authors:
- Hare, Brian
- Woods, Vanessa
content: 'A very nice read, describing the author''s work on the psychology of humans,
dogs, chimpanzees and bonobos as a window into the history of human evolution. The
main theme is that humans self-domesticated to become the cooperative, social and
cultural species that we are today. But even if we are much more friendly towards
strangers than most other species, we have a strong tendency to classify people
in "us" and "them", and this underlies a lot of the problems in human society.
This book is unusual in the genre in that it discusses explicitly some political
aspects of the results in this field. However, it does so without reference to the
main strands of political philosophy (except for a brief discussion of constitutional
government). This is a problem, and makes the analysis weaker than it could be.
However, it does try to provide ideas for positive action, and argues for creating
arenas for interactions between foes as a means of creating greater understanding
and, eventually, concrete friendships between persons, leading to peaceful co-existence.
Segregation in various forms is not the way forward.'
date: '2022-07-10'
edition:
published: '2020'
publisher: HARPER COLLINS
goodreads: '56603012'
html: '<p>A very nice read, describing the author''s work on the psychology of humans,
dogs, chimpanzees and bonobos as a window into the history of human evolution. The
main theme is that humans self-domesticated to become the cooperative, social and
cultural species that we are today. But even if we are much more friendly towards
strangers than most other species, we have a strong tendency to classify people
in "us" and "them", and this underlies a lot of the problems
in human society.</p>
<p>This book is unusual in the genre in that it discusses explicitly some political
aspects of the results in this field. However, it does so without reference to the
main strands of political philosophy (except for a brief discussion of constitutional
government). This is a problem, and makes the analysis weaker than it could be.
However, it does try to provide ideas for positive action, and argues for creating
arenas for interactions between foes as a means of creating greater understanding
and, eventually, concrete friendships between persons, leading to peaceful co-existence.
Segregation in various forms is not the way forward.</p>
'
isbn: '9780861540235'
language: en
lastmod: '2022-07-10'
path: /library/hare-2020.html
published: '2020'
rating: 4
reference: Hare 2020
reviewed: '2022-07-10'
subjects:
- human-evolution
- science
title: Survival of the Friendliest
type: book
year: 2020