Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, in Humankind: A Hopeful History , destroys this story utterly. Bregman claims this is nothing more than a myth or fable about humanity. It is a dangerous one, too, because believing in it can shape the policy choices we make and the way we treat each other. Alarmingly, most people do seem to hold a cynical or pessimistic view of other people, seeing them as untrustworthy. But Bregman’s remarkable book shows that when we actually look at the real world of human social life, and get past the powerful pessimistic tales about original sin, the state of nature, the darkness in all of our hearts, etc., we find that human beings are, on the whole, far more inclined to be sociable and selfless than “treacherous and knavish.”

The post The Right-Wing Story About Human Nature Is False appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.