Understanding Society
Humankind
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
This is the opening of a seven-part sequence working through the prologue of Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History. Britain’s leaders expected the Blitz to break London. Gustave Le Bon’s influential theory held that terror strips away civilization, and the government planned for mass panic. What they found instead — shoppers still haggling, psychiatric wards empty, suicides down — is where Doug’s argument starts.
A Note on the Original Text
Doug’s writings are presented as originally written. Spelling, punctuation, and grammatical irregularities have been retained to preserve his words and the integrity of the original record.
ORIGINAL WRITING
The title of this post is identical to the title of a new book by Rutger Bregman. The subtitle is A Hopeful History. In these depressing times, this book timely. The following series of posts will be based on this book. The epigraph for this book is from Anton Chekov: ‘Man will become better when you show him what he is like.’
The book’s prolog describes British attitudes at the start of World War 2. London was in grave danger. The city, according to a certain Winston Churchill, formed ‘the greatest target in the world, a kind of tremendous fat cow, a valuable fat cow tied up to attract the beasts of prey’. The fear was of Adolph Hitler and his war machine. If the British population broke under the terror of his bombers, it would spell the end of the nation. ‘Traffic will cease, the homeless will shriek for help, the city will be in pandemonium,’ feared one British general.
Churchill predicted that at least three to four million Londoners would flee the city. The ‘Psychology of the Masses’– was written by one of the most influential scholars of his day, the Frenchman Gustave Le Bon. Hitler read the book cover to cover. So did Mussolini, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt.
Le Bon wrote, “man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization. Panic and violence erupt, and we humans reveal our true nature. On 7 September 1940, the German bombers came. Over the next nine months more than 80,000 bombs were dropped on London. A million buildings were damaged or destroyed. Entire neighborhoods were damaged or destroyed. More than 40,000 people in London lost their lives.
So how did people live on in these neighborhoods? Small boys continued to play all over the pavements. Shoppers went on haggling and policemen directed traffic, and bicyclists defied death and the traffic laws.
An American journalist interviewing Londoners asked if they were afraid. The answer was, ‘ oh, no. If we were what good would it do us?”
The British endured the German air raids much as they would a delayed train. Irritating to be sure, but tolerable on the whole. Train services also continued during the blitz, but Hitler’s tactics scarcely left a dent in the British economy.
Psychiatric wards remained empty, and public mental health actually improved. Alcoholism tailed off. There were fewer suicides than in peacetime.