During the Corona pandemic that afflicted millions of people, pessimism about the future of mankind reigns, but a recent new book titled "Mankind ... a Hopeful History" seems to be a kind of thinking opposite the current.

The work of the Dutch author Rutger Bergmann was based on contemporary studies and historical analyzes that support his idea that humans prefer cooperative and social behavior over hate and violence, trying to push pessimists to rethink their justifications.

Bergman says that the lives of our prehistoric ancestors and tribal societies were not that bad and brutal that is often imagined. Instead, these societies were largely peaceful and self-organized, before societies began to embrace social hierarchies and the systems of permanent armies and rulers appeared, and with them, he says, violence and inequality emerged.

Crust theory

Bergman denies that humans, by their nature and instinct, are selfish and aggressive, and he calls this prevailing idea a "crust theory", according to which civilization is nothing more than a thin crust that cracks, and when crises strike societies such as the period of bombs or the rise of flood waters, humans become at their best. As the author says.

Bergman reviews what intellectuals, philosophers, and social psychologists have written, and reviews the ideas of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes or as he calls him "the man who assured that civil society alone could save us from our basic instincts", and the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered human beings innate in good and that "civilization is What is destroying us. "

The author appears to be in solidarity with Rousseau's view, explaining his idea by saying that the era of the discovery of agriculture was a fall for happy human coexistence, stressing that there was no evidence to support the widely held notion that Bedouin and hunters' societies were not peaceful, but that power corrupted them, he says.

"What if our negative thoughts about human nature are actually a form of ignorance?", The author asks, stressing that people are actually more kind and altruistic than governments, companies or modern institutions.

The book introduces a radical idea that human beings are “respectable” and enjoying sophistication, but some readers may ask: If the author’s results are correct, then why do humans fight then? And why is the world and history filled with wars, evils and genocide?

Philosophers pessimism

According to the author, "We have a somewhat pessimistic view not of ourselves specifically, but of every other person." He explains, "We consider others selfish, untrustworthy and dangerous people, and therefore we act towards them with suspicion and doubt, and this is how the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes envisioned our natural state." Believing that everything that might prevent us from violent chaos is a strong state and firm leadership. "

But if Hobbes is followed, says Bergman, we ensure that the negative view we see about human nature is reflected on us, and instead, the author places his trust in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, an 18th-century French thinker, who says that human beings are born free, while civilization It is through its methods and coercive tools, the system of social classes, and its restrictive laws that place it in restrictions and chains.

Hobbes and Rousseau are seen as poles of human nature’s controversy, and the author says that humans ’discovery of agriculture led to a reversal of everything, and over the next ten thousand years all forms of war, greed, and injustice took place, and whether or not this vision of life before planting was accurate or not, and the Dutch author argues That contemporary society was built on the wrong premise, asserting that humans at their roots are "friendly and peaceful".

Civilization and violence

Bergmann says it was the stability and abandonment of the nomadic lifestyle and then domestication of animals that caused infectious diseases such as measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, syphilis, malaria, cholera and plague, and this may be true, but what appears to be Bergman not discussed in the book is that the pathogens were not the only things Which has grown with agriculture, but also the number of people has increased and their livelihood has improved.

Maintaining friendly relationships and a lifestyle without possessions is possible when the community is made up of 30 or 40 fishermen who follow the food, but life becomes more complicated, and the knowledge becomes more extensive, when there are settlements that contain many thousands of people, according to the British Financial Times book presentation. .

Bergman's arguments in the new book seem valid to support the idea of ​​providing more independence for employees and reducing administrative oversight, which is welcome, and this thinking appears relevant at a time when employers may be tempted to use new tracking software to monitor their workers, who are currently at home.

Bergman argues that when cities are vulnerable to bombing campaigns, or when a group of boys crashes a ship on a remote island, the notable thing is the degree of cooperation and collective laughter that comes to the fore.

There is a great deal of human reassurance that can be taken from this bold and thought-provoking book, and a plethora of evidence to support the claim that humans ’sense of themselves has been distorted, but seems equally misleading that only one of the two views that Rousseau and Hobbes held, in While reality suggests that humanity includes both points of view.

Progress and pandemic

Since the era of European Enlightenment and its aftermath, the Western world has had a constant belief that the conditions of humankind are constantly improving through the development of new institutions, ideas, innovations and lifestyles. In the modern era, progress is supposed to accelerate with new technologies that empower individuals and societies, but is progress really inevitable?

The intellectual debate revolves around the book, "Are Human Days Better to Come?" Between two teams: optimistic and pessimistic about the future of humanity (Al-Jazeera)

Critics of this idea claim that human civilization has indeed differed but that it has not progressed and has not become better. Over the past two and a half centuries, some philosophers and thinkers view progress in another way as an "ideology rather than reality" or way of thinking about the world rather than describing it.

"Are the best days for humans to come?" This recently translated Arabic translation by the Nabu Iraqi Publishing House, these questions are from different intellectual, social and philosophical perspectives. The book represents a kind of debate between four different opinions of Swiss authors: Alan de Button and Matt Ridley, both American linguist and cognitive psychologist Stephen Pinker, and British journalist Malcolm Gladwell.

In the book and the debate, Alan and Ridley both demonstrated their optimistic views with a set of statistics that show a steady improvement in the well-being of modern humans.

The main optimists' argument can be summed up that the indicators of human progress - such as wealth, health and inequality issues - show great improvement, in contrast, British journalist Gladwell acknowledges this, but stresses the possibility of a major catastrophe (nuclear war, etc.).