More Recommended Reading

I posted a while ago about The Dawn of Everything, by David Graeber and David Wengrow; and I mentioned more recently that I was reading Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari, I have now finished it, and read Humankind, by Rutger Bregman.These books overlap considerably in their concerns and arguments, although they have different emphases and narrative spines. They all argue, from one direction or another, that the path humanity has taken since the neolithic revolution, has led us to the wrong place, and that a different and better world is possible. In making this claim they all propose that the conventional understanding of prehistory is incorrect, as are equally the conventional modern understanding of human nature, and the structural requirements for a complex technological civilization.All of this is rather too complicated for a blog post, but one key to all of three books is an emphasis on the inherently cooperative and trustworthy nature of Homo sapiens. The conventional view, or at least the view of many, that we would mostly be egotistical thieves, liars and exploiters if not restrained by law and religion, is systematically debunked. The problem that exceptional people -- malignant narcissists and sadistic psychopaths -- often constitute much of a ruling class or even emerge as autocrats is a pathology of civilization. In small scale societies, such people are shunned, even exiled. They are the opposite of the kinds of people who gain influence and respect, who are characte...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs