Humankind

by Rutger Bregman

  A couple of years ago, a team of Dutch sociologists analysed how aeroplane crashes are reported in the media. Between 1991 and 2005, when the number of accidents consistently dropped, they found media attention for such accidents consistently grew. And as you might expect, people grew increasingly fearful to fly on these increasingly safe planes.26

  In another study, a team of media researchers compiled a database of over four million news items on immigration, crime and terrorism in order to determine if there were any patterns. What they found is that in times when immigration or violence declines, newspapers give them more coverage. ‘Hence,’ they concluded, ‘there seems to be none or even a negative relationship between news and reality.’27

  Of course, by ‘the news’ I don’t mean all journalism. Many forms of journalism help us better understand the world. But the news–by which I mean reporting on recent, incidental and sensational events–is most common. Eight in ten adults in western countries are daily news consumers. On average, we spend one hour a day getting our news fix. Added up over a lifetime, that’s three years.28

  Why are we humans so susceptible to the doom and gloom of the news? Two reasons. The first is what psychologists call negativity bias: we’re more attuned to the bad than the good. Back in our hunting and gathering days, we were better off being frightened of a spider or a snake a hundred times too often than one time too few. Too much fear wouldn’t kill you; too little surely would.

  Second, we’re also burdened with an availability bias. If we can easily recall examples of a given thing, we assume that thing is relatively common. The fact that we’re bombarded daily with horrific stories about aircraft disasters, child snatchers and beheadings–which tend to lodge in the memory–completely skews our view of the world. As the Lebanese statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb dryly notes, ‘We are not rational enough to be exposed to the press’.29

  In this digital age, the news we’re being fed is only getting more extreme. In the old days, journalists didn’t know much about their individual readers. They wrote for the masses. But the people behind Facebook, Twitter and Google know you well. They know what shocks and horrifies you, they know what makes you click. They know how to grab your attention and hold it so they can serve you the most lucrative helping of personalised ads.

  This modern media frenzy is nothing less than an assault on the mundane. Because, let’s be honest, the lives of most people are pretty predictable. Nice, but boring. So while we’d prefer having nice neighbours with boring lives (and thankfully most neighbours fit the bill), ‘boring’ won’t make you sit up and take notice. ‘Nice’ doesn’t sell ads. And so Silicon Valley keeps dishing us up ever more sensational clickbait, knowing full well, as a Swiss novelist once quipped, that ‘News is to the mind what sugar is to the body.’30

  A few years ago I resolved to make a change. No more watching the news or scrolling through my phone at breakfast. From now on, I would reach for a good book. About history. Psychology. Philosophy.

  Pretty soon, however, I noticed something familiar. Most books are also about the exceptional. The biggest history bestsellers are invariably about catastrophes and adversity, tyranny and oppression. About war, war, and, to spice things up a little, war. And if, for once, there is no war, then we’re in what historians call the interbellum: between wars.

  In science, too, the view that humanity is bad has reigned for decades. Look up books on human nature and you’ll find titles like Demonic Males, The Selfish Gene and The Murderer Next Door. Biologists long assumed the gloomiest theory of evolution, where even if an animal appeared to do something kind, it was framed as selfish. Familial affection? Nepotism! Monkey splits a banana? Exploited by a freeloader!31 As one American biologist mocked, ‘What passes for co-operation turns out to be a mixture of opportunism and exploitation. […] Scratch an “altruist” and watch a “hypocrite” bleed.’32

  And in economics? Much the same. Economists defined our species as the homo economicus: always intent on personal gain, like selfish, calculating robots. Upon this notion of human nature, economists built a cathedral of theories and models that wound up informing reams of legislation.

  Yet no one had researched whether homo economicus actually existed. That is, not until economist Joseph Henrich and his team took it up in 2000. Visiting fifteen communities in twelve countries on five continents, they tested farmers, nomads, and hunters and gatherers, all in search of this hominid that has guided economic theory for decades. To no avail. Each and every time, the results showed people were simply too decent. Too kind.33

  After publishing this influential finding, Henrich continued his quest for the mythical being around which so many economists had spun their theories. Eventually he found him: homo economicus in the flesh. Although homo is not quite the right word. Homo economicus, it turns out, is not a human, but a chimpanzee. ‘The canonical predictions of the Homo economicus model have proved remarkably successful in predicting chimpanzee behaviour in simple experiments,’ Henrich noted dryly. ‘So, all theoretical work was not wasted, it was just applied to the wrong species.’34

  Less amusing is that this dim view of human nature has worked as a nocebo for decades now. In the 1990s, economics professor Robert Frank wondered how viewing humans as ultimately egotistical might affect his students. He gave them a range of assignments designed to gauge their generosity. The outcome? The longer they’d studied economics, the more selfish they’d become. ‘We become what we teach,’ Frank concluded.35

  The doctrine that humans are innately selfish has a hallowed tradition in the western canon. Great thinkers like Thucydides, Augustine, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Luther, Calvin, Burke, Bentham, Nietzsche, Freud and America’s Founding Fathers each had their own version of the veneer theory of civilisation. They all assumed we live on Planet B.

