refunds dawn to what films? you know, what, what rubrics you used to award. audiences get to vote on their favorites to mr. slog chair. nod 20 days and mario bowl one. the audience award for best cinema documentary. i. and sometimes a small movie from a small country can really stand out or smokers getting shit again. like maria cup, the rods is slow for which she won a directing award. i spoke with her after the award ceremony and she said, you don't know what this is. donald for lithuanian found the and i said, you don't know what you've done for lithuanian film. sorry, altogether. 32 prizes were awarded at sundance. and so for 2023 is biggest and most influential independent film festival. that's the rap rob reynolds al jazeera park city, utah ah,

teller. again, the headlines on al jazeera, the u. s. secretary of state is due to arrive in jerusalem in a few hours from now on a visit, overshadowed by spiraling tensions between israelis and palestinians. antony blinkin is currently in egypt as part of his middle east tour. bernard smith has more from grandma and that brings the 35. the number of palestinians killed just in this month. the beginning of 2023 in the occupied west bank already. much more than this time the same time last year. and really this number of killings just increasing and driving palestinian frustration and anger. but as these railways know from their own analysis of years and years and years of occupation increasing violence, increasing the violent response in terms of killing number of increasing the killing palestinians does not reduce the level of violence. overall. us media have

quoted a government official thing, a drone strike in central iran was carried out by israel. the strike hit, a military building near the city of han on saturday runs defense ministry says at least one drone was shot down in the explosion called minor damage. russian strikes have killed at least 3 people in ukraine, southern city, of course, on 6 others were injured in the garage which struck in apartment building and other civilian facilities. the regional capital of her thought had been occupied by russian forces until it was recaptured by the ukrainian army in november in peru, the army has been called in as tensions are on the rise in the southern part of the country president dina bala, warranty is blaming congress for the ongoing civil unrest. nearly 60 people have been killed in violence between protesters and police. more than 200 migrants of this embark to rescue ship docked at the italian port of les betsy l. b n g o ship g o barons was carrying 237 migrants on board among them. 73 miners. that

told has no reason to 25 and madagascar. after a tropical storm swept through its western coast 21, people are still missing. torrential rains and floods have damaged houses. displacing nearly 40000 people. coming up next on al jazeera, it's upfront bye bye. talk to al jazeera, we got a women of a gun. it was sent at bands in by the international community. we listen. we have a huge price for the war against terror. what's going on here for money, we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that neither one of the idea that human beings are primarily motivated by self interest, inherently competitive, or even just born evil. has permeated western culture for century theories and studies from philosophers and historians from machiavelli to the seated ether, thomas up and influenced major social, economic and foreign policy decision making. not so argues that historian,

author rector bergman. he believes people are well actually fundamentally pretty decent. his latest book, human kind, hopeful history, proposes a new world. he predicated on what he refers to, a survival of the friendly. what then how do you explain some of the darkest chapters in human history? i'll ask about the pregnant and up front of the record pregnant. thank you so much for joining us on upfront. thanks for having me. the news media is often filled with dalton and even pessimistic headlines about the future, whether it comes to climate change or pandemic. in las wars or human rights atrocities, but in your book, you write that we're actually caught living in the richest safest, healthiest era ever. can you explain your thinking by that? yes, this is pretty astounding, isn't it? but if you look at the, or if you look at the simple statistics that we have,

it's pretty clear as well. so most people don't know that extreme poverty has declined by more than 50 percent since the 1980s. most people don't know that child mortality is declined by more than 50 percent since the 1980s. if you see, see the rise in vaccinations, for example, against terrible diseases such as measles that used to be just 20 percent of the war population. now it's more than 80 percent. so in many respects we are making progress as a species. it could have been an headline, you know, for the last 25 years that around 200000 people were pulled out of poverty every single day. but because it haven't happens every single day, people don't really feel it right. the news is often more about what happens to day, you know, and that's usually the bad stuff. but you also make an argument, your book about the fundamental nature of human beings and the human kind. at the core, as you say, are pretty decent. the example you give could make, could be making the case that as a society,

things are getting better because it's in our interest to get better. but that, that is that then another speak to a fundamental human nature. what do you say to that? yet the reason why i wanted to, to write this book is that in the last couple of decades we've seen a major shift in science. so many scientists from very diverse disciplines and for apology psychology, archaeology, sociology. you name it. they've been moving towards a more hopeful view of human nature. now a more hopeful picture of who we are deep down as a species. i'm. and the thing with these specialists is that they're so specialized that they often don't realize what's going on in the field next to theirs, right? and that's the reason why i wanted to write this book is to give people the big picture of what's, what's been happening, what's been going on is that scientists are now emphasizing that we are not fundamentally selfish. no, we've evolved to cooperate. we are actually a product of what they call survival of the friendliest, which really means where you think it means it means that for the biggest part of

