21 Lessons for the 21st Century

by Yuval Noah Harari

This isn’t a call for establishing a “global government”—a doubtful and unrealistic vision. Rather, to globalize politics implies that political dynamics within countries and even cities should give far more weight to global problems and interests. When the next elections come along, and politicians implore you to vote for them, ask these politicians four questions: If you are elected, what actions will you take to lessen the risks of nuclear war? What actions will you take to lessen the risks of climate change? What actions will you take to regulate disruptive technologies such as AI and bioengineering? And finally, how do you see the world of 2040? What is your worst-case scenario, and what is your vision for the best-case scenario? If some politicians don’t understand these questions, or if they constantly talk about the past without being able to formulate a meaningful vision for the future, don’t vote for them.

Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching “the four Cs”—critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

So why do people believe in these fictions? One reason is that their personal identity is built on the story. People are taught to believe in the story from early childhood. They hear it from their parents, their teachers, their neighbors, and the general culture long before they develop the intellectual and emotional independence necessary to question and verify such stories. By the time their intellect matures, they are so heavily invested in the story that they are far more likely to use their intellect to rationalize it than to doubt it. Most people who go on identity quests are like children going on a treasure hunt: they find only what their parents have hidden for them in advance. Second, not only are our personal identities built on the story, but so are our collective institutions. Consequently, it is extremely frightening to doubt the story. In many societies, anyone who tries to do so is ostracized or persecuted. Even if not, it takes strong nerves to question the very fabric of society.

Most stories are held together by the weight of their roof rather than by the strength of their foundations. Consider the Christian story. It has the flimsiest of foundations.

Once personal identities and entire social systems are built on top of a story, it becomes unthinkable to doubt it, not because of the evidence supporting it, but because its collapse will trigger a personal and social cataclysm. In history, the roof is sometimes more important than the foundations.

Consider a typical Tea Party supporter who somehow squares ardent faith in Jesus Christ with firm objection to government welfare policies and staunch support for the National Rifle Association. Wasn’t Jesus’s message focused on helping the poor rather than arming yourself to the teeth?

In brief, while nationalism teaches me that my nation is unique and that I have special obligations toward it, fascism says that my nation is supreme, and that I owe my nation exclusive obligations.

It is our own human fingers that wrote the Bible, the Quran, and the Vedas, and it is our minds that give these stories power. They are no doubt beautiful stories, but their beauty is strictly in the eyes of the beholder. Jerusalem, Mecca, Varanasi, and Bodh Gaya are sacred places, but only because of the feelings humans experience when they go there. In itself, the universe is only a meaningless hodgepodge of atoms. Nothing is inherently beautiful, sacred, or sexy; human feelings make it so. It is only human feelings that make a red apple seductive and a piece of turd disgusting. Take away human feelings, and you are left with a bunch of molecules.

People ask “Who am I?” and expect to be told a story. The first thing you need to know about yourself is that you are not a story.

The Buddha taught that the three basic realities of the universe are that everything is constantly changing, nothing has any enduring essence, and nothing is completely satisfying. You can explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy, of your body, or of your mind, but you will never encounter something that does not change, that has an eternal essence, and that completely satisfies you.

Suffering emerges because people fail to appreciate this. They believe that there is some eternal essence somewhere, and if only they can find it and connect to it, they will be completely satisfied. This eternal essence is sometimes called God, sometimes the nation, sometimes the soul, sometimes the authentic self, and sometimes true love—and the more people are attached to it, the more disappointed and miserable they become when they fail to find it. Worse yet, the greater the attachment, the greater the hatred such people develop toward any person, group, or institution that seems to stand between them and their cherished goal.

According to the Buddha, then, life has no meaning, and people don’t need to create any meaning. They just need to realize that there is no meaning, and therefore be liberated from the suffering caused by our attachments and our identification with empty phenomena. “What should I do?” ask people, and the Buddha advises: “Do nothing. Absolutely nothing.” The whole problem is that we constantly do something. Not necessarily on the

physical level—we can sit immobile for hours with closed eyes—yet on the mental level we are extremely busy creating stories and identities, fighting battles, and winning victories. To really do nothing me...

The first thing I learned by observing my breath was that notwithstanding all the books I had read and all the classes I had attended at university, I knew almost nothing about my mind, and I had very little control over it. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t observe the reality of my breath coming in and out of my nostrils for more than ten seconds before my mind wandered away. For years I had lived under the impression that I was the master of my life, the CEO of my own personal brand. But a few hours of meditation were enough to show me that I had hardly any control over myself. I was not the CEO; I was barely the gatekeeper. I was asked to stand at the gateway of my body—the nostrils—and just observe whatever comes in or goes out, yet after a few moments I lost my focus and abandoned my post. It was an eye-opening experience.

Fifty members cooperating in an organization can accomplish far more than five hundred individuals each working in isolation. If you really care about something—join a relevant organization. Do it this week.

many scientists, tend to confuse the mind with the brain, but they are really very different things. The brain is a material network of neurons, synapses, and biochemicals. The mind is a flow of subjective experiences, such as pain, pleasure, anger, and love. Biologists assume that the brain somehow produces the mind and that biochemical reactions in billions of neurons somehow produce experiences such as pain and love. However, so far we have absolutely no explanation for how the mind emerges from the brain. Why is it that when billions of neurons are firing electrical signals in a particular pattern, I feel pain, and when the neurons fire in a different pattern, I feel love? We haven’t got a clue. Therefore, even if the mind indeed emerges from the brain, studying the mind is a different undertaking from studying the brain, at least for now.

This is one of the most ancient and important questions encountered by anybody who embarks on a serious journey of inner exploration. As long as I simply identify with the constant stream of thoughts and feelings that pop into my mind, I think I know exactly who I am. Once I stop identifying with whatever pops into my mind, I start asking, “So who am I? Who is observing all these thoughts and feelings? Who is asking these questions? And who can discover the truth?” There is no easy intellectual answer to any of these questions. The only way to answer them is to directly observe the reality, which is a very difficult thing to do. That’s why most people never do it and instead just believe in some philosophical or religious story. If you are seriously interested in getting answers, I would recommend committing to a practice of inner exploration, accepting that it usually takes years—rather than days and weeks—to start getting real answers. The practice can be meditation, but it can also be therapy, art, or even sports. Different practices work for different people. The only thing that never works for anybody is pure intellectual speculation. You will never get answers by just reading books, discussing theories, and contemplating thoughts.

What does love mean for you? What is love? YNH: Love is being connected. To love means to be liberated from the obsession with whatever thoughts, emotions, and desires

Things are better than ever. Things are still quite bad. Things can become much worse.