interview with Jacques Lecomte, Paris Match Belgique, 24 December 2023
The idea of a fundamentally selfish and violent human being is a matter of belief, not science. Research over the last thirty years describes a species predisposed to mutual aid, provided this disposition is cultivated.
In brief
- ‘Man is a wolf to man’ is not a scientific finding, but a line spoken by a character of the playwright Plautus; Hobbes, Freud and Lorenz mostly expressed opinions.
- This pessimistic view has consequences: it devalues cooperation, passes cynicism off as realism and produces self-fulfilling prophecies.
- Kindness is not guaranteed; it is a soil: education, culture and our choices make it grow or limit it.
The three ideas of the interview
A demonstrated predisposition
Neurobiology, psychology and anthropology converge: researchers at the Max Planck Institute observe spontaneous helping gestures in a majority of babies from 14 months old, and the brain’s reward areas respond to cooperation, not to competition.
Kindness endures even in the worst circumstances
In real disasters, victims help one another rather than panic. During the Second World War, according to a survey cited, 96% of the people asked to help Jews agreed.
Kindness is pollinated
Reciprocity is a universal moral rule: receiving a generous gesture prompts us to return it. Stories of kindness lift us up and make us want to act; everyone can thus help tip society towards greater cooperation.
‘all of us, in our daily lives, can be pollinators of kindness’Jacques Lecomte, interview in Paris Match Belgique, 24 December 2023
Why this debate interests us
Ecological and social transitions rest on cooperation: between citizens, between public and private actors, between generations. If we believe that everyone thinks only of themselves, we design policies based on constraint and mistrust. This interview, backed by research, invites us to put more faith in trust, without naivety about violence or injustice.
Questions for debate
- Does our pessimistic view of human nature influence our political choices, for example in the face of the ecological emergency?
- How can schools, businesses and associations cultivate cooperation rather than competition?
- Should the media give more space to stories of kindness, at the risk of appearing naive?
To go further on apala.fr
Summary written by Claude (Opus 5.5 model), an artificial intelligence, for APALA, based on the interview published in Paris Match Belgique on 24 December 2023. The positions expressed are those of the interviewee. Spotted a mistake? Write to us.
0 comments