our history, when we're nomadic hunter gatherers, you know, which was around for you in a 1000 years. and it was actually the friendliest among us who had the most kids, and the biggest chance of passing on their genes to the next generation. friendliness helped us to survive. it was our secret superpower. now i think that's a pretty major shift in how we look at human nature. and that's why i wanted to wrap this, but i think i'm struggling with it. you know, and i found your book quite provocative. i found your, your, your reach into various disciplines and histories to be quite compelling. i am just haunted by these extraordinary historical examples of people just doing awful things from the colonization of the americas and 14 hundreds to the holocaust. and we're, we're to other one than genocide, more recently, 994. and of course some archaeology, as you well know, i believe that war has existed since the, the, the, the miss olympic era over 10000 years ago. ah, how do you help me make sense of this? are you saying that all of these people's has a dollar civilization of committed some of the worst atrocities were simply

motivated by things like kinship to the group, as opposed to any kind of internal malice or more malevolence or violence inside of them? you know, i'm, i'm struggling to reconcile that. yeah, yeah. what any book about human decency will obviously have to acknowledge that we humans are also the cruelest species on the planet. i mean, we do things that no other animal would even think of doing. we commit genocide, you know, all kinds of atrocities, warfare seems to be a quite in a specific form of human behavior. and they just don't see with any other animal. i've never heard of a penguin, you know, or a group of banging that says let's, let's exterminate another group of payments, right? so these are singularly human crimes. you have to deal with that. what i want to show in the book though, is that it is too simple to say that this is just in our nature, you know, that we've just always been doing this. because for example, if you look at the archaeology and the anthropology of war, you start to realize that war is actually quite recent invention for the biggest

part of our history. and when we were nomadic into gatherers, people did not engage in warfare. no, there's no archaeological evidence whatsoever for that. so that makes you think what went wrong. now if i would give the quickest possible summary of, of the thesis in the book, it would be something like, most people deep down are pretty decent. but power crops, no power is very dangerous drug and once hierarchy start to arise in really see that when people settle down when they start living in villages and cities, when they invent agriculture, you see that all kinds of terrible things happen. whether it's the invention of the patriarchy, the invention of private property, the, the era of warfare against. so i'm just giving you the big picture here, i, but that is what it, what i guess what i'm struggling with. there are 2 things here, one in you and you give excellent, you know, in both in the book and elsewhere sort of analysis of why people might participate in awful activities during during a holocaust or awful activities during the rwandan genocide. and in many ways you

link that to their desire to follow orders or the desire to not let their friends down at the desire to be connected to a broader interest. does that not let people off the hook for their own choices? i think that's a good point. look, i'm not in the business of proclaiming that people are fundamentally good. i think that people are fundamentally cooperative and fundamentally friendly. and sometimes that's exactly the problem. if i could just tell you once short story, i'm in the midst of the 2nd world war. the allied psychologists were wondering why the germans were fighting so hard, still in 1944 in 9045. and they had all these theories. the most popular theory at the time was that the nazis must have been brainwashed. you know that the soldiers were just, you know, ideological maniacs. and that was the reason why they were still fighting and 45 when it was clear that we're going to lose the war. but then they started interviewing prisoners of war. and they discovered that actually the main reason why these men kept fighting was, well in german commer at shopped comradeship. they were basically fighting for

their friends. and the german army committee knew this, you know, they, they very deliberately kept these bands of brothers, if you will, these, these groups of friends together because they knew that was the most important reason why these men were still fighting. now i'm not saying this to condone anything. i'm trying to explain things in this book. yeah. and that's, that's different from saying a look at these people were just finding because they were monsters or maniacs or they were fundamentally selfish or evil. i think that's a much too shallow explanation. i guess what i'm wondering is this commitment to comradeship. if it's in the service of something evil, you read that as a sign of human decency because they are lying with their friends. whereas some of us might read that as perfect evidence of how awful people are, because then they're more inclined to do evil things, visibly evil things in order to maintain a social relationship, which in many ways the very selfish desire, rather than to help someone outside of their own immediate sphere control that,

