21 Lessons for the 21st Century

by Yuval Noah Harari

Democracy is based on Abraham Lincoln’s principle that “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” If a government is corrupt and fails to improve people’s lives, enough citizens will eventually realize this and replace the government. But government control of the media undermines Lincoln’s logic, because it prevents citizens from realizing the truth. Through its monopoly over the media, the ruling oligarchy can repeatedly blame all its failures on others and divert attention to external threats, either real or imaginary.

To conclude, the nationalist wave sweeping across the world cannot return the world to 1939 or 1914. Technology has changed everything by creating a set of global existential threats that no nation can solve on its own. A common enemy is the best catalyst for forging a common identity, and humankind now has at least three such enemies—nuclear war, climate change, and technological disruption. If despite these common threats humans choose to privilege their particular national loyalties above everything else, the results may be far worse than in 1914 and 1939.

terrorists resemble a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot move even a single teacup. So how does a fly destroy a china shop? It finds a bull, gets inside its ear, and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger, and destroys the china shop.

Like terrorists, those combating terrorism should also think more like theater producers and less like army generals. Above all, if we want to combat terrorism effectively, we must realize that nothing the terrorists do can defeat us. We are the only ones who can defeat ourselves, if we overreact in a misguided way to their provocations.

This is the deep reason secular people cherish scientific truth: not in order to satisfy their curiosity, but in order to know how best to reduce the suffering in the world. Without the guidance of scientific studies, our compassion is often blind.

Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.

Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we hold on to these views due to group loyalty. Bombarding people with facts and exposing their individual ignorance is likely to backfire. Most people don’t like too many facts, and they certainly don’t like to feel stupid.

If you cannot afford to waste time, you will never find the truth.

As a species, humans prefer power to truth. We spend far more time and effort on trying to control the world than on trying to understand it—and even when we try to understand it, we usually do so in the hope that understanding the world will make it easier to control it. Therefore, if you dream of a society in which truth reigns supreme and myths are ignored, you have little to expect from Homo sapiens. Better to try your luck with chimps.

We certainly need good science, but from a political perspective, a good science-fiction movie is worth far more than an article in Science or Nature.