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Despite the Prime Minister’s announcement last night of certain changes, this time of extended confinement confronts us with our deepest fears and hopes. I’ve been reflecting on a well-known story about an old man telling a child that there are two wolves always wrestling inside us. One is darkness and despair, the other is lightness and hope. “Which wolf wins?” asks the child. “It depends which one you feed,” replies the old man. Today we see evidence of those opposing impulses all around – in altruism and solidarity on the one hand, and in selfishness and aggression on the other. These conflicting human urges fuel a debate that has divided western philosophy – are we naturally violent and selfish, or are we naturally good and sociable? Dutch writer Rutger Bregman sets out evidence in favour of the more positive interpretation in his new book, Humankind: A Hopeful History. In an interview, he argues that, though we are ‘the cruellest of species … our secret superpower is our friendliness and ability to cooperate.’ He refers to William Golding’s dystopian 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies, which describes the anarchic violence that erupts when a group of boys is stranded on an island. Bregman contrasts this with a true story of what happened when six schoolboys from Tonga were marooned on a small island for more than a year in the 1960s. By the time they were rescued, the boys had created a supportive community which was a model of ingenuity, solidarity and care. Bregman is the secular son of a Protestant pastor. He acknowledges the formative influence of his father’s Christian faith on his ideas. Christianity also recognises those two wolves struggling within us – our capacity for love and generosity, and our capacity for violence and hatred. Whether we draw our values from a religious or a secular tradition, only a shared commitment to feed the one and resist the other will give us the vision we need to create a better world out of the challenges ahead. As Bregman points out, the way we understand ourselves can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, what we choose to believe about human nature may influence who we are and what we become. So which wolf are we going to feed? How we respond to that question may shape the future when this is over.