Brianna’s Reviews > Humankind: A Hopeful History > Status Update

So be realistic. Be courageous. Be true to your nature and offer your trust. Do good in broad daylight, and don't be ashamed of your generosity.

Sometimes our sociable instinct gets in the way of truth and of equity ... History teaches that progress often begins with people whom others feel to be preachy or even unfriendly. People with the nerve to get on their soapbox at social occasions. Who raise unpleasant subjects that make you uneasy.

Cherish those people, because they're the key to progress.

Among the most notable findings to come out of contact science is that prejudices can be eliminated only if we retain our own identity. We need to realize it's okay that we're all different -- there's nothing wrong with that.

Looking back on the most hopeful shifts in recent decades, we see that trust and contact were instrumental every time ... But merely living in a mixed neighborhood isn't enough. If you seldom talk to your neighbors, diversity can actually heighten prejudice ... Contact researchers consequently stress that people need time to get used to one another

The Pygmalion and Golem Effects are woven into the fabric of our world. Every day, we make each other smarter or stupider, stronger or weaker, faster or slower. We can't help leaking expectations through our gazes, our body language and our voices. My expectations about you define my attitude towards you, and the way I behave towards you in turn influences your expectations and therefore your behaviour towards me.

Power appears to work like an anesthetic that makes you insensate to other people. In a 2014 study, three American neurologists [tested] the cognitive functioning of powerful and less powerful people. They discovered that a sense of power disrupts what is known as mirroring, a mental process which plays a key role in empathy ... it is almost as if they no longer feel connected to their fellow human beings.

[A] better world doesn't start with more empathy. If anything, empathy makes us less forgiving, because the more we identify with victims, the more we generalize about our enemies. The bright spotlight we shine on our chosen few makes us blind to the perspective of our adversaries, because everybody else falls outside our view.

In practical terms ... empathy is a hopelessly limited skill. Its something we feel for people who are close to us; for people we can smell, see, hear and touch. For family and friends, for fans of our favourite band, and maybe for the homeless guy on our own street corner. For cute puppies we can cuddle and pet, even as we eat animals mistreated on factory farms out of sight.

Do strong ties to our own group predispose us to feel animosity towards others?

[On the Danish resistance] "Even injustice needs a semblance of law ... That is hard to find when the entire society denies the right of the stronger."