Historian and author Rutger Bregman joins Trevor and Christiana to debate ethics and the possibility of a better world. Are human beings innately good? Innately selfish? Which is better to move the human race forward? Which sows the seeds of our own demise? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What inspired Rutger Bregman to confront billionaires at Davos?
I'm actually in for the show. We're going to make the show. Toddler vs. Pig. I need it. This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. Rutger, welcome to the podcast. I was thinking about, you know, having you on and I was like, do you get invited back anyway? This is the thing I found myself asking.
Well, you invited me back, Trevor.
Well, I mean, yeah, but I don't think you've ever said anything against me. And I was just thinking, you're the guy who went to Davos and told all the billionaires who were there, like literally everyone. You sat there and you basically said, you guys are a bunch of hypocrites. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. But what I think they heard was, you guys are hypocrites.
You are not paying your fair share. And you're acting high and mighty when, you know, avoiding the elephants in the room. You went to TED and you told everyone there they should be giving away their money. And everyone in the room is like the 1% and poor people are actually right and the rich people are wrong for the way they're doing it. So I really wondered, do you get invited back to places?
Did Davos ever invite you back? Did Ted? Where do you find that you have the best recidivism rates?
Well, no, I didn't get another invitation to go to Davos. It was something I said, I guess. Tucker Carlson, I also never heard from him again. But apart from that, you know, yeah, people invite me back.
Wait, but okay, help me out with the Tucker one. I thought that you and him would have been on the same page for what he's been saying. Where was the big divergence?
Well, I mean, this was just after I had gone to Davos and indeed I had said some nasty things about billionaires and their massive tax avoidance and their massive tax evasion. And then, you know, how they keep whining about their philanthropy. Well, maybe, you know, just start with paying your fair share in taxes.
So then Tucker Carlson invited me on his show because apparently he liked it that I had, you know, stuck it to the global issue or something like that. And I was like, well, you know, you're also the elite, you know, you're part of the problem. Like you're, what is it? A millionaire funded by billionaires. So he didn't like that.
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Chapter 2: Is wealth distribution skewed globally?
Love it. Where's your cut up point? Like what's the income where you won't throw shade? I'm very curious about that. What's the number?
It's a good question. Depends on where you live, I guess. I mean, I just moved to New York and it feels like you need to be a multimillionaire even to raise kids here.
Yes, you do.
I guess that depends. But it's easy to forget how wealthy people are when they live in rich countries.
Yes.
Where I'm from, the Netherlands, if you have just a median income, which is about, what is it, 35,000 euros annually. So what is that, $40,000 or something? You're part of the richest 3.5% in the world. So... Remember Occupy Wall Street where people were saying we are the 99% and they are the 1%?
Well, actually, from a global perspective, very often the people who say that stuff on TikTok or Instagram, they're actually part of the top 5% in terms of income.
I completely agree because I'm from England. And whenever I go home, I'm like, this country is so poor. And I'm going to say that because Americans can skew your perception of what money is. Because there's just so much money here. Everything is so expensive.
There was a piece in the New York Times recently about how they are giving financial aid to families that make $800,000 a year to attend private school. Because even though they have $800,000 a year... They cannot afford to send their kids to these private schools, which cost about $70,000 a year. And if you have two, three kids, do the numbers. And that's kind of the class that does pay taxes.
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Chapter 3: How have historical movements succeeded in changing society?
Stores are boarded up. They're dilapidated. Yeah, like where I used to work, I used to work in this department store called Alders, which is now closed in the Whitgift Centre in Croydon. And if you go to the Whitgift Centre now, it used to be this like bustling kind of shopping mall. And now you're like, it's like a ghost town, right? Like this NHS, which is like brilliant, free healthcare.
But people are like, I'm on a list for two years to get a knee replacement. And when I go into central London, a lot of the wealth I see is foreign wealth. I don't necessarily come across people like, I was born and raised in London and I made my dream come true here. So, you know, I just see the gap between the have and the have not seems to be getting wider everywhere.
But in America, it's more acute because there's just so much money here. if that makes sense.
That makes a lot of sense. Rutger, I want to know, when I think of you, and I think maybe this is probably how most people see you in the world who are familiar with your work. They see the historian. They see somebody who's a journalist. And I think in many ways, they also see somebody who is really adept at looking at studies and the way the world actually works versus how we think it works.
So when you look at three different places where people have the same feeling, even though they're having a different experience, what do you think it tells us about how people are experiencing the world?