that this reads maybe i just read too much of that too much. hobbs and i love rousseau but, but that's what, that's where i people as i read your book, i found it so compelling in. yeah, i just kept it keep getting stuck there. yeah, i see a quick look. i think you're just absolutely right. what, what i guess you got to realize though, is that what i'm finding against in this book is, what scientists skull veneer theory. and the near theory is this notion that people are fundamentally selfish, that our civilization is just a thin layer, you know, just a thin veneer and the, as soon as something bad happens, say a crisis, an earthquake war, or whatever that people basically are, are all in it for themselves, you know, they start looting, they start plundering. and this is a story that's very often, you know, being taught new us also, you know, in media, you remember maybe after katrina, 2005, the stories full of stories about or the press was full of stories about looting

and plundering in the end that turn out not to be factually incorrect. so i'm are pessimistic or cynical view of human nature has your really negative consequences. what we assume in other people is often what we get out of them. so i'm not in the business of, you know, for claiming that that, that people are angels or anything like that. obviously not, we're capable of terrible atrocities. but our, our theory of human nature really, really matters. it can be yourself in a prophecy, and i think it really pays to assume the best and others around us in 2019 you went virally dabbles. when you caught out all the millionaires in billionaires who were in the crowd, you said that they can talk about quote, stupid philanthropy schemes. but people really need to be talking about tax avoidance, because the rich simply are not paying their fair share. it's been 3 years since you made those statements and frankly nothing. nothing's really changed at all. it economic inequality continues to grow. the rich are still exploiting tax loopholes without any accountability. corporations are still dodging taxes left,

right. what does the lack of progress on this issue say about the relationship between wealth and responsibility? i guess i'm a little bit more hopeful. i wouldn't say i'm optimistic, but i am hopeful because i do see change. and if we just zoom out a little bit and look at what has happened in the last, say 10 to 15 years, we've seen the rise of so many big movements, whether it's me to or black lives matter or fridays are for future. you know, the climate movement and actually also in the fight against tax evasion, we have actually seen progress. the problem 15 years ago was that no one was talking about it. you know, this was all in the shadows, but now it's been politicized. and now people are starting to get angry about it and actually, you know, switzerland already had to abolish it's. it's a secrecy, laws bank secrecy laws. so that some progress, actually the fact that people are starting to get angry about this is in itself a sign of progress. this is one very paradoxical phenomenon that we often see in

the public debate. you know, is that the very moment that people start to get angry is already when we're making progress. and that's because they're angry and, and that's, that's exactly what we should be. just taking a step back for a moment. your assessment of human nature is that we're, that there's this decency here, but that the power has a corrupting force and tack capitalism. kind of normalized, the idea that some was going to be powerful, someone's going to have in someone's not going to have is it possible within the context of capitalism to ever get to a place of actual justice of equality, of not having a kind of oligarchy. rule over the world. ah, can we ever get there as long as we have this kind of class defending state in place? can we, can we get to the ultimate vision inside of a capitalist world? so i've never really liked these dogmatic debates about capitalism versus socialism . it's pretty clear to me that you can have terrible capitalist society, such as due us where a life expectancy is act to be going down right now. i mean

u. s g d, p per capita is like 50 percent higher than in spain, but people if 5 years longer than spain, so clearly something's going bad either. there's a, there's a huge amount of diversity obviously. so the way i envision it is that civilized, just society as it provides all these public services, you know, high quality health care, high quality, public education, a basic guaranteed income for everyone. we're more than rich enough right now to completely eradicate poverty. and i think that's actually an investment that pays for itself, but then yes, sure there's still a place for companies and markets. i don't think we should abolish markets altogether. if you visit finland, for example, or costa rica. i mean, these are technically capitalist societies, but you know, so radically different from, for example, the united states. so i sometimes fear we get lost in all these theoretical debates . and we, we forget to focus on, you know, just to concrete, saw that, that,

that lies ahead of us, which is just, you know, building movements, drafting legislation and winning. i think that's got to do with standing on the right side of history involve maybe redesigning our political and economic systems in ways that don't assume that we're awful. they don't assume that we're monsters that don't assume that we, that we will look out for ourselves. even in moments of crisis, i mean, is there a way to design a difference? what could a different world look like in the context of what you're describing? so i think that the idea of updating your view of human nature towards a more hopeful view of humanity is quite revolutionary. there is a reason why throughout history, those who have advocated this more positive view have often been prosecuted. so if we look at the amicus tradition, for example, may be, you know, peter kropotkin, the russian anarchist in the 19th century, he believed them. people are fundamentally good. and well, he had to basically run around the globe, you know,

