More on Bregman’s Humankind.

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  • November 27, 2021 at 1:27 pm #134180
    Avatar photoBilly_T
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    https://www.rutgerbregman.com/books

    Almost finished with his excellent book. I’m into the part about the Christmas Truce of 1914 during WWI, and the subsequent actions by the various high commands to make sure it never happened again.

    Love that he cites left-anarchists like James Scott and David Graeber, and that he makes a good case for small c “everyday communism,” at least implicitly. His discussion of prison reforms in Norway is fascinating, and his debunking of James Wilson’s “broken window” theory, and Bratton’s implementation of this in NYC, is thorough.

    Also: talks about studies dealing with expectations, high and low, and how they impact results. Even on rats. Studies showed that when volunteers were told one group was smart, and one group dumb, that impacted how they handled the rats, and the tests showed this. No such divisions existed pre-experiment. Further studies regarding education show how this impacts human lives.

    A running theme is how seriously we’re impacted by an endless barrage of negative stories about humanity, and how this leads to our all too negative views about each other. He uses the term “nocebo” to contrast with placebo. This can’t help but be demoralizing, isolating, and ultimately hurts our desire to work together to solve our problems. Which, I think, is a part of the plan.

    Overall, a very hopeful book about life on this planet, but, again, it’s not happy happy joy joy. It strikes me as realistic, with a ton of nuance, and very thoughtful.

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