  This cynical view was already circulating among the ancient Greeks. We read it in the writings of one of the first historians, Thucydides, when he describes a civil war that broke out on the Greek island of Corcyra in 427 BCE. ‘With the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion,’ he wrote, ‘human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colours.’36 That is to say, people behaved like beasts.

  A negative outlook has also permeated Christianity from its early days. The Church Father Augustine (354–430) helped popularise the idea that humans are born sinful. ‘No one is free from sin,’ he wrote, ‘not even an infant whose span of earthly life is but a single day.’37

  This concept of original sin remained popular through the Reformation, when Protestants broke with the Roman Catholic Church. According to theologian and reformer John Calvin, ‘our nature is not only destitute and empty of good, but so fertile and fruitful of every evil that it cannot be idle.’ This belief was encoded in key Protestants texts like the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), which informs us that humans are ‘totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil’.

  Weirdly, not only traditional Christianity but also the Enlightenment, which placed reason over faith, is rooted in a grim view of human nature. Orthodox faithful were convinced our kind is essentially depraved and the best we can do is apply a thin gloss of piety. Enlightenment philosophers also thought we were depraved, but prescribed a coating of reason to cover the rot.

  When it comes to notions about human nature, the continuity throughout Western thought is striking. ‘For this can be said of men in general: that they are ungrateful, fickle, hypocrites,’ summed up the founder of political science, Niccolò Machiavelli. ‘All men would be tyrants if they could,’ agreed John Adams, founder of American democracy. ‘We are descended from an endless series of generations of murderers,’ diagnosed Sigmund Freud, founder of modern psychology.

  In the nineteenth century Charles Darwin burst onto the scene with his theory of evolution, and it too was swiftly given the veneer treatment. The renowned scientist Thomas Henry Huxley (aka ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’) preached that life is on
e great battle ‘of man against man and of nation against nation’.38 The philosopher Herbert Spencer sold hundreds of thousands of books on his assertion that we should fan the flames of this battle, since ‘the whole effort of Nature is to get rid of [the poor]–to clear the world of them, and make room for better’.39

  Strangest of all is that these thinkers were almost unanimously hailed as ‘realists’, while dissident thinkers were ridiculed for believing in human decency.40 Emma Goldman, a feminist whose struggle for freedom and equality earned her a lifetime of slander and contempt, once wrote: ‘Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! […] The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature.’41

  Only recently have scientists from an array of different fields come to the conclusion that our grim view of humanity is due for radical revision. This awareness is still so incipient that many of them don’t realise they have company. As one prominent psychologist exclaimed when I told her about the new currents in biology: ‘Oh God, so it’s happening there as well?’42

  4

  Before I report on my quest for a new view of humankind, I want to share three warnings.

  First, to stand up for human goodness is to stand up against a hydra–that mythological seven-headed monster that grew back two heads for every one Hercules lopped off. Cynicism works a lot like that. For every misanthropic argument you deflate, two more will pop up in its place. Veneer theory is a zombie that just keeps coming back.

  Second, to stand up for human goodness is to take a stand against the powers that be. For the powerful, a hopeful view of human nature is downright threatening. Subversive. Seditious. It implies that we’re not selfish beasts that need to be reined in, restrained and regulated. It implies that we need a different kind of leadership. A company with intrinsically motivated employees has no need of managers; a democracy with engaged citizens has no need of career politicians.

  Third, to stand up for human goodness means weathering a storm of ridicule. You’ll be called naive. Obtuse. Any weakness in your reasoning will be mercilessly exposed. Basically, it’s easier to be a cynic. The pessimistic professor who preaches the doctrine of human depravity can predict anything he wants, for if his prophecies don’t come true now, just wait: failure could always be just around the corner. Or else, his voice of reason has prevented the worst. The prophets of doom sound oh so profound, whatever they spout.

  The reasons for hope, by contrast, are always provisional. Nothing has gone wrong–yet. You haven’t been cheated–yet. 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.

  The time has come for a new view of human nature. It’s time for a new realism. It’s time for a new view of humankind.

  2

  The Real Lord of the Flies

  1

  When I started writing this book, I knew there was one story I would have to address.

  The story takes place on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific. A plane has just gone down. The only survivors are some British schoolboys, who can’t believe their good fortune. It’s as if they’ve just crash-landed in one of their adventure books. Nothing but beach, shells and water for miles. And better yet: no grown-ups.

  On the very first day, the boys institute a democracy of sorts. One boy–Ralph–is elected to be the group’s leader. Athletic, charismatic and handsome, he’s the golden boy of the bunch. Ralph’s game plan is simple: 1) Have fun. 2) Survive. 3) Make smoke signals for passing ships.

  Number one is a success. The others? Not so much. Most of the boys are more interested in feasting and frolicking than in tending the fire. Jack, the redhead, develops a passion for hunting pigs and as time progresses he and his friends grow increasingly reckless. When a ship does finally pass in the distance, they’ve abandoned their post at the fire.

  ‘You’re breaking the rules!’ Ralph accuses angrily.

