#20 Which world you are (want to) live in ?
An afterthought of reading the book Humankind: A hopeful history of humanity
Stranger danger
During a dinner party, my colleague’s 5-year-old son got up.
“I want to go right now,” He said. His mother said hesitantly,
“ Fine, you can go to the bathroom. But remember, don’t talk to anyone, stranger danger !”. He nodded and ran for his business.
This conversation stuck with me for a long time. I see the necessity of keeping the kids safe and limiting their exposure to vulnerable situations may be the best way. You are right to be terrified after reading countless news of kids being kidnapped or abused. But as a society what is the cost we are paying for bringing a generation who believes strangers are dangerous?
Can we have faith in humanity?
Everywhere I look I get examples of human cruelty. War, racism, discrimination, violence, rape.. the list is endless. More than a decade ago, before I moved to Ahmedabad, I was scared. The gory images of the riots of 2002 were always in my head. I was looking at people as if they have the potential to be a murderer during a riot. But I once had a conversation with a barber. There was news about communal unrest somewhere in Naroda. He said to me
“ Bhaisab, mujhe vo tufan ki yad a raha hei (it’s reminding me of that storm)”. He said how unfortunate that we kill each other due to the religion we were born into. And the compassion and humanity he showed was surprising to me. One of the rare occasions that you have a renewed faith in humanity.
But that is always a rare event, isn’t it? By default your faith in humanity is pretty low or decreasing. And some incidents like this give you some reassurance. But is humankind fundamentally bad? Are strangers always danger?
Let’s take a step back. Thousands of years ago, we were hunters and gatherers. For most of human evolution, we were in this social structure. Humans lived in small tribes moving around places. It is a common assumption that those times were barbaric ones without civilization and culture. Remember the movie Apocalipto, where one tribe lives in constant fear of annihilation by another? But was this the true picture? Why would one tribe annihilate another?
In the history of human civilization, not as a hunter and gatherer, wars always come with economic interests. But for hunter and gatherers, what are the incentives for going to war? There are no permanent settlements and hence there is nothing big to loot. The earliest pre-historic evidence of war (larger groups fighting each other) is only dated up to 10 thousand years. So it is pretty clear that war and genocide came with the invention of agriculture and the onset of civilization.
Are humans inherently evil, selfish, cruel and unkind?
The book Humankind: “A Hopeful History of Humanity” pokes around one question that is so fundamental to our worldview. Are humans inherently bad, selfish, cruel and unkind? If you think about it, the answer to this question dictates every low or social structure we build. If there are no police, will humans exploit each other in a degrading selfish manner? If there are no strict laws in school, will the kids respect each other? If there are no proper check and balance systems, will the employees use the resources of a company to their advantage? Moreover, is a trust-based society an idealistic, unachievable dreamland?
I think one of the triggers for this book is the famous Nobel-winning novel “Lord of the Flies”. The story sets the perfect platform for the test of human nature. A bunch of kids gets trapped on an island after a plane crash where all the adults are dead. They choose a leader, form laws and assign duties to everyone. Eventually the “beast inside” comes out and mutiny and murders happen. I can’t help but notice the intentionality of the plot circumferences. The author’s subjects are kids, who are not yet tainted by the evil society, to build a parallel society. And it happens on a secluded island, a closed system such that there is no influence of the outside world. There is no better way to “emulate” the human condition in a primitive society.
