The hope to return to our kind senses
If you’re currently too tuned in to current affairs like I am, it is looking like humanity is on the brink of destruction. Any other day, there will be news about imminent war, climate crisis, incompetent government (strong opinions from where I come from), and good people leaving us too soon yet the horrible ones standing strong. Is there no hope left for us to cling onto?
Then I came across this book.
Humankind, written by the Dutch author Rutger Bregman, was published in 2019 in Dutch, and its English version was released in 2020. I would imagine this book as something that could be a life jacket to help people stay afloat in the midst of bleak uncertainty. Fast forward 6 years, I think this book is still relevant as ever.
The author mainly tried to convey that humans were born in this earth as good, decent beings. As civilization developed, some practices such as privatization became acceptable which then conditioned us to be prone to corruption that manifested into inequalities and overall calamity. Over time, we are shaped to believe that the bad had overcome the good. But this is not the case — our mind is unfortunately built to be more attracted to negativity or stories of misfortune. Thus, we pay more attention to them.
Little did we know that good things are still happening in this world. They just didn’t make the cut. Spanning from popular stories like Lord of the Flies to researches that underscored human’s tendencies to act in self-interest once put in a place of authority. Bergman presented stories to debunk these: the story of children being deserted in an island and managed to cooperate and survive, even stayed friends until later and life; and the flaws in the research methods that weren’t as known as the results.
From his writing, I am more convinced that there are always two sides of a story, and that we don’t need to ascertain a judgment when something is labeled as bad — there is always more to tell if we are willing to open our heart and mind to it.
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However, I do not agree wholeheartedly with this book. I think there were parts where the author’s bias showed. At the end of the day, it is a book written from his perspective, supported by as many facts as he could find. From what I gather, he did not mention that this belief of human kindness can be sustainably implemented when the people practice it do not expect reciprocity . And while I would love to see a world where everything is all rainbows and unicorns, there will always be outliers. Whether due to geographical, cultural, or even individual factors. However, this book tries to flip the narrative that evil people are actually the anomalies instead of the other way around.
I truly enjoyed the way this book presented various ‘hopeful’ insights, from an individual level to a community. Of how humans are friendly people (“Live is not survival of the fittest, but survival of the friendliest.”), how there is potential in a bottoms up approach of an organization (“The world benefits more from continuity than from continual change.”), that there is yet still hope in politics when people are given the opportunity to participate, and other insights into what our brains have been conditioned to think. It’s time to return to our nature for sharing, communing, wanting to win altogether instead of just championing an individual.
This book invites us to acknowledge our limitations as human, but that acknowledgment must not be used as an excuse to become horrible people. We should do good in spite of them. Our reality is a product from what we are exposed to. So if we wish to convince people that the world is filled with decent, human beings, we have a task to create some sort of a kindness chain for it to ripple. To make kindness become the reality of everyone.
I am also aware that there is a thin line between wanting to spread positivity as hope and being ignorant of the gravity of current issues. However, moments of crises become endurable when you remember what the fight is for. With this spirit, kindness doesn’t always mean to accept and submit, it is also to be fueled by compassion to resist for the greater good.
Toward the end, Bergman recommended ten rules to live by. In one of those rules, he stated that people’s contemporary view of being realistic is closer to pessimistic instead. In a way, this statement is similar to what I wrote in my piece about idealistic view. It felt good to be vindicated and in turn, gave me strength to continue living life with this view.
In truth, it’s the cynic who’s out of touch. In truth, we’re living on Planet A, where people are deeply inclined to be good to one another.
I wish more people would pick this book up and practice its preach. Having known this book from Service 95, Dua Lipa’s book club, I think this makes it an appropriate occasion to say that reading this have taught me to be more radically optimistic.
