Humankind: A Hopeful History - Rutger Bregman - ★★★★.½

AUTHOR: Rutger Bregman

GENRE: Nonfiction

PUBLICATION DATE: September 3, 2019

RATING: 4.5 stars.

What’s your answer to this simple question?

Humans are innately ______.

A. selfish

B. good

Many of us will end up choosing option A as our answer. Rutger Bregman seeks to convince us that we have been brainwashed and it is, in fact, option B that is right. Humans are essentially good. (Or so he says!) And throughout this book, he provides an ample amount of evidence to support his claim. Whether it is from evolutionary history or research-based findings, hypothetical situations to actual incidents, historical to contemporary thinkers, he doesn’t leave any stone unturned in inducing you to change your viewpoint. Some of the researches he debunks are widely popular while others, you may not have heard of at all. But even single example he uses hits hard and shocks you at the extent of cultish brain-feeding resulting via the media and high-flying politicos.

Bregman reiterates one straightforward advice throughout the book: stay away from the news if you wish to stay mentally healthy. To quote him, “News is to the mind what sugar is to the body.” Another point he drills time and again is overcoming what he calls the “nocebo” effect. (Just as a placebo does nothing but makes you believe the situation is getting better, a ‘nocebo’ does nothing but makes you believe that the situation is getting worse.) Breaking News! The prime culprit for this “nocebo” is, once again, the “breaking news” media.

While the entire book is a delight to the mind (and the heart), I especially loved how he backed his claims with concrete examples and data. No half-baked assumptions (Hear that, Prof. Harari?), no biased declarations, no attacks on anyone or any idealogy. Bregman’s voice is as intelligent and reassuring as the ideas he espouses are mind-blowing. At the end of the book, he provides ten tips on how to view humanity with hope than dread. Each of those points is practical and implementable, the icing on the cake. The way he writes is another bonus. He laces his content with plenty of comprehensible facts, provides a concrete rebuttal of urban factoids, and slips in enough of humour to keep the proceedings interesting even for those not much into nonfiction.

A few points in the content reminded me of another fabulous book, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling. This is natural as the essence of both the books is the same: the world has improved but we don’t know/realise it. At the same time, both the books have similarities in their subject matter but are different in their approach, Factfulness is more data /stat-oriented while Humankind is more anecdotal and research-based. As far as I’m concerned, both are excellently written, and must-reads.

Has this Rutger Bregman offering changed my world view? Am I now an optimist about humanity? Not really. It will take more than one book to clear out decades of indoctrination (and an inherent tendency towards pessimism.) There were so many places where I wasn’t sure if the book was becoming too idealistic in its espousals or I was being too sceptical in imbibing the same. At the same time, it showed me so many varied, positive perspectives of human behaviour that I can’t help wanting to believe it entirely. And that hope, that optimism, that awareness that this cynical mire we seem to be stuck in might just be an illusion… that’s the biggest takeaway from this book for me. To borrow Bregman’s coined word, I needn’t be an optimist or an idealist, but I can certainly aim to be a “possibilist”.

If you are fed up of all the negativity around you, if the only positive news you see is about covid & you want a break from that, if you want a book that shows you that things are not as bad as everyone proclaims,… basically if you want a feel-good nonfiction that gives you some solace about being human, go for this book without any hesitation.

This book is choc-a-bloc with insightful lines. Here’s one of my favourites:

“Belief in humankind's sinful nature also provides a tidy explanation for the existence of evil. When confronted with hatred or selfishness, you can tell yourself, 'Oh, well, that's just human nature.' But if you believe that people are essentially good, you have to question why evil exists at all. It implies that engagement and resistance are worthwhile, and it imposes an obligation to act.”