hiding from the russian secret service. because those at the top understand that a positive view, a hopeful view of human nature is downright seditious. if people contrast each other than they now don't need kings and queens anymore, they don't need armies and secret services. and ceos and managers in you name it, then maybe we can move to a much more egalitarian and generally democratic society. that sounds like it as a capitalist society. to me, i mean that not, not that, that, that, that is linger to load everything or describing sounds like can only happen if we just met the hierarchies you're talking about only happen of leaders, mental capital. sure, sure. well, i'm all in favor of going beyond capitalism, post capitalism, blah, blah, blah. as i said, i didn't normally not super interested in all these, you know, hybrid ideological debates. i am more interested in. okay, what are we going to do concretely to morrow? ok, so that's why in the book i included a lot of case studies of organizations of while even criminal justice, whole criminal justice systems that try to implement this. so for example,

if you go to norway, they have a completely different kind of prison system. you visit the presence there, and while a doesn't look like a prison at all, you know, the prisoners are treated humanely, get the freedom to socialize with the guards to make their own music. there is one prison that even has its own music label called criminal records. and her and, and if you don't look at the results of these kind of institutions where you can look at one thing that criminologist called the recidivism rate, you know, which is the chance that someone will come in another crime once he or she gets out of prison, while that recidivism rate is nowhere as low as in norway. so even though these places don't look like prisons at all, they're the most effective prisons in the world. now if you compare that to the u. s. u. s. prisons are more. well, kropotkin, the anarchists i just mentioned, called them universities for crime. so we take back taxpayer money, and we built these terrible places that actually turn, you know, people into their criminal genic. they produce, they produce more, a lot more cra,

let me talk the, a little bit more about this question of power, because in some ways you talk about power. almost like if it's a bogeyman that is outside of human agency, that it's outside of who we are as a people are. if there is, in fact the case. what is what generates as power? what we understand what power is and how we can dismantle it. power is absolutely essential to the human experience. so even anarchist organizations that they can't think away power, it's always there, even if it's not institutionalized, or formalized or whatever. so it always needs to be kept in control. and if you study nomadic, you, hunter, gatherer societies, they had a very straightforward way to do this. they used the power of shame. so shame is really essential in human societies. humans are the only animal in the animal kingdom with the ability to blush. i mean, isn't that astounding? we involuntarily give away her feelings to other members of her species in order to

establish trust so, so that was really important in those kind of societies. once you would start to behave in a 2 narcissistic ways, you know, people would shame you. so humbleness would really be a prerequisite as a leader in a, in a horizontal society, like that. not what we see a more hierarchical societies, like the one we we live in today, is that actually sit shame, shame, less nurse can sometimes be positively advantageous, right? which is very much the opposite of how things used to be. we now sometimes have a politicians are leaders who are able to do things. you know, that of the people you know just wouldn't be able to do, right? because they would just immediately start blushing. but if, if you just think of, say, your, the president in your specific country and think of like, one was the last time i saw, saw him or her blushing, right? probably hard to remember. you know, that's not really what you do in politics these days. so there seems to be something in the human psychology itself,

and this has been and studied even in brain scanners, is that under the influence of power, you become less empathetic. it's as if you become disconnected. as i sat there are neurological studies that show that people seem to mirror each other last. so mirroring is a really a central part of the human experience. you know, we copy each other all the time. you start yawning, ice, that yawning as well, right? i people who are in more powerful positions they, they do this way last and so it seems as if they're less in sync with the rest of humanity soon and down and suddenly pauses in place. that almost concede of the disposability of people or big believe that brutality violence harm it's. it's just how it is just, it's just the way human ears. for example, we'll see a global outcry over an image of a young child. you know, they're lifeless body washed up on a european beach, just one of countless migrants who are struggling to get to safety. but border

policies in most countries don't change. they remain incredibly restrictive. uh, yeah, it was a in who mains, you know, a gimmick ha, in the it is clear policies. if people are fundamentally geared towards is you say, cooperation, it taken care of each other? yes, yes. well, i'm not saying that humans are angels on the one hand over the years. this is, we are being an angel. we're talking about mad at us. yes. systemic inequality, structural harm that we see every single day. you don't be an angel to not want child labor or people washed up on a shore or so, you know, these kinds of things. yeah. yeah. yeah, but you're right, that are empathy is limited in the there's one psychologist called paul bloom, who's written a quite terrific book with a title against empathy, where he argues that the problem with empathy is that it's more like a spotlight. it's a cert light, right? it helps you to focus on a specific group or a specific person, right? one child that you know washes up on our shores. and then every once shocked. but it's very hard to look at the statistical number and feel the same outrage right?

