Sapiens,
A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens was chosen by Elaine for a variety of reasons, one of which was a need to read the book(!), which was seen by all as a “big read” and found to be unsuitable as a Kindle book owing to the need to dip around.
This is not a serial story with the traditional happy ending.
Indeed there is much structure, and the sections are logical; the book was found to be thought provoking in general, questionable in places, sometimes contrary to personal experience, and in one aspect downright exasperating.
It is one man’s overlay on the story of why we humans behave the way we do, both individually and collectively.
And whilst the book has many references, and was written by an academic, few ordinary mortals will have the time to explore the references.
The book was good for dipping into, and there is no compelling need to comprehend the whole thing.
Our discussion touched on the nature of history, money, happiness, faith and religion, science; and the personal biases of authors.
Under the loose heading of history, we asked
- “What happened before the big bang”?
- “Indeed, what is the point in anything”?
- “Does History have direction, (An Arrow, chapter 9)”?
The points made under the Cognitive Revolution relating to language and co-operative behaviour were somewhat spoiled by the pathetic graphics.
Harari's view that story-telling led to co-operation, initially in small groups, but growing ever larger, and eventually becoming the basis of all major enterprises undertaken by humankind was noted by the story-telling members of the club.
Equally our genetic make-up as hunter gathereres explains much of our (bad) eating habits.
However, the deadly nature of Sapiens as evidenced in the megafauna extinctions as Sapiens migrated across the planet was hard to ignore or deny.
Harari’s argument that the world is moving towards unification is quite hard to reconcile with the palpable divisiveness of modern technology and current politics.
Most of us were fascinated by the origins and power of money, and frightened by the lack of any basis for the International Monetary System other than mutual confidence.
We avoided talking about Trump and Brexit.
The Agricultural Revolution including the farming trap was interesting but the observations on plant life "using" Sapiens were unconvincing.
The ephemeral and or cyclic nature of happiness was discussed.
Is happiness related to life circumstances, or just to the amount of dopamine sloshing round after a facebook session?
Or is happiness related to one’s ability to show compassion and hence build meaning and value into one’s life?
Synchronised delusions are not the basis of happiness.
Our discussion on faith and religion was interesting.
Harari seems to incorporate religion into the category of a collective myth, which is both a cop-out and offensive in turn.
We would need another lifetime to unpick all of the issues under the heading: “ Religion is a mediaeval collective delusion about the afterlife” .
Harari praised (even belaboured) the renaissance scientists, and indeed scientists in general for their honesty in the face of ignorance, (a trait missing in the behaviours of dogmatic religiosi of all types).
The last few chapters were summarised under: “Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want”?
Harari clearly doesn’t understand cyberwarfare, and he wasn’t ready in 2011 for Facebook, Trump, Brexit and the Far Right.
Whilst his view on computer technology might be interesting and scary, he didn’t face up to any localised delusions.
Standing by the seashore we could be forgiven for thinking the earth was flat.
Standing at our point in history, we delude ourselves about the nature of time, should we be forgiven for that?
Clearly Harari is biased.
His dietary choice is veganism, which is reflected in his observations on the treatment of animals.
The book didn’t examine the historical role of hugely creative people such as Shakespeare, Da Vinci, or Michaelangelo, and in the final chapters predicting the future, the book was really quite irritating.
3.9 Stars, against a Goodreads 4.45 from 240,713 ratings.
PC. 11th May, 2019
Further reading
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