Rutger Bregman, the author of the book Humankind was shaken when he read the book in his teens. When questioning the fundamental nature of humans, he naturally had to address this book. Even though it is fiction, such stories have a suggestive element of truth-bearing stories. He, Rutger Bregman, tried to look for a real-life example of such an incident. Finally, he found an incident in 1976 where 6 teenage kids from the Kingdom of Tonga, a small group of islands in the Pacific, got trapped on a tiny island called ‘Ata for 15 months. Bregman managed to meet the captain of the ship that rescued them. The story is fascinating. The kids managed to survive an inhabited island by forming simple social structures and even took care of one of them when he got seriously injured. You can read the full story here The real-life lord of the Flies
These days, ‘Ata is considered uninhabitable. But “by the time we arrived,” Captain Warner wrote in his memoirs, “the boys had set up a small commune with food garden, hollowed-out tree trunks to store rainwater, a gymnasium with curious weights, a badminton court, chicken pens and a permanent fire, all from handiwork, an old knife blade and much determination.” While the boys in Lord of the Flies come to blows over the fire, those in this real-life version tended their flame so it never went out, for more than a year. - Rutger Bregman
Homo-puppies
Now the question of how we (homo-sapiens) survived while other homo cousins got extinct, is still a daunting one. The initial theory that we annihilated Neanderthals has now been discarded as there was interbreeding of two species. We all carry some parts of Neanderthal or Denisovan, another primate cousin of ours, DNAs. Neanderthal had similar brain sizes and even bigger body strength than us. Then what made us survive while our cousins went extinct?
To get some clues, Bregman takes us to a study about the domestication of animals. Humans’ best friends, dogs, were once wild wolves. But you cannot even compare considering how dissimilar they are in looks, behaviour and order. Most of them have drooped ears, a characteristic that no wild animals (except elephants ) exhibit. Moreover, dogs are much “smarter” and they respond to social cues. They can find the hidden food when you point at it. You may have seen many videos about smart dogs sometimes saving people’s lives. How did they become smarter and more attractive?
In the late 20th century USSR scientist Dmitri K. Belyaev and his team did an experiment that took decades to finish. They were trying to domesticate wild silver foxes—generally, such experiments work based on selective breeding. You define a characteristic that you are looking for (for eg. tall, fast or blue eyes) and select only the animals based on that to breed. For domestication, they chose the characteristics of friendliness. They approached the foxes with a thick glow. Most of them tried to get away or even attack the person. However, some developed a curiosity and tried to sniff the glow. The friendly ones were chosen to breed.
Man's new best friend? A forgotten Russian experiment in fox domestication
Almost a decade later they found that the new breed behaves similarly to dogs. They showed affection towards humans and were seeking attention, even wiggling their tails when they saw their masters. The fascinating result is that the changes are not merely behavioural. The anatomy and physiology of the domesticated fox started showing different traits. They developed floppy ears, and curly tails, changed the colouration of their fur, and had extended reproductive seasons. They noticed that domesticated foxes are much smarter and can respond to social cues like dogs.
The fox-domestication study showed that selective breeding based on friendliness or approachability results in higher cognitive ability and introduces physiological (a friendly face?) changes. Rutger Bregman argues that this is exactly what happened with humans. People who are more friendly reproduced more compared to the grumpy ones. And after generations, we increased our social skills. He then calls humans Homo-puppies.
Friendly people are smarter and have a better chance of surviving. It’s not because they have a bigger brain studies have shown that human brains are shrinking in size (this is still debatable and the reduction is not so drastic). So how do friendly people with smaller (arguably) brains become smarter? It is due to the power of shared knowledge.
Knowledge sharing is one of the main characteristics humans possess that is distinctive from our primate cousins. If you observe chimpanzees, some individuals may show extraordinary signs of innovation and genius. However, their inventions are not passed on to the group so easily. For example, one chimp may learn to make a spear and catch fish with it. But this is not passed on to the group. But humans, on the other hand, are excellent copycats. And copying makes us smarter. The collective wisdom of the group surpasses individual brilliance. Most of us won’t have a clue how to come up with a decimal system, steam engine, or make fire. But thanks to our copycat brain and friendly knowledge sharing, we can use this knowledge.
Bregman says that Neanderthals with bigger brains may be like a supercomputer compared to windows 97 PC of modern humans. But we had internet!
This approach suggests that being kind, friendly and hence less selfish (a selfish person won’t share their findings) helps us survive. So are we innately kind and friendly? If so, where did it all go wrong?
Curse of civilization: Hobbes and Rousseau
We have discussed the origin of war and how it is connected to the birth of civilization. So did we, domesticated hominins, start our bloody journey to get civilized? If so, do the scientific and cultural advancements we achieved as a civilization outweigh the wars and bloodshed that came with it? I don’t think the book has addressed all of these questions. But my favourite finding is the discourse between Hobbes and Rousseau.