  Jack shrugs. ‘Who cares?’

  ‘The rules are the only thing we’ve got!’

  When night falls, the boys are gripped by terror, fearful of the beast they believe is lurking on the island. In reality, the only beast is inside them. Before long, they’ve begun painting their faces. Casting off their clothes. And they develop overpowering urges–to pinch, to kick, to bite.

  Of all the boys, only one manages to keep a cool head. Piggy, as the others call him because he’s pudgier than the rest, has asthma, wears glasses and can’t swim. Piggy is the voice of reason, to which nobody listens. ‘What are we?’ he wonders mournfully. ‘Humans? Or animals? Or savages?’

  Weeks pass. Then, one day, a British naval officer comes ashore. The island is now a smouldering wasteland. Three of the children, including Piggy, are dead. ‘I should have thought,’ the officer reproaches them, ‘that a pack of British boys would have been able to put up a better show than that.’ Ralph, the leader of the once proper and well-behaved band of boys, bursts into tears.

  ‘Ralph wept for the end of innocence,’ we read, and for ‘the darkness of man’s heart…’

  This story never happened. An English schoolmaster made it up in 1951. ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea,’ William Golding asked his wife one day, ‘to write a story about some boys on an island, showing how they would really behave?’1

  Golding’s book Lord of the Flies would ultimately sell tens of millions of copies, be translated into more than thirty languages and be hailed as one of the classics of the twentieth century.

  In hindsight, the secret to the book’s success is clear. Golding had a masterful ability to portray the darkest depths of mankind. ‘Even if we start with a clean slate,’ he wrote in his first letter to his publisher, ‘our nature compels us to make a muck of it.’2 Or as he later put it, ‘Man produces evil as a bee produces honey.’3

  Of course, Golding had the zeitgeist of the 1960s on his side, when a new generation was questioning its parents about the atrocities of the Second World War. Had Auschwitz been an anomaly, they wanted to know, or is there a Nazi hiding in each of us?

  In Lord of the Flies, William Golding intimated the latter and scored an instant hit. So much so, argued the influential critic Lionel Trilling, that the novel ‘Marked a mutation in culture.’4 Eventually, Golding even won a Nobel Prize for his oeuvre. His work ‘illuminate[s] the human condition in the world of today,’ wrote the Swedish Nobel committee, ‘with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth.’

  These days, Lord of the Flies is read as far more than ‘just’ a novel. Sure, it’s a made-up story shelved with all the other fiction, but Golding’s take on human nature has also made it the veritable textbook on veneer theory. Before Golding, nobody had ever attempted such raw realism in a book about children. Instead of sentimental tales of houses on prairies or lonely little princes, here–ostensibly–was a harsh look at what kids are really like.

  2

  I first read Lord of the Flies as a teenager. I remember feeling disillusioned afterwards, as I turned it over and over in my mind. But not for a second did I think to doubt Golding’s view of human nature.

  That didn’t happen until I picked up the book again years later. When I began delving into the author’s life, I learned what an unhappy individual he’d been. An alcoholic. Prone to depression. A man who beat his kids. ‘I have always understood the Nazis,’ Golding confessed, ‘because I am of that sort by nature.’ And it was ‘partly out of that sad self-knowledge’ that he wrote Lord of the Flies.5

  Other people held little interest for Golding. As his biographer observes, he didn’t even take the trouble to spell acquaintances’ names correctly. ‘[A] more urgent matter to me than actually meeting people,’ Golding said, was ‘the nature of Man with a capital M.’6

  And so I began to wonder: had anyone ever studied what real chil
dren would do if they found themselves alone on a deserted island? I wrote an article on the subject, in which I compared Lord of the Flies to modern scientific insights and concluded that, in all probability, kids would act very differently.7 I cited biologist Frans de Waal, who said, ‘there is no shred of evidence that this is what children left to their own devices will do’.8

  Readers of that piece responded sceptically. All my examples concerned kids at home, at school, or at summer camp. They didn’t answer the fundamental question: what happens when kids are left on a deserted island all alone?

  Thus began my quest for a real-life Lord of the Flies.

  Of course, the chances that any university would ever have permitted researchers to leave juvenile test subjects alone in the wilderness for months on end were slim, even in the 1950s. But couldn’t it have happened somewhere, sometime, by accident? Say, after a shipwreck?

  I started with a basic internet search: ‘Kids shipwrecked.’ ‘Real-life Lord of the Flies.’ ‘Children on an island.’ The first hits I got were about a horrid British reality show from 2008 that pitted participants against each other. But after trawling the web for a while, I came across an obscure blog that told an arresting story: ‘One day, in 1977, six boys set out from Tonga on a fishing trip. […] Caught in a huge storm, the boys were shipwrecked on a deserted island. What do they do, this little tribe? They made a pact never to quarrel.’9

  The article did not provide any sources. After a couple more hours of clicking, I discovered that the story came from a book by a well-known anarchist, Colin Ward, entitled The Child in The Country (1988). Ward, in turn, cited a report by an Italian politician, Susanna Agnelli, compiled for some international committee or other.