Can We Build a Politics of Hope?
Deconstructed
The Intercept
4.8 • 4.7K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2020
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Deep down, are humans really selfish, brutal, and cruel? For much of the last century the most famous experiments in social science, from the Stanford prison experiment to the Stanley Milgram electric shock study have purported to prove that we all have a monster lurking just behind a carefully crafted social veneer.
In his new book Humankind: A Hopeful History, Dutch historian and author Rutger Bregman aims to shed new light on this idea by examining the latest social science research, knocking over some of the discipline’s sacred cows in the process. The book offers hopeful answers to anyone looking for a way forward in this era of political turmoil and confusion.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, if I would give a short summary of my book, it would be something like, |
| 0:03.6 | most people are pretty decent, but power corrupts. |
| 0:06.4 | And I think that's also a pretty good description of what's happening in the US right now. |
| 0:15.4 | Welcome to Deconstructed, I'm Mehdi Hussain. |
| 0:17.8 | Are you feeling down, depressed about the state of the world, the state of the human race? |
| 0:23.8 | Maybe today's show will raise your spirits. |
| 0:26.2 | Give a boost to your optimistic side. |
| 0:28.8 | It seems to me like we're in an extraordinary moment full of hope. |
| 0:32.0 | And the authoritarian response on the right seems like that last gust of breath of a dying ideology. |
| 0:38.8 | That's my guest today, the Dutch historian, journalist, and best-selling author, Rutger Breggman. |
| 0:44.2 | He's got a big new book out called Humankind that's making waves over its pretty simple, yet pretty radical idea. |
| 0:51.0 | Human beings, he says, based on mountains of research, are good people. |
| 0:55.0 | We're not all selfish bastards. |
| 0:57.2 | So, on Deconstructed today, a truly important discussion. |
| 1:00.8 | Are we deep down, fundamentally decent? |
| 1:03.6 | And if so, what does that mean for our politics and our political ideologies in 2020? |
| 1:10.6 | Human beings are pretty awful, right? |
| 1:12.8 | That's what we've been told for years. |
| 1:14.8 | That's what the state of our crazy war-torn world seems to often suggest. |
| 1:20.2 | Plus, we grew up reading novels like William Golding's, Lord of the Flies, |
| 1:24.6 | where we saw young kids turn into violent savages, |
| 1:27.8 | once they're removed from a rules-based civilized society. |
... |
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