So I think that there are two ways to travel. You can travel in time, obviously, or you can travel in space. And if you go to another country, then very often you realize, oh, wow. So there are different ways to doing things, right? And that's just like history. I think the main lesson of studying history is that things can be different. There's nothing inevitable.
about the way we've structured our society and economy right now. I've personally always been fascinated by this question of how radical ideas, seemingly crazy ideas, can over the years and decades become reality, both for better and for worse. Actually, I spent about a year studying the abolitionist movement, mainly the British abolitionist movement, because that was the most successful one.
And what you realize if you go back to, say, the year 1750, and you would have stood on a street corner in London or Pennsylvania or New York, and you would have said, abolish the slave trade, abolish slavery, most people would have said, you're utterly nuts. That could never happen, and we really need this. This is like…
fundamental to our economy and then obviously it took many many decades and it started with a small group of really committed black and white abolitionists but it does happen so i've always been fascinated by those processes how the how the crazy can become inevitable what did they do well like what was it that made their movement as successful as it was
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Chapter 4: What does 'survival of the friendliest' mean for human evolution?
Oh, you know, I have a vendetta against dolphins.
Wait, tell me more.
Dolphins are like rapists. They're like the most evil, horrible... No, okay, I don't agree with this. Nope. Dolphins? Tell your story.
Dolphins seduce people.
Tell your story.
Just read up on the stuff that dolphins do. You tell me what you've read up on and then we will fight about this. I don't like this anti-dolphin... Please, go.
I am very anti-dolphin. Tell me the story.
Tell me what you've read.
I know that dolphins are capable of rape. They often do rape. Okay. Just like male cats.
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Chapter 5: Do personal experiences shape our views on human nature?
I don't think so.
No, but I think that's why we exist as people.
Have you been to a park recently, Trevor?
Have I been to... Yeah, but now you modern parents, you're not even allowed to look at another person's child or help them. When I grew up, even in South Africa now, people can still be friendly and help you with your child. You're talking about a very specific sad thing that's happened in America. I argue, for the most part, human beings... And I think it's demonstrated in our very nature, right?
We get on a plane. We trust. We don't even know the pilot. We've never even seen this guy's certificate, right? We just fly. It's this weird system where we... Because the trust is so latent and the morality is so latent, we then notice the anomalies in society.
Yeah.
And then we go, look how bad we are.
Okay, so... I understand what you're both saying, Rutger, Trevor.
She's very pessimistic, Rutger.
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Chapter 6: How do societal conditions influence our perception of safety and trust?
Oh yeah, then it makes you feel like
Are humans really kind? Are groups really kind? And as you said, it benefits these billionaires.
Yeah.
Be a man, be heterosexual. It works incredibly well. So yeah, you're absolutely right. And part of me wonders this as well. As I think about this book I wrote, Humankind, is it just one big expression of privilege? Is it a telling fact that I wrote that book?
Probably.
Can I interject with one thought here? You actually are the person who made me realize this one day. you said to me, oh, Trevor, of course you think that that's possible because of how you see the world or how the world treats you. And it's funny, Rutger, Christiana and I always have this back and forth.
And I will say, yes, I am the way I am because of how the world treats me, but I'm also the way I am, or the world is the way it is to me because of how I treat it. And I don't know when the cycle begins, to be honest with you, right? I think it is easier to be optimistic when things have gone right, or when you remember things going right.
Because sometimes I think it's more about your perception than the reality, right? And so even when I think about jogging or not jogging, I don't have kids. But the one thing I will say is, I think of how many parents, let's say in America, are terrified at the idea of their child being kidnapped when the data does not support it. It just does not. And I think it's very difficult in life
But we are oftentimes at the mercy of the things that have happened to us. And so that becomes part of how we see the world. I think very exceptional individuals are able to see the world beyond how it happened to them and rather how they wish it to be. But most of us, most of us, you get robbed on a certain street, you probably will never walk on that street ever again.
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Chapter 7: Can optimism about human nature coexist with real-world challenges?
So what I'm always trying to do, and this is why I fight with my friend, because I go, I don't ever want us to live in a world where we think, like you said, you can only hold one thought. Some people will say, my parents didn't love me. They were abusive. I'm like, or your parents grew up in a world where they beat you and all kids were beaten.
And yeah, now we don't believe that that's the right thing. And now they think it's like timeouts and conversations. But to Rutger's point, maybe in like 15 years, maybe in 20 years, they'll be like, hey, actually timeouts are worse on a child's mental health.
It's already happening. Oh, well, there you go. There's an anti-timeout movement right now.
Do you know what I mean? So I think there's a difficulty in processing how kind humans are versus how bad human beings, individual can be and how much harm they can do versus the, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
One person can kill many people and now all of us feel like the world is full of killers. But we forget that like when one person was shooting in a crowd, everyone was running.
Yeah.
So there's more runners than there are shooters.
I know. I do believe... Listen, I want to be clear so everyone doesn't think like I'm complete pessimist. No, no.
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