The story of human progress starts with our capacity for thinking and creativity. That's what sets humans apart from other animals – and it's also what leads us to make complete tits of ourselves on a regular basis.
Author Tom Phillips studied Archaeology, Anthropology and the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University and has worked as a journalist, a humour writer, and as the editorial director of BuzzFeed UK. All of these skills and influences are apparent in Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up, and if you're the kind of reader who thinks you might enjoy a chronology of humanity's biggest mistakes, told with ironic humour and f-bombs, then this pop-history just might be a perfect fit for you. As for me, the humour here didn't actually make me laugh out loud, I was familiar with many of the stories, and I'd prefer more of a connecting thesis than, “Humans are stupid and selfish and always have been; probably always will be”. Still, Humans is very readable – an ultralight version of Jared Diamond or Yuval Noah Harari – and it's always the right time to stand humble before humanity's many flaws. To begin, an example of the humour:
Australia's rabbit problem is one of the most famous examples of something that we've only figured out quite late in the day: ecosystems are ridiculously complex things and you mess with them at your peril. Animals and plants will not simply play by your rules when you casually decide to move them from one place to another. “Life,” as a great philosopher once said, “breaks free; it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers – painfully, maybe even dangerously. But, uh, well, there it is.” (Okay, it was Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park who said that. As I say, a great philosopher.)(And incidentally, this scourge of rabbits [and cane toads] unleashed on Australia is also an example of the kind of story most people have heard before; if the tone in a nonfiction work isn't academic, isn't attempting to support some new theory with long-accepted facts, I think all of the information should at least be new and surprising.) Humans is divided into chapters on our brains (going over confirmation bias, the Dunning-Kruger effect, and other ways that we convince ourselves we're right when we're wrong), the mistakes of the Agricultural Revolution and the domestication/resettling of animals, the rise of leaders (and all the horrible ways they have taken advantage of their positions, no matter the political system), the evils of colonisation and war, mistakes of diplomacy, and the unintended consequences of technological breakthroughs. Along the way, there were many stories that were new to me – Scotland's attempt to build an empire in Panama, Kessler syndrome (that could see us “trapped on our planet by a prison we've made from our own trash”), or the avoidable decimation of the Khwarezmian Empire – and I liked these bits very much; the brand of humour didn't speak to me but Phillips is an excellent storyteller.
If there was a theme running through this book, it would be throwing shade at Donald Trump without ever once mentioning him. One chapter is titled “A Dummies' and/or Current Presidents' Guide to Diplomacy”, a parenthetical note in the prologue states, “at the time of writing this, there's a broad awareness that the only thing that stands between us and annihilation is the whim of one petulant man-child or another”, and after a passage that outlines how “Hitler was actually an incompetent, lazy egomaniac and his government was an absolute clownshow”, Phillips concludes:
Many of the worst man-made events that ever occurred were not the product of evil geniuses. Instead, they were the product of a parade of idiots and lunatics, incoherently flailing their way through events, helped along the way by overconfident people who thought they could control them.And if that level of subtext is too understated, Phillips concludes the bit about Scotland's doomed empire-building with:
As a tale it lends itself to metaphor. I mean, it's the story of a country turning away from a political union with its closest geographical trading partners in favor of a fantasy vision of unfettered global influence promoted by free-trade zealots with dreams of empire, who wrapped their vague plans in the rhetoric of aggrieved patriotism while consistently ignoring expert warnings about the practical reality of the situation. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything that could be a metaphor for right now.So, that running theme is either interesting to the reader or not – I found it a little juvenile; a distraction from any legitimate connections Phillips might have been trying to draw between the failures of the past and the dangers of the present.
Whatever our future holds, whatever baffling changes come along in the next year, the next decade and the next century, it seems likely that we'll keep on doing basically the same things. We will blame other people for our woes, and construct elaborate fantasy worlds so that we don't have to think about our sins. We will turn to populist leaders in the aftermath of economic crises. We will scramble for money. We will succumb to groupthink and manias and confirmation bias. We will tell ourselves that our plans are very good plans and that nothing can possibly go wrong. Or...maybe we won't?As a collection of anecdotes about human failure, Humans is trivia-rich and easy to read (even when describing horrible abuses or modern threats, the tone is light but respectful). I understand the truism that history is repeated by those who fail to study and understand it, but also know that we humans are wired the same way today as we were the first time someone murdered, lied, or stole to advance a selfish cause – who knows what the future holds for us? Unlike Diamond or Harari, Phillips doesn't even hazard a guess.
