also hearing the stories of a city in chaos – the thin veneer had been breached and 72,000 troops were called in – and “on Danziger Bridge on the city's east side, police opened fire on six innocent, unarmed African Americans, killing a seventeen-year-old boy and a mentally disabled man of forty”. The myths we tell ourselves about human nature matter, and more insidiously, we shouldn't allow the myths perpetuated by trauma-hungry media (or other entrenched institutions) form the entirety of our perceived reality.

Could this be the thing that the Enlightenment – and, by extension, our modern society – gets wrong? That we continually operate on a mistaken model of human nature? We saw that some things can become true merely because we believe in them – that pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. When modern economists assumed that people are innately selfish, they advocated policies that fostered self-serving behavior. When politicians convinced themselves that politics is a cynical game, that's exactly what it became. So now we have to ask: Could things be different? Can we use our heads and harness rationality to design new institutions? Institutions that operate on a wholly different view of human nature? What if schools and businesses, cities and nations expect the best of people instead of presuming the worst?

In the last section of Humankind, Bregman tells the stories of various institutions (a factory, a school, a healthcare service, a prison, a municipal government) that found ways to do away with bureaucracy and middle managers, and instead, empowered individuals to follow in the direction of their own instincts and motivation. His examples sound Utopian – if you treat people like they're good and smart enough to do things right, they will – but they don't sound universally applicable; still, it was hopeful to end on such an optimistic note. Maybe we'll get there.

I wrote about a lot here, but the book contains even more stories, experiments, and busted myths. I suppose because it contains so much, Bregman couldn't follow every strand out to my full satisfaction, and I found some of his quirks annoying (and especially, after suggesting we thrived through survival of the friendliest, Bregman continually refers to humanity as “Homo puppy”; dumb), but the good far outweighs the quibblesome; four stars is a rounding up.
Profile Image for 8stitches 9lives.
2,856 reviews1,654 followers
May 20, 2020
Rutger Bregman returns with one of the most anticipated nonfiction titles of the year. What makes this such a fantastic read is that it is equal parts fascinating and informative; many such books can be dry and tedious but Humankind avoids those pitfalls by employing a highly readable writing style to entice you to carry on turning the pages well into the night. At its heart, this is a book about human nature and on the whole is optimistic about life. I found it different from what I would usually read as I am quite the cynic and it has taught me interesting anecdotal tidbits I will remember. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC.
Profile Image for Mohamadreza Moshfeghi.
92 reviews24 followers
January 21, 2023
انسان به ذات ودرفعل وعمل خود،مشتاق خیرومهراست.
این جمله خلاصه ��عصاره تمام کتاب روتخر برخمان پژوهشگر هلندی در حوزه جامعه شناسی وشهروندی است.
در قرون گذشته و براساس نظریه و باور اکثر فیلسوفان ومتفکران غربی همچون توماس هابز انسان دارای خصلت سودجویی و ونفع شخصی ومتمایل به شرهست واگر در جایی وزمانی در طول حیات و جوامع بشری اعمال مهرورزی وکمک به همنوع کرده در جهت التیام وتسکین موقتی درون خویش هست وبویی از انسانیت وسرشت پاک نبرده است.
در مقابل این فرضیه وباور،گروهی اندکی از فیلسوفان همچون ژان ژاک روسو معتقد و باور داشتند که انسان واعمال او درطول تاریخ بشر واز بدو تولد به سمت مهربانی و سرشت پاک ونیکی سوق وتمایل دارد.
نوی��نده با بیان این دونظریه وبررسی اتفاقات مهم وتاثیر گذار در طول تاریخ مانند صلح موقت در کریسمس ١٩١٥ و در میدان جنگ بین ارتش بریتانیا و آلمان در بحبوحه جنگ جهانی اول، واقعه آشویتس وبررسی روانشناسی عاملان دستور این جنایت هولناک،اتحاد احزاب و گروههای سیاسی آفریقای جنوبی به رهبری ماندلا در آخرین سالهای قرن بیستم وبسیار موارد دیگر با منابع و رفرنس های نسبتاً معتبر فرضیه و باور نیک ورزی ومهرانسان را حقیقی وواقعی می داند. همچنین با بیان موارد ومثال های تاریخی وتکراری زیادی نشان می دهد که صاحبان سرمایه و سران شبکه های خبری و پوشش اخبار در طول تاریخ به علت سودجویی ونفع خود به اخبار شر وجنگ و هراس آور؛ به این گونه خبرها و رویدادها رنگ ولعابی بیشتری می دهند.
کتاب در مبحث روانشناسی تاریخی وجامعه شناسی خواندنی و ارزشمند است وانسان را به ساختن آینده ای بهتر و زیستن درآن تشویق می کند وکمک می کند به آدمی از زاویه ای دیگر نگاه کنیم.
Profile Image for Susy.
884 reviews148 followers
June 2, 2020
1.5 stars
Never been happier to finish a book!
"What we look for is what we'll find", says Bregman. Hmm, could that be the case with his book and his "research"? He seems to want to sell his idea so (too) badly that he foregoes any scrutiny or nuance. There are a lot more points of criticism and I did start to write them all down, but my list was getting too long so I stopped. Besides, there are some excellent reviews already (be it in Dutch):
Bou's review
Lieke's review
Daniëlle's review
Amber's review

I mean, I can understand that people like this book, the optimistic message and I hope that some will be positively influenced (so therefore I give it 1.5 stars, rounding it up to 2). I suspect though that this will be the case mainly for the people who already have a positive view of the world and people. It is just too positive and not enough nuanced to be convincing for those who aren't convinced already.
Profile Image for Tom Quinn.
578 reviews190 followers
December 19, 2022
3.5 stars. Soothing balm for cynical bastards.

