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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Book by Yuval Noah Harari · 50 quotes · Sapiens, Antropologia, History

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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Quotes

“Romantic literature often presents the individual as somebody caught in a struggle against the state and the market. Nothing could be further from the truth. The state and the market are the mother and father of the individual, and the individual can survive only thanks to them. The market provides us with work, insurance and a pension. If we want to study a profession, the government’s schools are there to teach us. If we want to open a business, the bank loans us money. If we want to build a house, a construction company builds it and the bank gives us a mortgage, in some cases subsidised or insured by the state. If violence flares up, the police protect us. If we are sick for a few days, our health insurance takes care of us. If we are debilitated for months, social security steps in. If we need around-the-clock assistance, we can go to the market and hire a nurse – usually some stranger from the other side of the world who takes care of us with the kind of devotion that we no longer expect from our own children. If we have the means, we can spend our golden years at a senior citizens’ home. The tax authorities treat us as individuals, and do not expect us to pay the neighbours’ taxes. The courts, too, see us as individuals, and never punish us for the crimes of our cousins. Not only adult men, but also women and children, are recognised as individuals. Throughout most of history, women were often seen as the property of family or community. Modern states, on the other hand, see women as individuals, enjoying economic and legal rights independently of their family and community. They may hold their own bank accounts, decide whom to marry, and even choose to divorce or live on their own. But the liberation of the individual comes at a cost. Many of us now bewail the loss of strong families and communities and feel alienated and threatened by the power the impersonal state and market wield over our lives. States and markets composed of alienated individuals can intervene in the lives of their members much more easily than states and markets composed of strong families and communities. When neighbours in a high-rise apartment building cannot even agree on how much to pay their janitor, how can we expect them to resist the state? The deal between states, markets and individuals is an uneasy one. The state and the market disagree about their mutual rights and obligations, and individuals complain that both demand too much and provide too little. In many cases individuals are exploited by markets, and states employ their armies, police forces and bureaucracies to persecute individuals instead of defending them. Yet it is amazing that this deal works at all – however imperfectly. For it breaches countless generations of human social arrangements. Millions of years of evolution have designed us to live and think as community members. Within a mere two centuries we have become alienated individuals. Nothing testifies better to the awesome power of culture.”

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“In many societies women were simply the property of men, most often their fathers, husbands or brothers. Rape, in many legal systems, falls under property violation – in other words, the victim is not the woman who was raped but the male who owns her. This being the case, the legal remedy was the transfer of ownership – the rapist was required to pay a bride price to the woman’s father or brother, upon which she became the rapist’s property. The Bible decrees that ‘If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife’ (Deuteronomy 22:28–9). The ancient Hebrews considered this a reasonable arrangement. Raping a woman who did not belong to any man was not considered a crime at all, just as picking up a lost coin on a busy street is not considered theft. And if a husband raped his own wife, he had committed no crime. In fact, the idea that a husband could rape his wife was an oxymoron. To be a husband was to have full control of your wife’s sexuality. To say that a husband ‘raped’ his wife was as illogical as saying that a man stole his own wallet. Such thinking was not confined to the ancient Middle East. As of 2006, there were still fifty-three countries where a husband could not be prosecuted for the rape of his wife. Even in Germany, rape laws were amended only in 1997 to create a legal category of marital rape.”

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“Religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order. The theory of relativity is not a religion, because (at least so far) there are no human norms and values that are founded on it. Football is not a religion because nobody argues that its rules reflect superhuman edicts. Islam, Buddhism and Communism are all religions, because all are systems of human norms and values that are founded on belief in a superhuman order.”

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“We begin with the story of the greatest conqueror in history, a conqueror possessed of extreme tolerance and adaptability, thereby turning people into ardent disciples. This conqueror is money. For thousands of years, philosophers, thinkers and prophets have besmirched money and called it the root of all evil. Be that as it may, money is also the apogee of human tolerance. Money is more open-minded than language, state laws, cultural codes, religious beliefs and social habits. Money is the only trust system created by humans that can bridge almost any cultural gap, and that does not discriminate on the basis of religion, gender, race, age or sexual orientation. Thanks to money, even people who don’t know each other and don’t trust each other can nevertheless cooperate effectively.”

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“Ever since the French Revolution, people throughout the world have gradually come to see both social equality and individual freedom as fundamental values. Yet the two values contradict each other. Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off. Guaranteeing that every individual will be free to do as he wishes inevitably short-changes equality. The entire political history of the world since 1789 can be seen as a series of attempts to reconcile this contradiction. Just as medieval culture did not manage to square chivalry with Christianity, so the modern world fails to square liberty with equality. But this is no defect. Such contradictions are an inseparable part of every human culture. In fact, they are culture’s engines, responsible for the creativity and dynamism of our species. Just as when two clashing musical notes played together force a piece of music forward, so discord in our thoughts, ideas and values compel us to think, reevaluate and criticise. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.”

