
When my children were younger, if they heard bad news I would reassure them that there are many more good people in the world than bad people. This is one of the reasons we have so few police compared to the population.
Human Kind, written by Rutger Bregman in Dutch and then translated to English, takes this view a few steps further.
The book explains, in lavish and often repetitive detail, how we are naturally a good-natured species, and it’s the media that makes everything sound bad.
Although we are good natured in our actions, it seems there’s a part of our brain that is attracted to and remembers bad news over good news.
Newspaper and news website headlines are an obvious example. Continue reading Book review: Human Kind