Bloomsbury (London). 2020. Hbk. 463 pages. £20.
The young Dutch historian Rutger Bregman first came to my attention because of his effective championing of ‘Universal Basic Income’, in TED Talks, TV appearances and his earlier bestseller: Utopia for Realists (Bloomsbury, 2018). I warmed to him further when he took on the tax-shy billionaires attending the Davos 2019 World Economic Forum, and after the dismissive mauling he suffered on the BBC’s This Week, at the hands of those three old cynics, Andrew Neil, Michael Portillo and Alan Johnson.
Cynicism, particularly concerning the human condition, is one of Bregman’s targets in this pacey, often funny, canter through the strengths and frailties of humanity: alone and en masse; prehistoric, ‘civilised’ and modern. Cynicism is easy, especially for those in power; it’s hard to prove a cynic wrong. Cynics believe they’re realists. Bregman begs to differ. He argues forcefully that Hobbes was mistaken; civilised humans are forever running away from the ‘necessary’ Leviathans in charge, not towards them. The idealist Rousseau and the romantics were the ‘real realists’, recognising humanity’s innate nobility.
The ‘radical idea’ at the heart of the book, says Bregman, is: ‘that most people, deep down, are pretty decent’. He argues that taking this attitude in almost all decision-making situations, while it may have some limited dangers, can have immense, liberating and world-changing benefits. He argues – with pandemic pertinence – that catastrophes bring out the best in people; but their efforts are often hampered by elite panic from powerful people, who see the rest of humanity in their own self-focused image.
One is tempted to say, ‘That’s all very well, but how come charismatic sociopaths and corrupt narcissists, seem to rise to the top?’ With Hannah Arendt, Bregman argues that humans, with the best of intentions, are too often tempted by evil masquerading as good. It’s the ‘disconnect’ which trips us when relating to those beyond our group, which can only be addressed with more meaningful contact and the understanding of context.
The author’s stock-in-trade is the debunked myth and he performs it well, with the calculated panache of a stand-up comedian. From The Lord of the Flies to the Taungs baby skull; from the unfired rifles of Gettysburg to the toppled moai of Easter Island; from the Stanford University ‘prison’ experiment to Stanley Milgram’s electric-shock machine; from ‘broken windows’ theory to Bratton-style policing (the out-workings of which did for George Floyd and many before him); not to forget football between the frontlines at Christmas 1914, and Richard Dawkins’ ‘Selfish Gene’: these and several more are given the Bregman treatment. It makes for an entertaining and thought-provoking read.
Bregman has his heroes: debunking forerunners, thorough researchers, Norwegian prison administrators, alternative educators, and in particular Elinor Ostrom, the ‘possibilist’ author of Governing the Commons (Cambridge UP, 1990), who won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics in the wake of the banking crisis. Overall though, the book is a little light on global politics and the implications of climate change.
Bregman’s father is a Lutheran minister, but the young Rutger rejected the Augustinian formulation of original sinfulness, and now assumes that for all intents and purposes everyone lives in a world without God. Nevertheless, amongst his diagnostics and tentative solutions, an acknowledged but modified Jesus comes echoing in and out of the text: turning the other cheek, accepting others as they are, not taking the easy way. He even ends the book with an alternative set of Commandments, or ‘ten rules to live by’. The book is an uplifting read. It is a tonic for these testing times and if nothing else leaves one feeling favourably disposed towards others and the author.
Andy Kemp has been a member of SOF since 1993. He lives on the Wirral and works for two Methodist charities.