Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural.

our concepts ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ are taken not from biology, but from Christian theology.

The theological meaning of ‘natural’ is ‘in accordance with the intentions of the God who created nature’.

There is not a single organ in the human body that only does the job its prototype did when it first appeared hundreds of millions of years ago.

Organs evolve to perform a particular function, but once they exist, they can be adapted for other usages as well.

Males must prove their masculinity constantly, throughout their lives, from cradle to grave, in an endless series of rites and performances. And a woman’s work is never done – she must continually convince herself and others that she is feminine enough.

Patriarchy has been the norm in almost all agricultural and industrial societies.

A third type of biological explanation gives less importance to brute force and violence, and suggests that through millions of years of evolution, men

and women evolved different survival and reproduction strategies.

During that time she had fewer opportunities to obtain food, and required a lot of help. She needed a man.

As time went by, the feminine genes that made it to the next generation belonged to women who were submissive caretakers.

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.

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 socially dominant.

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)?

This network of artificial instincts is called ‘culture’.

Every culture has its typical beliefs, norms and values, but these are in constant flux. The

Even a completely isolated culture existing in an ecologically stable environment cannot avoid change.

every man-made order is packed with internal contradictions.

Contemporary American politics also revolve around this contradiction.

Democrats want a more equitable society, even if it means raising taxes to fund programmes to help the poor, elderly and infirm. But that infringes on the freedom of individuals to spend their money as they wish.

Republicans, on the other hand, want to maximise individual freedom, even if it means that the income gap between rich and poor will grow wider and that many Americans will not be able to afford health care.

Such contradictions are an inseparable part of every human culture. In fact, they are the engines of cultural development,

Discord in our thoughts, ideas and values compel us to think, reevaluate and criticise.

If tensions, conflicts and irresolvable dilemmas are the spice of every culture, a human being who belongs to any particular culture must hold contradictory beliefs and be riven by incompatible values.

cognitive dissonance.

Had people been unable to hold contradictory beliefs and values, it would probably have been impossible to establish and maintain any human culture.

Today almost all humans share the same geopolitical system (the entire planet is divided into internationally recognised states); the same economic system (capitalist market forces shape even the remotest corners of the globe); the same legal system (human rights and international law are valid everywhere, at least theoretically); and the same scientific system (experts in Iran, Israel, Australia and Argentina have exactly the same views about the structure of atoms or the treatment of tuberculosis).

Homo sapiens evolved to think of people as divided into us and them. ‘Us’ was the group immediately around you, whoever you were, and ‘them’ was everyone else. In fact, no social animal is ever guided by the interests of the entire species to which it belongs.

The rise of cities and kingdoms and the improvement in transport infrastructure brought about new opportunities for specialisation.

An economy of favours and obligations doesn’t work when large numbers of strangers try to cooperate.

If one hundred different commodities are traded in the market, then buyers and sellers will have to know 4,950 different exchange rates. And

Money enables people to compare quickly and easily the value of different commodities (such as apples, shoes and divorces), to easily exchange one thing for another, and to store wealth conveniently. There

The sum total of money in the world is about $60 trillion, yet the sum total of coins and banknotes is less than $6 trillion.7 More than 90 per cent of all money

exists only on computer servers.

Money is thus a universal medium of exchange that enables people to convert almost everything into almost anything else.

Even though barley has intrinsic value, it was not easy to convince people to use it as money rather than as just another commodity.

The real breakthrough in monetary history occurred when people gained trust in money that lacked inherent value, but was easier to store and transport.

Counterfeiting is not just cheating – it’s a breach of sovereignty, an act of subversion against the power, privileges and person of the king.

Once trade connects two areas, the forces of supply and demand tend to equalise the prices of transportable goods.

The mere fact that Mediterranean people believed in gold would cause Indians to start believing in it as well.

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.

Money is based on two universal principles: a. Universal convertibility:

b. Universal trust:

When everything is convertible, and when trust depends on anonymous coins and cowry shells, it corrodes local traditions, intimate relations and human values, replacing them with the cold laws of supply and demand.

Nothing is really left of Numantia save ruins. Even its story has reached us thanks only to the writings of Roman historians. It was tailored to the tastes of Roman audiences which relished tales of freedom-loving barbarians.

Second, empires are characterised by flexible borders and a potentially unlimited appetite. They can swallow and digest more and more nations and territories without altering their basic structure or identity.

Cultural diversity and territorial flexibility give empires not only their unique character, but also their central role in history.

Empires were one of the main reasons for the drastic reduction in human diversity.

the destruction of one empire hardly meant independence for subject peoples. Instead, a new empire stepped into the vacuum created when the old one collapsed or retreated.

Imperial elites used the profits of conquest to finance not only armies and forts but also philosophy, art, justice