Book review: Homo Sapiens

Yuval Noah Harari

Usually after reading books, I have no desire to speculate about them with other people. However, this book turned out to be an exception. I need to get it out of me, otherwise it is boiling in me. This is the book after reading, which I want to share it with others and talk about it for as long as needed. 

The book is Homo Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Last year my brother sent me a link to an audiobook of Homo Sapiens. Truth be told, I listened to only few chapters, it seemed very dry and not interesting at all. Alternatively, perhaps, I considered it too complicated. After arriving to the US, I realized that I do not know anything about the history of humankind. I do not even know the history of Kazakhstan that well. Therefore, in new 2019 I set myself a goal to read 12 books in 12 months. I know, it is not a huge goal, but I wanted to take time, and on my own pace enjoy reading the books that I have been craving to read. In January, I was already reading some books, when a good friend of mine suggested me to read Homo Sapiens. So, I told myself “May be there is something in that book, perhaps, I should give it a second try”. And, now, my brain is blowing, thinking why did not I read it earlier. 

The books is divided into four main parts: Cognitive revolution, Agricultural revolution, Industrial revolution, and Scientific revolution. 

Cognitive revolution is the time when Homo Sapiens came up with the language, a very important device that united them, started modify hunting tools, and develop animistic beliefs. Animism is a belief that dictates that all living creatures, all natural phenomena have souls, spirits and can communicate with the people, one another. 

After that followed the Agricultural revolution, when Homo Sapiens, settled down and started domesticating fellow animals. It was not any good, because there are many findings now that prove that Homo Sapiens was very violent and cruel towards animals in the process of domestication. One of the examples from the book, Homo Sapiens cut out a certain part of pig’s nose. We know that pigs find the food by sniffing, so as they lose that ability they become 100% dependent on their Sapiens owners. There were examples when owners gouged out pigs’ eyes, so that they do not know where there were going. Interestingly, Agricultural revolution is full of events. One of the main ones, Homo Sapiens originated in the East Africa, from that area they moved into Arabian peninsula, from Arabia spread into Eurasia. When they arrived to Arabia, Eurasia was already settled by other species. Most probably, Neanderthals. However, 30.000 years they became extinct. So what happened to them? Yuval offers two theories: Interbreeding theory and Destruction theory. If we follow the interbreeding theory, then now we are descendants of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals. If it is the destruction theory – we killed them all, which is not surprising, because, apparently, Homo Sapience is a bad guy. At that time, Homo Sapiens developed an attachment to “home, house”. They became more ego-centric, there was a “neighbor’s house” and there was “my house”. Now, scientists believe that Agricultural revolution made Sapiens weaker, because they settled down, became dependent on certain types of food, it made them live in endless anxiety for future. Even today, mostly people live in the past or future, but not in present. Our ancestor’s genes are telling us to be more cautious about the future; plan and prepare everything for the future. Governments, states, which were declaring their status and conquering as many lands as it was possible, accompanied the Agricultural revolution. 

There was a story of Indo-Aryans who came from Central Eurasia to India. It is believed that they are the ones who came up with the caste system. 3000 years ago, there were only few Aryans who ruled India. To keep their high social and political status, they divided Indian people into castes. As a result, Indians became their servants. Each caste had to pursue different types of occupations, mixing between castes was prohibited. The caste system was imbedded so deep in humans’ mind that it became a part of culture, mythology and even religion. 

When it comes to religion, Yuval gives many logical and reasonable statements of why do we have religion. First, he says, we live in a dual reality. There is an objective reality, where we have trees, lions, rivers and there is an imagined reality, where we have god, religion, nationalism, companies and etc. The situation: a lion is getting extinct; it needs to be saved urgently. What do people do? People rely on imagined reality, they ask for help from companies, churches, countries. So, now, imagined reality became so strong that now in order to do something with the objective reality we need to seek for help from imagined reality. Interestingly, he says that it is not possible to run away, get rid of this imagined reality. People might think they got free, but in fact their imagined reality was replaced by another imagined reality that is way stronger and more agile. Yuval argues that nowadays people believe in monotheist God, dualist devil, polytheist saints and animist spirits. He considers religion as a tool used to make people (total strangers) work together and cooperate. Another interesting aspect, he says that religion also changes with time, and anytime it changes priests/imam tell us that it has not changed, it just came to its original, pure starting point. However, in fact, we know where the truth is and where the lie is… Do we?

Talking about money, Yuval notes that we are taught that money is the source of all evil, but in fact money is the only thing in the world that does not discriminate a person based on religion, race, skin color, gender, or sexual preferences. It is a unique language based on trust.   

Interestingly, Yuval starts a new chapter on scientific revolution with religion. As for him, science revolution can not take place without ideology or religion. These are the things that cover the costs of all experiments and give directions towards what the newly acquired knowledge should be pointed at. Sharing experiments in genetic engineering, he makes his readers believe that Homo Sapiens will soon be outpowered by other species, whether it is AI or some other species. In one of the experiments, Korean, Japanese and Russian scientists are trying to revive mammoth. They already have mammoth genome, they need to insert it into female elephant’s womb and after a year, and they will get a mammoth. Another project, scientist from Harvard University Professor Church is trying to bring to life a Neanderthal. They have Neanderthal’s DNA. They will do the same, as with the female elephant, there are already volunteer women who want to take a part in the project being surrogate mothers. Neanderthal that got extinct 30.000 years ago will be brought back. 

Another interesting thing, Yuval says that the words like “natural”, “unnatural” come from not biology, but from Christian theology, which means that we actually have been so much limited and restricted by religion and other imagined stories that now we do not even know where is fiction and where is non-fiction. 

Further, Harari added a chapter on happiness where he says that we are used to measure happiness only in human realm. However, we are not that far from our fellow ancestors, chimpanzees, which means that we need to take into account animals’ happiness and life satisfaction. Not only chimpanzees, but all animals living on the Earth planet. 

At some point, when I was reading about the Industrial revolution, it seemed to me that America is going to be colonized by some high-tech corporations like Google or Amazon. 

One thing that I could say for sure is that Harari has an incredible sense of humor. You can understand it by reading the following statements:

• Romanticism and consumerism got married, and then they gave birth to an infinite “market of experience”.
• History is full of idiotic miscalculations.
• Imagine, Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans all live together on the Earth planet. Karl Marx tries to unite them; under the US Constitution, they are all equal.
• Even what people consider their most personal desires are programmed by the imagined order. (It is like in the Movie X-man).
• Hammurabi believed that slavery is dictated by gods. Aristotle argued that slaves have a “slavish nature” and free people have “free nature”. Excuse me???!!!
• Scientists increasingly argue that human behavior is determined by hormones, genes, and synapses, rather than free will – the same forces that determine the behavior of chimpanzees, wolves and ants. 

Though I almost “ate” the book, it left me hungry with some questions. Later on, watching interviews with Yuval Noah Harari I understood that he had no aim to answer all existential, evolutionary questions. His main aim was to raise the questions, make people think about them and take some actions.

Below are the questions that I could not find an answer to:

1. How Syncretism can be a single great world religion?
2. Where does belief come from? Even the first animistic belief into spirits and souls?
3. Yes. I got the explanations. But, still, why in many cultures manhood is valued more than womanhood?
4. What exactly is cognitive dissonance and how it is affected by culture?
5. Where do Aryans come from? Do they come from Central Asia?
6. Does happiness really depend on self-delusion?
7. What is the progress of Gilgamesh project?