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“Until the late modern era, more than 90 per cent of humans were peasants who rose each morning to till the land by the sweat of their brows. The extra they produced fed the tiny minority of elites - kings, government officials, soldiers, priests, artists and thinkers - who fill the history books. History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was plowing fields and carrying water buckets.”

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“After 1908, and especially after 1945, capitalist greed was somewhat reined in, not least due to the fear of Communism. Yet inequities are still rampant. The economic pie of 2014 is far larger than the pie of 1500, but it is distributed so unevenly that many African peasants and Indonesian labourers return home after a hard day’s work with less food than did their ancestors 500 years ago.”

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“Women had less opportunities to obtain food and required a lot of help, she needed a man. In order to ensure her own survival and the survival of her children, the women had little choice but to agree to whatever conditions the man stipulated so that he would stick around and share some of the burden. The feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent too much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations. The result of these different survival strategies, so the theory goes, is that men have been programmed to be ambitious and competitive and to excel in politics and business, whereas women have tended to move out of the way and dedicate their lives to raising children. But this approach also seems to be belied by the empirical evidence. Particularly problematic is the assumption that women's dependence on external help made them dependent on men rather than on other women, and that male competitiveness made men's socially dominant. There are many species of animals, such as elephants and bonobo chimpanzees, in which the dynamics between dependent females and competitive males results in a matriarchal society. Since females need external help, they are obliged to develop their social skills and learn how to cooperate and appease. They construct all female social networks that help each member raise her children. Males meanwhile spend their time fighting and competing. Their social skills and social bonds remain underdeveloped. Bonobo and elephant societies are controlled by strong networks of cooperative females, while the self-centered and uncooperative males are pushed to the sidelines. Though Bonobo females are weaker on average than the males, the females often gang up to beat males who overstepped their limits. If this is possible among bonobos and elephants, why not among Homo sapiens? Sapiens are relatively weak animals whose advantage rests in their ability to cooperate in large numbers. If so, we should expect that dependent women, even if they are dependent on men, would use their superior social skills to cooperate to alt maneuver and manipulate aggressive, autonomous, and self-centered men. How did it happen that in the one species whose success depends above all on cooperation, individuals who are supposedly less cooperative, men, control individuals who are supposedly more cooperative, women?”

Feminism
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“Women had less opportunities to obtain food and required a lot of help, she needed a man. In order to ensure her own Survival and the survival of her children the women had little choice but to agree to whatever conditions the man stipulated so that he would stick around and share some of the burden. The feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers. Women who spent too much time fighting for power did not leave any of those powerful genes for future generations. The result of these different survival strategies, so the theory goes is that men have been programmed to be ambitious and competitive and to Excel in politics and business whereas women have tended to move out of the way and dedicate their lives to raising children. But this approach also seems to be belied by the empirical evidence. Particularly problematic is the assumption that women's dependence on external help made them dependent on men rather than on other women and that male competitiveness made men's socially dominant. There are many species of animals such as elephants and bonobo chimpanzees in which the Dynamics between dependent females and competitive males results in a matriarchal Society. Since females need external help. They are obliged to develop their social skills and learn how to cooperate and appease. They construct all females social networks that help each member raise her children. Males meanwhile spend their time fighting and competing their social skills and social bonds remain underdeveloped. Bonobo and elephant societies are controlled by strong networks of cooperative females while the self-centered and uncooperative males are pushed to the sidelines. Though Bonobo females are weaker on average than the males the females often gang up to beat males who overstepped their limits. If this is possible among bonobas and elephants why not among Homo sapiens? Sapiens are relatively weak animals whose advantage rests in their ability to cooperate in large numbers. If so, we should expect that dependent women even if they are dependent on men would use their superior social skills to cooperate to altmaneuver and manipulate aggressive autonomous and self-centered Men. How did it happen that in the one species whose success depends above all on cooperation individuals who are supposedly less cooperative men control individuals who are supposedly more cooperative women.”

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“As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet Earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. The other-worldly meanings medieval people found in their lives were no more deluded than the modern humanist, nationalist and capitalist meanings modern people find. The scientist who says her life is meaningful because she increases the store of human knowledge, the soldier who declares that his life is meaningful because he fights to defend his homeland, and the entrepreneur who finds meaning in building a new company are no less delusional than their medieval counterparts who found meaning in reading scriptures, going on a crusade or building a new cathedral. So perhaps happiness is synchronising one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with the narratives of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that conviction. This is quite a depressing conclusion. Does happiness really depend on self-delusion?”

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“Going further back, have the seventy or so turbulent millennia since the Cognitive Revolution made the world a better place to live? Was the late Neil Armstrong, whose footprint remains intact on the windless moon, happier than the nameless hunter-gatherer who 30,000 years ago left her handprint on a wall in Chauvet Cave? If not, what was the point of developing agriculture, cities, writing, coinage, empires, science and industry?”

