Passage
Direction for Reading Comprehension: The passages given here are followed by some questions that have four answer choices; read the passage carefully and pick the option whose answer best aligns with the passage
Although one of the most contested concepts in political philosophy, human nature is something on which most people seem to agree. By and large, according to Rutger Bregman in his new book Humankind, we have a rather pessimistic view – not of ourselves exactly, but of everyone else. We see other people as selfish, untrustworthy and dangerous and therefore we behave towards them with defensiveness and suspicion. This was how the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes conceived our natural state to be, believing that all that stood between us and violent anarchy was a strong state and firm leadership.
But in following Hobbes, argues Bregman, we ensure that the negative view we have of human nature is reflected back at us. He instead puts his faith in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the 18th-century French thinker, who famously declared that man was born free and it was civilisation – with its coercive powers, social classes and restrictive laws – that put him in chains.
Hobbes and Rousseau are seen as the two poles of the human nature argument and it’s no surprise that Bregman strongly sides with the Frenchman. He takes Rousseau’s intuition and paints a picture of a prelapsarian idyll in which, for the better part of 300,000 years, Homo sapiens lived a fulfilling life in harmony with nature . . . Then we discovered agriculture and for the next 10,000 years it was all property, war, greed and injustice. . . .
It was abandoning our nomadic lifestyle and then domesticating animals, says Bregman, that brought about infectious diseases such as measles, smallpox, tuberculosis, syphilis, malaria, cholera and plague. This may be true, but what Bregman never really seems to get to grips with is that pathogens were not the only things that grew with agriculture – so did the number of humans. It’s one thing to maintain friendly relations and a property-less mode of living when you’re 30 or 40 hunter-gatherers following the food. But life becomes a great deal more complex and knowledge far more extensive when there are settlements of many thousands.
“Civilisation has become synonymous with peace and progress and wilderness with war and decline,” writes Bregman. “In reality, for most of human existence, it was the other way around.” Whereas traditional history depicts the collapse of civilisations as “dark ages” in which everything gets worse, modern scholars, he claims, see them more as a reprieve, in which the enslaved gain their freedom and culture flourishes. Like much else in this book, the truth is probably somewhere between the two stated positions.
In any case, the fear of civilisational collapse, Bregman believes, is unfounded. It’s the result of what the Dutch biologist Frans de Waal calls “veneer theory” – the idea that just below the surface, our bestial nature is waiting to break out. . . . There’s a great deal of reassuring human decency to be taken from this bold and thought-provoking book and a wealth of evidence in support of the contention that the sense of who we are as a species has been deleteriously distorted. But it seems equally misleading to offer the false choice of Rousseau and Hobbes when, clearly, humanity encompasses both.
Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 6
Try yourself:According to the author, the main reason why Bregman contrasts life in preagricultural societies with agricultural societies is to:
Explanation
This is a slightly difficult passage to read. Bregman contrasts preagricultural societies with agricultural societies. In answering the first question, we have to find the opinion of Bregman, who clearly supports Rousseau, clearly demonstrated in the third paragraph. Rousseau believes that “for the better part of 300,000 years, Homo sapiens lived a fulfilling life in harmony with nature. Then we discovered agriculture and for the next 10,000 years it was all property, war, greed and injustice.”
From this we see that there is ample support for choice 1. The rest can go out. Bregman is not an environmentalist; he is more of a social scientist. This eliminates 2. Again, choice 3 takes the focus away from bringing out the difference between pre-agricultural society and post-agricultural society. Bregman’s focus is not on population but on “human nature and human conditions”. 1 is the best choice.
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Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 6
Try yourself:According to the passage, the “collapse of civilisations” is viewed by Bregman as:
Explanation
This is a slightly tricky question, but the answer is implied in the second last para of the passage. There the author says “in traditional history, the collapse of civilization is seen as ‘dark ages’, but Bregman says it was the other way round in most of human experience. In other words, Bregman wants to say that “collapse of civilization means time of change”. The author goes on to say that the truth is somewhere in between. We have to answer for Bregman, not for the author. Thus B is the best choice.
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Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 6
Try yourself:The author has differing views from Bregman regarding:
Explanation
In this question, for option 1, as far as the author is concerned, he agrees with Bregman. We have evidence for that in the fourth paragraph. The author says “this may be true”. One might feel that 2 is correct, but the author has not stated any opinion contrary to Bregman’s. In fact, there is no evidence for either agreement or disagreement. We have evidence only for choice 4 in the second last para of the passage where the author says “the truth is probably somewhere between”. which truth is the he talking about? Bregman believes that collapse of civilization brings changes and has not much to do with peace and progress, as much of conventional history depicts. The author by partially disagreeing with this takes an opposite stand. Thus 4 is the best choice.
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Question for CAT 2020 Reading Comprehension Questions- 6
Try yourself:None of the following views is expressed in the passage EXCEPT that:
Explanation
This question asks us to pick the option that finds mention in the passage. We have to simply look for the choices in the passage. Choice 1 goes out because nowhere is it given that both Hobbes and Rousseau believed in the need for a strong state. Option 2 goes out because Bregman does not agree with Hobbes; he instead sides with Rousseau. At the end of the passage, the author makes it very clear that the veneer theory is attributed to the Dutch biologist. Towards the end he says that human nature encompasses both Hobbes and Rousseau. Thus 3 also goes out. We are left with 4 as the only plausible choice, and we have enough evidence for it in the first paragraph, where the author says “we see other people as selfish this was how Hobbes conceived our natural state to be”. By using the pronoun ‘we’, the author suggests that Hobbes views reflect the views of most people.
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