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When Dutch historian Rutger Bregman was writing his new book, he probably didn鈥檛 think it would come out in the midst of a global pandemic, as well as a storm of anti-racist protests and violent police responses flooding city streets around the world. Perhaps it would have given him pause. In a world gripped by fear, anger, and divisiveness, it鈥檚 an interesting time to release Humankind: A Hopeful History (Little, Brown, 2020), a book championing the 鈥渞adical鈥� idea that most people are generally decent.

Western philosophy is often seen as two ideas separated by a yawning chasm. On one side stands Thomas Hobbes, famed for his description of natural human life as 鈥渘asty, brutish, and short,鈥� who believed that human nature is fundamentally bad and that our inherent flaws can only be overcome by submission to a ruling authority. On the other side, Jean-Jacques Rousseau maintained that humans are inherently good, and it was civilization that corrupted us, not the other way around. Thus far, there has been a clear frontrunner in this debate鈥攚hile Rousseau鈥檚 work remains influential, it is Hobbes鈥� view of human nature that has served as the foundation of modern society. The idea that people must be corrected and controlled is the basis for the social contract upon which we build the laws, prisons, and police forces that make up our justice systems and the cutthroat capitalism that guides our economies. It is written throughout history and retold to each subsequent generation as a reminder: Never forget the horrors of which humanity is capable if left to its own ends.

In Humankind (which at one point was going to be titled Rousseau Was Right), Bregman sets out to puncture those stories. In one of his most dramatic reveals, excerpted in The Guardian, he refutes William Golding鈥檚 Lord of the Flies by tracking down a group of Tongan children who actually were stranded on an island. But the scope of his 鈥渉opeful history鈥� is much broader than a single work of fiction. According to Bregman鈥檚 research, our success as a species is due to our being the cutest and friendliest of the hominids. The Indigenous people of Easter Island did not destroy themselves with deforestation and cannibalism. Kitty Genovese was not murdered in front of 38 witnesses who saw and did nothing, and the famed Stanford Prison Experiment is a hoax. Even the Nazis, Bregman says, fought to the bitter end, not for the sake of Hitler鈥檚 twisted ideology, but for friendship and camaraderie鈥攁nd the majority of soldiers in any war are attempting to actively avoid killing anyone. Bregman鈥檚 radical idea, as it turns out, isn鈥檛 just that people are decent. It鈥檚 that all the well-known Western parables that supposedly prove our inherent evil are either disproved by modern science or were falsified from the beginning.

It鈥檚 a compelling case, though many people in the current political climate might have their doubts given the rising tides of racism, White nationalism, and fascism. To his credit, Bregman takes on objections directly, attempting to use science to demonstrate that the sense of community that helped humans take over the globe also makes us prone to xenophobia; that the acquisition of power damages our ability to empathize; and that the doctrine of our inherent selfishness has been drilled into us since the Enlightenment. Our negative view of human nature is a self-fulfilling prophecy, passed down by leaders whose power has made them forget their own humanity, and who retain power by convincing the rest of us to forget our own. 鈥淚deas are never merely ideas,鈥� Bregman writes. 鈥淲e are what we believe. We find what we go looking for. And what we predict, comes to pass.鈥�

鈥淚deas are never merely ideas,鈥� Bregman writes. 鈥淲e are what we believe. We find what we go looking for. And what we predict, comes to pass.鈥�

All well and good, but what can we do about that now? The book鈥檚 final section would likely be of interest to anyone protesting racial injustice, especially in America. Bregman debunks the 鈥渂roken windows鈥� theory that was used to justify the racist empowerment and audacity of the police in the 1990s, and he provides examples of Norwegian prisons that stand as dramatic alternatives to the corrupt American prison system. But despite being a book about radical ideas, Humankind may not be radical enough. Bregman flirts with an anti-capitalist argument, but backs away, instead homing in on Alaska鈥檚 Permanent Fund Dividend as a bridge between capitalism and communism. While the logical conclusion of Rousseau鈥檚 idea of inherent human goodness is social anarchist theory, Bregman prefers to discuss isolated instances of participatory democracy, and abruptly narrows his scope to the individual with a decidedly strange epilogue titled, 鈥淭en Rules to Live By.鈥� While a historical case for human goodness certainly challenges the institutions of the status quo, Humankind stops short of being truly revolutionary.

However, Bregman鈥檚 core argument isn鈥檛 invalidated by his caution, nor is the notion that the stories we tell each other shape our reality. Humankind opens with the story of the Blitz of 1940-41, in which Hitler鈥檚 bombing campaign utterly failed to break the spirit of the British people and proved that, rather than falling apart, humans come together in times of crisis. He goes on to tell the second part of that story, in which British authorities ignored their own evidence and falsified information to justify the British bombing of Germany. The same thing happened in New Orleans in 2005, when stories of total social breakdown in the wake of Hurricane Katrina turned out to have never actually occurred. And it鈥檚 happening again, right now, as American authorities scramble to churn out stories of protester violence that are consistently proven false, while true stories of protesters acting as compassionate collectives emerge. If Bregman is right, and the Hobbesian view of human nature is a lie we鈥檝e been force-fed in an effort to diminish the power of our fundamental altruism, it鈥檚 vital that we reclaim the story of our goodness in order to resist those who would turn us against each other. In that light, Humankind arrives at exactly the right time.

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Miles Schneiderman is a freelance writer, podcaster, fact-checker, and media producer. His work can be found on www.mjschneiderman.com

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