there's, this is quote from the philosopher bertrand russell, that i always loved. he, he once rode, the mark of a civilized mind is to look at a row of numbers and be able to weep. i guess that's a challenge if i, if i tell you 5000000 kids every year, die from easily preventable diseases while you don't feel much probably. but these are 5000000 children, you know, with, with parents who really, really love them. so what we got to try and do hair is overcome our cognitive limits, overcome our emotional limits and realized that we can them. and we should also help people who, you know, we don't instinctively feel these kind of things about. and that is possible. mean we, again, we have made progress in, in quite a few respects, but not nearly there yet. fair enough. one of the things you talk about in the book

that i really appreciate and you talk about this throughout your career, is idea of not just knowing what we're going to fight against. but also having sort of an affirmative vision, you know, knowing what we're, what we're fighting for what our, what our goal is, talk about what that means to you. so when i wrote my 1st book, which is scott, utopia frivolous, i was frustrated that young people at the time didn't really have a big positive vision, and they mainly knew what they were. again, this was just after financial after the financial crash of 2008, and we were all against the establishment the and against the stare at the, and against them a phobia and against racism. and obviously i also was against all those things, but i felt what's actually are load star, what's something we're striving for? what could be a utopia for the future? i mean, the end of slavery and democracy in the welfare state, all these great achievements they were once utopian until they happened. so in history quite a few times, we've seen the impossible become inevitable. and that's what i've been looking for

. but you know, the thing is there's, there's quite a few reasons to be helpful because i think that young people to day had do have a much more positive, hopeful youth future her vision of where we could go. if we radically change our society and you help us with that vision, you have some concrete ideas yourself, of what we could do to change the world. talk what universities income a 15 hour work weeks, open, borders, all of this stuff. what would your utopia for realist as you put it looked like? so maybe it's interesting to zoom in on that 1st idea universal basic income. when i 1st wrote about it, i think that was in 2013. it was a pretty much forgotten idea. most people haven't heard of it, there were some people here in the netherlands who are asking me like, oh, basic income. is that sort of the base salary of the bankers on top of which day receive all their bonuses? i said no, this is actually really exciting idea, and we can completely eradicate poverty. and what we see now is that there are

dozens of experiments happening all over the globe. there was actually a recent piece in the new york times about the, the huge wave of experiments in the us. and, and i think that's really exciting. people are starting to realize that poverty is not a lack of character. it's just the lack of cash. and how do you solve a lack of cash? well, you get people money. that's what you do because poor people themselves are the experts on their own lives. there's nothing wrong with them. they just don't have did the means. they don't have to venture capital to invest in their own lives. and what the evidence shows us quite clearly again and again is that when you invest in people, when you give them the means to make their own choices, a lot of positive things happen. you know, kids do better and school health improves people fight new jobs. they start new companies. they actually are able to pay more in taxes. so again, this often pays for itself. and it's one of those ideas that really moves beyond the standard, you know, divide between the left and right. and that's a pretty radical while, if you're talking about wealthy,

paying more in taxes in the poor, getting more cash to more radical redistribution of wealth from the ruling class to everyday workers. i mean, yeah, your internet, your is away from capitalism. bit by bit, sir. i are, i can't wait for your next book, which will, which will be that when you have the full conversion. anyway, it is an incredible conversation is incredible book. thank you so much for joining us for. it's been an absolute pleasure. thanks so much room. li, everyone bet is our show up, right? we'll be back. ah. being comfortable in one's own skin is a birthright, or at least it should be a black filmmaker raised by white parents in east berlin in the 19 sixty's embark on a stunning journey of self discovery. a touching tale of family identity,

lifelong secrecy, and reconciliation becoming black. a witness documentary on out jazeera ah mm. with ah

debating the issues of the day, the 5 largest polluters of the world are in india, jump into the street. they made their money on coal. they made their money on field, convincing those folks. no, we need to go. green is very, very difficult, giving all of voice. we chose to live because we wanted to escape war and violence . when you humanize this narrative, you allow people to really understand the reality and break down misconceptions. the st. on al jazeera part of the samples must always on good luck. we are the ones grappling the extra mile where the media don't go. we go there and we give them a chance to tell their story. ah, a visit overshadowed by spiraling tensions. the u. s. sector state is due to arrive in jerusalem as another palestinian as gun.