Look for the bad and that's all you'll see. Look for the good and you'll find it.
Profile Image for Alish.
112 reviews58 followers
December 13, 2022
احتمالا یکی از منفی‌ترین ریویوهاییه که تا حالا نوشتم:
این کتاب تاریخ نیست
بیشتر یه کتاب انگیزشیه که یه مقدار مثال از گذشته هم داره
حرف نویسنده اینه که انسان بالذات خوبه و اگر به نظر ما اینطور نیست به این خاطره که از دید اشتباهی به قضیه نگاه میکنیم و رسانه‌های جمعی، سیاستمدارهای خودخواه و غیره هم به این نگاه دامن زدند
من درباره نتیجه‌گیری و اصل حرف نویسنده نظری ندارم هر چند خیلی باهاش همدل نیستم
اما مشکل من با این نیست بلکه با استدلال‌ها و نحوه مواجهه نویسنده با موضوعاتیه که قراره بهش بپردازه
نویسنده سعی کرده در کتابی که به زور 500 صفحه هم نیست گونه بشر رو رفتارشناسی کنه
اما این لقمه بشدت بزرگتر از دهنشه
مسائلی که در کتاب مطرح شده در یک کلمه "سطحی" هستند
نویسنده مرتبا سعی داره با زدن یه سری مثال‌های خاص اونا رو به تمام جنبه‌های رفتار انسانی تعمیم بده و نقش عوامل دیگه رو کلا نادیده بگیره
بماند که خود این مثال‌ها دچار اشکالات عدیده هستند
بعضی از بیخ پرت‌اند (برای مثال عدم موفقیت نازی‌ها برای کشتار کامل یهودیان دانمارک)، بعضی مغالطه‌آمیزاند و بعضی هم کمی تغییر داده شدند تا با
نتیجه‌گیری نویسنده تطبیق پیدا کنند (برای مثال روایت نویسنده از آزمایش میلگرام)
جالب اینجاست که نویسنده خودش هم در چند جای کتاب تلویحا اشاره میکنه که نتیجه رو گرفته و بعد براش دنبال شواهد گشته
این وسط‌ها گاهی گریزی هم به روسو میزنه و فریاد "آی پیدایش حکومت و مالکیت خصوصی ما را بیچاره کرد" سر میده
در آخر هم یه "ده فرمان" (جدی) ارائه میده که باهاش زندگی‌مون بهتر میشه
حقیقتش دیگه ده فرمان رو تا آخر نخوندم
همه این‌ها رو بگذارید در کنار اینکه نویسنده هیچ تلاشی نکرده حداقل لحن جانبدارانه نداشته باشه کما اینکه طبیعتا تلاشی برای برشمردن و تحلیل استدلال مخالفین هم نکرده (خیلی کم بهش پرداخته اما همه "استرا من" هست یعنی استدلال مخالفین رو به احمقانه‌ترین سطح کاهش داده و بعد اونو رد کرده)
حالا بعد این همه نفرت‌پراکنی :) آیا کتاب نکته مثبتی هم داره؟ آره دو سه داستان خوب هم داخلش گنجونده شده که خب فکر کنم شما در همون تایم یه نوشته دیگه رو بخونید احتمالش زیاده که همین نصیب‌تون بشه
در مجموع خوشحالم کتاب رو از طاقچه گرفتم و پول کمی بابتش دادم وگرنه اگر به قیمت پشت جلد گرفته بودم واقعا خودم رو فحش میدادم
Profile Image for Ray.
Author 17 books352 followers
January 15, 2023
I really needed this, something hopeful and backed by data as a reason to be optimistic about the world...

Bregman offers a strong argument that the cynical default state we are so accustomed to in media is not actually true. Stories of drama and conflict and misery might be more interesting, but not in fact good representations of human nature.

From debunking famous studies, to showcasing many more lesser-known ones, it's important to understand that it's not all grim. A lot of history going back to hunter-gatherer era and the whole Hobbes & Rousseau debate. One interesting term on evolved friendliness would be 'homo puppy'

Overall, it's key to remember that humans are cooperative by nature. Not competitive. Don't trust those leaders who say otherwise!
Profile Image for Babywave.
232 reviews101 followers
January 14, 2023
Ich habe das Buch extrem gerne gelesen. Gerade in Zeiten von unendlichen Krisen und schlimmen Kriegen, tut es der Seele gut, auch von Positivbeispielen ( wohl bemerkt : wissenschaftlich nachgewiesenen Positivbeispielen) zu lesen. Mir hat es so manches Mal das Herz und die Augen ein Stück weiter geöffnet. 💚💚💚💚. Ich werde es immer im Hinterkopf behalten 🙏🏻 Von mir eine Leseempfehlung ❤️
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