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher who lived in the 17th century. According to Hobbes, humans are not capable of functioning in a large scio-political entity without the individual submitting to a sovereign power. Outside the authority of a political state, Hobbes argued, humans are ‘solitary, poore, nasty brutish, and short.’ Political theorists of all spectrums loved this approach which satisfies their means of controlling the inner beast of the masses. Be it feudal monarchs, autocrats communists or capitalists, the political order is suspicious of the ill intention of people and designs systems to function despite the corrupted individuals. The later Enlightenment movement was also not so different. Even though the Enlightenment movement questioned the traditional way of knowledge formation and religious dogma, the assumption about basic human nature remained. The democratic world, which I believe is a result of the Enlightenment movement, also built a system to contain basic human vulnerabilities.
The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of land had built it in his head that “this is mine” and that’s when things started to go wrong - Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss philosopher from the 18th century, had a different opinion. According to Rousseau, humans are inherently good, but the rise of civilization made us cruel and cunning. This may be validated by the fact that the first war, at least the one we know about, and the rise of agrarian society had similar times of origin. Recent studies showing the selective reproduction of the friendliest (domestication of humans) indicates the possibility that pre-agrarian societies were much kinder and they lived with fewer conflicts.
It may sound hopeful, but many people think this is rather depressing as there is no going back from civilization. The author sides with Rousseau but in a hopeful way. He points out examples and models where a trust-based system is more effective and nurturing. Without carrots or sticks, without the blackmail of religious hell, people can work together for the greater good, according to Bregman.
Panic hour
It was two and a half years back. We had just moved to the UK. After one month of searching for rental homes, I got the message that one landlord had accepted our application. The agency asked me to come to their office that afternoon. So after my office hours, I cycled to the office to collect my keys. Generally, I used to listen to podcasts or audiobooks while cycling. However, I chose to do some daydreaming while I cycle. Plans for the new home, activities for the weekend or about the book that I wish to write!
I had asked my partner to meet me at the office. But when I was halfway through, I stopped to check up on them. At that moment, to my horror, I found out that my phone was missing! As I have moved countries, all the bank accounts and related sim cards were on the phone! I did not have my partner’s new phone number. And I don’t know where to go without Google Maps!
In a panic, I talked to many people to make a call to my phone. Many refused, probably due to my panic expressions. One guy stopped and I used his phone to call mine. It was switched off !!
Of course, I told myself. who will answer a phone they got on the road? I am never going to find it. Then I remembered the incident where my wallet got stolen on a train. I lost any hope of getting that phone back. I may probably have to fly to Singapore to sort out the issues with my previous bank as I won’t have any access without the old SIM. But before all that I have to be at the office and talk to my partner.
Fortunately, I remembered the road and the building number. The agent in the office was kind enough to let me check my file, in which I have written my partner’s number. After contacting her, I ringed my phone again. And it was ringing! And then someone answered. They said the phone was given to the Tesco superstore (a big grocery shop chain) by someone. Once again trust in humanity survived. Then I thought, had it been me, picking up a phone from the street, what would I do? Probably hand it over to the police or post office. If I am sure about my honesty and kindness, why should I assume a random stranger would be different? Isn’t the cruel and unkind, the exception?
Some afterthought
I agree with the author about how the media amplifies the worst of humanity. A million people falling in love, hanging out with friends, inventing new things, having sex or enjoying vacation are not “ newsworthy”. But serial killers, rapists corrupt officers etc are portrayed as the true human nature. The aftermath is a lack of trust-based society. Every stranger is considered to be a danger and every employee is assumed to be scamming the company if there are no security systems or hierarchy.
I would like to live (or believe) in a world where I can assume people to be kind to each other. It gives you so much freedom and peace of mind. And if I got scammed once in a while, that is a small price to pay for a lifetime of peace.
I strongly suggest this book to my readers. Not because it is the best-written or researched book on human history. But it gives a new, radical view of humanity. A view that can change your approach to people, parenting or teaching.