In 1993, two motivational speakers, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, decided to publish a book that was a compilation of inspirational true-life stories. After being rejected by all major publishers, it was picked up by a small publisher from Florida who specialized in self-help books. When the book came out, it was a success that breached both the imagination and expectation of the authors. The massive popularity of the book nudged the creators to start a series and it continued to top the New York Times Bestseller list for the next five years. Since then, Chicken Soup for the Soul evolved into a separate company with varied interests from publishing and pet foods to philanthropy.
As a young adolescent, I did give some of my
time to a couple of these books. They were a good and easy read. But they were
just that. Their stories altered my worldview only as much as a well-made
biopic. In this age, most of those stories will pass as an early morning
whatsapp forward. I often wondered if anecdotes from the lives of others really
inspire us? Chicken Soup for the Soul probably thought that stories from
ordinary folks could inspire people for their relatability quotient. We may
think that emulating Mohandas is easier than Mahatma. But anecdotes are just
what they are. Stories that linger in your consciousness just a little longer
than the smile they bring on your visage.
Rutger Bregman’s Humankind doesn’t
inspire and that is the best thing about it. The best inspirations last only as
long as the goosebumps they arouse. For stories to trigger a change, they need
to set you on a thinking trail. Have relook on the truths you lived with. Show
you a flicker of possibilities that were dormant. Humankind tries this
with a different set of anecdotes, studies and experiments. But these are not
about persons. They are about communities. Communities ravaged by war.
Communities convicted for crimes. Communities condemned by the Ice Age. And
what does he try to say with all these examples? “That most people, deep
down, are pretty decent.”
Is that all? You don’t need 400 odd pages to
say this. This is something we all know. In the first chapter, Bregman even declares
that this is a radical idea which could turn the world on its head. You will be
forgiven if you find him bombastic. But as you flip through the pages, it will
dawn upon you that it is an axiom that you knew but never believed. No, not
because you lock your home or you don’t leave a wad of cash on a park bench. It
is because we believe that it is stupid to give a power saw to a murder convict
during his time at the penitentiary. Humankind introduces you to the thought
that not giving a power saw to the convict is stupid.
Throughout the book, Bregman challenges such
self-fulfilling prophecies. Truths that appear true because you want to believe
that they are true. You may not be convinced, but you definitely will be
shepherded into thought experiments to simulate his postulates. That is where Humankind
succeeds. And the best part of the ride is that there are no heroes in the book
whom you can emulate. No character who makes you a lesser mortal. Look at the
story of a murder convict with a power saw. It took one convict, a few prison
officials and an entire town, into which the convict was released upon the
completion of his sentence, for the idea to succeed. Humankind is about
communities that believed in a thought and miracles created by that communal belief.
It is remarkable that in his ode to humanity
Bregman doesn’t shy away from talking about holocaust and terrorism – the most visible
challenges to our faith in the goodness of others. For some, his endorsement of
Hannah Arendt’s controversial hypothesis, Banality of Evil, may appear
to be a red flag. But wait, he is not done yet. Bregman finds love even among
terrorists. In the chapter, “How Empathy Blinds”, he quotes the American
Anthropologist, Scott Atran, who has studied the anthropology of religion and terrorism.
“Terrorists don’t kill and die just for a cause. They kill and die for each
other.” Bregman argues that most terrorists join their organizations due to
fraternal love rather than a belief in an ideology or cause.
Bregman studies people across ages and of
various ages. From Neanderthal to the modern man; From six-month old infant to
a sixty-year-old man. And everywhere, he finds that they are innately good. Humankind
takes you through a fascinating journey of human nature. How evolution favoured
a weaker and naïve Homo Sapien over a stronger and smarter Neanderthal? Why
humans who are capable of immense love are also adept in mind-numbing cruelty?
Through answers to these questions, we discover a man who was always around us
but never seen in the light that Bregman sheds. And through that man, we see
the society in a different light. Of course, like any other radical thesis, the
assertions, reasons and the adjunct interpretations may be questioned. But the
final conclusion of Bregman definitely deserves a consideration. Not because of
his persuasion or the allurement of his thought. But because of the endless answers
it could provide to the questions we encounter as we navigate the maze of the
modern world.