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“Gautama erkannte, dass jede unserer Erfahrungen unser Begehren weckt, und dass dieses Begehren neue Unzufriedenheit schürt. Wenn wir eine angenehme Erfahrung machen, wollen wir, dass diese Erfahrung nie endet, sondern im Gegenteil immer intensiver wird. Und wenn wir eine unangenehme Erfahrung machen, dann wollen wir, dass diese Erfahrung aufhört. Daher ist unser Geist immer unzufrieden und rastlos. [...] Gautama erkannte jedoch, dass es eine Möglichkeit gibt, diesem Teufelskreis zu entkommen. Wenn wir eine Erfahrung - sei sie angenehm oder unangenehm - einfach als das nehmen, was sie ist, dann verursacht sie kein Leid. Wenn wir Trauer empfinden, ohne ein Ende dieses Zustands herbeizusehnen, dann können wir diese Trauer spüren, ohne unter ihr zu leiden. Und wenn wir Freude empfinden, ohne uns nach immer mehr und immer intensiverer Freude zu sehnen, dann können wir diese Freude erleben, ohne dabei unseren inneren Frieden zu verlieren.”

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“A diferencia de la física o de la economía, la historia no es un medio para hacer predicciones exactas. Estudiamos historia no para conocer el futuro, sino para ampliar nuestros horizontes, para comprender que nuestra situación actual no es natural ni inevitable y que, en consecuencia, tenemos ante nosotros muchas más posibilidades de las que imaginamos.”

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“Las nuevas tareas agrícolas exigían tanto tiempo que la gente se vio obligada a instalarse de forma permanente junto a sus campos de trigo. Esto cambió por completo su modo de vida. No domesticamos el trigo. El término "domesticar" procede del latín domus, que significa "casa". ¿Quién vive en una casa? No es el trigo. Es el sapiens.”

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“Bis in die Spätmoderne hinein waren 90 Prozent der Menschheit Bauern, die jeden Morgen bei Sonnenaufgang aufstanden und m Schweiße ihres Angesichts ihr Land bestellten. Mit den Überschüssen, die sie erzeugten, ernährten sie eine kleine Elite von Königen, Beamten, Soldaten, Priestern, Künstlern und Denkern, die heute die Seiten der Geschichtsbücher füllen. Geschichte ist etwas, das eine kleine Minderheit tut, während die anderen Äcker pflügen und Wasser schleppen.”

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“Tarihin altın kurallarından biri, geriye dönüp bakınca bariz olarak görünen şeyin olay esnasında son derece belirsiz olmasıdır. ...O anda yaşayanlara çok düşük ihtimal gibi görünen şeylerin sıkça gerçekleşmesidir. Konstantin MS 306'da tahta çıktığında, Hristiyanlık küçük bir gruba özgü bir Doğu mezhebiydi. Eğer o dönem Hristiyanlığın Roma İmparatorluğunun resmi dini olacağını söyleseydiniz, herkes size kahkahalarla gülerdi; aynen bugün 2050'de Hare Krişna Hareketi'nin ABD'nin resmi dini olacağını söylediğinizde gülecekleri gibi. ...600 yılında, bir grup çöl Arabının kısa süre içinde Atlantik Okyanusu'ndan Hindistan'a kadar tüm toprakları fethedeceğini ileri sürmekse daha da mantık dışıydı...”

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“Much of the vaunted material wealth that shields us from disease and famine was accumulated at the expense of laboratory monkeys, dairy cows and conveyor-belt chickens. Over the last two centuries tens of billions of them have been subjected to a regime of industrial exploitation whose cruelty has no precedent in the annals of planet earth. If we accept a mere tenth of what animal-rights activists are claiming, then modern industrial agriculture might well be the greatest crime in history.”

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“Mother Nature does not mind if men are sexually attracted to one another. It’s only human mothers steeped in particular cultures who make a scene if their son has a fling with the boy next door. The mother’s tantrums are not a biological imperative. A significant number of human cultures have viewed homosexual relations as not only legitimate but even socially constructive,..”

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“De la misma manera que el éxito económico de una compañía se mide solo por el número de dólares en su cuenta bancaria y no por la felicidad de sus empleados, el éxito evolutivo de una especie se mide por el número de copias de ADN. La especie se extingue, de la misma manera que una compañía sin dinero está en bancarrota.”

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“If the curtain is indeed about to drop on Sapiens history, we members of one of its final generations should devote some time to answering one last question: what do we want to become? This question, sometimes known as the Human Enhancement question, dwarfs the debates that currently preoccupy politicians, philosophers, scholars and ordinary people. After all, today’s debate between today’s religions, ideologies, nations and classes will in all likelihood disappear along with Homo sapiens. If our successors indeed function on a different level of consciousness (or perhaps possess something beyond consciousness that we cannot even conceive), it seems doubtful that Christianity or Islam will be of interest to them, that their social organisation could be Communist or capitalist, or that their genders could be male or female.”

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