Our survival, according to Bregman, is not a product of our selfish gene but came out of cooperation and kindness - at least towards one another. Homo sapiens, Bregman argues, made it this far, beating the stronger and more intelligence (at least judging by their bigger brain volume) Neanderthals because we are better at social learning and cooperation. However, according to Bregman, it is Rousseau's idealistic view that was right all along and it is time, therefore, for a new realism that believes the best in people.Ĭiting various studies, Bregman builds a case on his thesis that humans are decent by nature. The Hobbesian view of the world has been adapted as the basis of realism, which shaped the world today. Rousseau, on the other hand, believed that it was authority and the system that brought out the worst in people. Hobbes with his Leviathan theory believed that humans lived in a state of war of all against all, and hence needed an authority to create order. In the early part of his book, Bregman dissects the debate between enlightenment age philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

And this grim view of humanity heavily influences how we treat one another and shapes the society we all live in. This actual event, argued Bregman, portrays a more realistic image of humanity, yet one that is rarely talked about and largely overshadowed by stories of violence and atrocities found in the news or history. For 15 months they got along well and without conflict, or at least, nothing that couldn’t be solved with a mere time-out or handshake. He writes about six schoolboys from Tonga who were shipwrecked and lived on the uninhabited island of 'Ata in the Pacific Ocean.

In Humankind, Bregman shares his findings of a true story of what happens to children when they are left alone. But Lord of the Flies is shelved in the fiction section for a reason.

Humankind book