Unlearning “humans are innately selfish, aggressive, acquisitive beasts”

This chapter explores the continuing hold Thomas Hobbes’s idea of the lives of humans in a state nature being ‘nasty, brutish and short’, and how sociobiological approaches revived and magnified that thinking, despite the demonstrable variation to be found within human, and other animals’, behaviour. It takes issue with the anthropology of Napoleon Chagnon and his claim that one group of modern humans in the Amazon could tell us about all “primitive” ways of life, explores false claims of technological determinism, and considers how for most of human existence art has been what you did daily, not purchased. Mainstream economists continue to rely on Homo economicus, and even institutions such as churches embrace the idea of humans as innately competitive. Alternative ideas of equality and cooperation are under concerted attack from Far Right owners and denizens of social media. But we should continue to look to David Graeber and David Wengrow, Peter Frankopan and Josephine Quinn, for understanding the many ways in which humans have, and can, live in cooperative societies and develop supportive, healthy, diverse cultures. But we cannot blame the state of ours on “the internet”. The hypodermic needle model of communications was debunked long ago.