Book Review: Humankind, a Hopeful Story
What happens when a group of children is stranded on an uninhabited island for years on end? Will they work together to overcome the many dangers of the wilds? Or will they revert to some state of nature, a Hobbesian competition of all against all, whereby their true nature is revealed and they submit each other to the most cruel treatment imaginable? If you think that the latter is the most probable scenario, like a sort of real-life ‘Lord of the Flies’, then there is a fair chance that the book ‘Humankind: A Hopeful Story’ by Rutger Bregman will open your eyes. Instead of what most people would assume as the default, the former scenario is most likely what would actually happen, at least according to Bregman. What does he base this claim on? Well, unlike the ‘Lord of the Flies’ this actually happened once (Read more about this amazing story here). It is far from the only he example he mentions. He talks about experiments that purport to have proven that civilisation is nothing more than a thin layer that disappears once our survival is at stake, or when we are put under immense pressure (‘Veneer theory’).
A famous example of these is the Stanford prison experiment, whereby two groups of students were separated into prisoners and prison guards. The general idea was to simulate a prison environment, with the guards in total control over the prisoners, who were humiliated, reduced to a number, and put behind bars. The guards were free to do whatever they wanted. This got out of hand to such an extent – with physical and mental abuse and torture – that the experiment was cut short. The true nature of man was revealed, the researchers of this enormously influential experiment concluded. Only what turned out to be case? It is full of falsehoods.
During this experiment results were omitted or made up, guards got specific instructions on how to treat the prisoners and knew what results the research had to achieve, and almost the entire time participants were aware of the fact that the entire situation was not real. In other words, the guards saw themselves as research assistants, trying to get the best results for the researchers. Furthermore, the prisoners were not allowed to quit the experiment unless they were in medical or mental peril, resulting in at least one prisoner pretending to have a mental breakdown.
Another infamous example of the evil that is supposed to be deeply rooted inside of us, is the Milgram experiment. During this experiment participants administered shocks to someone, and a shocking— pardon the pun – two-thirds of participants went all the way to the maximum of 450 Volts. The shocks were not real, but they did not know that. Clearly our inner sadist was unleashed by being put in this position of power, right? Again, the truth turned out to be quite different.
Most participants of the experiment said that they were glad to have participated, convinced to have made an important contribution to science, as the researchers had repeatedly told them. When a participant wanted to quit, they were told things like “You have no other choice, you must continue.”, “it is essential, that you continue.”, and “we’ll have to discontinue the experiment.” Also, some people apparently had figured out that the whole thing was not real. So instead of people wanting to purposely hurt another living being, they either were convinced that they were contributing to something good or they knew that it was fake.
At this point the screams of internet forums become deafening: What about the Holocaust? Wars, terrorism, abuse, Trump, you name it. Bregman recognises the horror of these events and goes to seek an explanation. Eventually, he finds one: our cruelty and hatred towards one another is not the result of our rotten nature that is always just below the surface, he claims, but the result of our innate ability to care so much. The homo sapiens is a homo puppy as it were, able to do anything for those he loves. In other words, it is a sort of shadow side to our immense capacity for love and empathy. For me personally, the most astonishing thing I read was that most (80-85%) of the guns in wars like the American Revolution or the World Wars were not fired. Even though the methodology behind these statistics are doubted by some, and claims like ‘many soldiers do not aim to hit’ are difficult to verify, the American army leadership took them very seriously. The inner resistance against killing another creature had to be conquered. They succeeded. During training, soldiers were made to practise on moving targets instead of static ones and to form formed deeper bonds so that they would more readily kill to protect each other. In fact, Bregman names the latter as one of the prime reasons that the German army had a higher hit rate. In subsequent wars, the number of hits have gone up. Interestingly, there are studies that link post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the increased hit ratios. Whatever you may conclude from all this, the fact that soldiers have to be trained to kill, and the ways in which the distances to enemies (and thereby their humanity) have been increasing due to the introduction of aerial bombings, rockets, and drones, makes it hard to not at least acknowledge there that the claims have some merit. Later studies have confirmed the original findings. In order to enable you to draw your own conclusions, I will mention a few studies that have researched conflicts from the American Civil war up to modern wars like those in Vietnam and the Falklands: Acts of War: Behavior of Men in Battle (Richard Holmes), Battle Studies (Charles Jean Jacques Joseph Ardant Du Picq), Battle Tactics of the Civil War (Paddy Griffith). From a psychological perspective, history of warfare can basically be seen as the development of the most efficient ways to overcome people’s aversion to killing.
You do not have to agree with all the explanations that Bregman gives to see that he is able to make a convincing case for a new way of looking at our fellow humans. The conclusion? We should not always assume the worst in each other, because that will increase the likelihood that you are right. A sort of placebo effect, but then the other way around. A nocebo effect, he calls it. What does he mean by this? Take education. Research has shown that children of which we have higher expectations perform better. I can confirm that this is exactly what happens from my own experiences as a teacher. The same is true for the reverse; when we expect less or even nothing from certain children, they perform worse. Therefore, Bregman makes the argument that we should all view humanity in a more positive light. Firstly because the many examples that he discusses seem to suggest that this is more realistic, and secondly because this view becomes more realistic when we do this, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
The book is an easy read and because of the analyses of so many examples you can read it in short bursts without losing the thread. Recommended for anyone interested in what makes us humans tick, or if you are looking for a way of looking at humans that is different from the belief imbued in our culture that every person is a homo economicus that constantly acts out of self-interest and therefore needs to be kept under control with rules and laws.
Note: This post was first published on www.criticalconsent.com.