The Book Club

Are humans altruistic by nature?

47 min listen

In This Episode

In this week’s Book Club podcast my guest is the historian Rutger Bregman. In his new book Humankind, Rutger argues that practically every novelist, psychologist, economist and political theorist has got it all wrong: humans are naturally caring, sharing and altruistic… and far from being the one thing that stands in the way of a Hobbesian war of all against all, ‘civilisation’ is actually what makes us behave badly. You’re probably thinking: ‘Come off it, hippy.’ Why not see if he can change your mind?

Comments

A blooming good offer

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting the next 3 months for £3.

Already a subscriber? Log in