Humankind book4/9/2023 ![]() By cracking down on the smallest misdemeanours, the theory goes, you prevent a culture where larger crimes take root. One particularly pertinent example is the “broken windows” approach to policing, which was largely credited for a dramatic decline in crime rates in New York. ![]() But Humankind turns more interesting and urgent as Bregman explores how “veneer theory”, which encourages us to assume the worst of people, can blight lives, stoke racism and warp our public institutions. Take away our laws and hot showers, and what do you get? Lord of the Flies.Īt first glance, this optimistic message jars not only with the systemic violence that sparked the George Floyd protests, but the worst atrocities of history – candidly, Bregman notes that he struggled to find a publisher in Germany. The main assumption that he sets out to debunk is “veneer theory”: the Hobbesian idea that civilisation is a thin layer that keeps our nasty, brutish instincts in check. Instead of dry academic prose, we get a sort of Dutch Sherlock Holmes, furiously prodding at the sacred cows of psychological research and laying out his counter-arguments with the breathless pace of a thriller. These are huge and highly sensitive questions, which the historian attacks with his usual brand of vim, vigour and intellectual nuance. These two events go to the heart of the arguments he explores in his book: are people basically decent, predisposed to draw rainbows, shop for their neighbours and protect the vulnerable by somehow resisting the charms of Barnard Castle? Or are we built for prejudice and violence? ![]() It is unlikely that he precisely managed its publication to coincide with a pandemic and mass protests sparked by racist police brutality, but the timing is nonetheless striking. Books are a long time in the making: seven years, to be precise, in the case of Dutch historian Rutger Bregman’s fascinating new doorstop, Humankind: A Hopeful History.
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