Homo Sapiens — Gods, Nations & Human Rights
The Imagined Order
Sapiens , by Yuval Noah Harari is a fascinating and controversial book that opens our mind to some incredible possibilities about our (Human) evolution over the span of last 6 million years. We have evolved over the last 6 million years from a common Grandmother, who we shared with Chimpanzees. Different species of the genus Homo lived in different parts of the world and finally Homo sapiens conquered the world thanks above all to its ability to communicate. The primitive Homo Sapiens led a simple life of foraging, communicating and procreating.
From foraging to agriculture was a natural transition. When the Agricultural Revolution opened opportunities for the creation of crowded cities and mighty empires people invented stories about great Gods, motherlands and joint stock companies to provide the needed social links. While human evolution was crawling at its usual snail’s pace, the human imagination was building astounding networks of mass cooperation, unlike any other ever seen on earth. All these cooperation networks — villages, towns, cities, kingdom and empires — were “imagined order”. The social norms that sustained them were based neither on ingrained instincts nor on personal acquaintances, but rather on belief in shared myths!!!
How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights?
How do we believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? We are made to believe by insisting that the order sustaining society is an objective reality created by the Great Gods or by the Laws Of Nature. People are unequal, not because Hammurabi said so, but because Enlil and Marduk decreed it. People are equal, not because Thomas Jefferson said so, but because God created them that way. Free markets are the best economic system, not because Adam Smith said so, but because these are the immutable laws of nature.
Our education system and social order constantly remind us of the principles of the imagined order, which are incorporated into anything and everything. They are incorporated into fairy tales, dramas, paintings, songs, etiquette, political propaganda, architecture, recipes and fashions.
Three main factors prevent us from realising that the order organising our lives exists only in our imagination:
A. The imagined order is embedded in the world around us.
Though the imagined order exists only in our minds, it can be woven into the material reality around us, and even set in stone. Most Westerners today believe in individualism. They believe that every human is an individual, whose worth does not depend on what other people think of him or her. Each of us has within ourselves a brilliant ray of light that gives value and meaning to our lives. In modern architecture, this myth leaps out of the imagination to take shape in stone and mortar. The ideal modern house is divided into many small rooms so that each child can have a private space, hidden from view, providing maximum autonomy.
This private room almost invariably has a door, and in many households it is accepted practice for the child to close, and perhaps lock, the door. Even parents are forbidden to enter without knocking and asking permission. The room is decorated as the child sees fit, with rock star posters on the wall and dirty socks on the floor. Somebody growing up in such a space cannot help but imagine himself “an individual”, his true worth emanating from within rather than from without.
Medieval noblemen did not believe in individualism. Someone’s worth was determined by their place in the social hierarchy, and by what other people said about them. The teenage son of a medieval baron did not have a private room on the castle’s second floor, with posters of Kings and
Emperors on the walls and a locked door that his parents were not allowed to open. He slept alongside many other youths in a large hall. He was always on display and always had to take into account what others saw and said. Someone growing up in such conditions naturally concluded that a man’s true worth was determined by his place in the social hierarchy and by what other people said of him.
B. The imagined order shapes our desires.
Our desires are shaped from birth by the dominant myths of “imagined order”. People today spend a great deal of money holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism.
Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can “experience” the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about “how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life”.
Consumerism tells us that in order to be happy we must consume as many products and services as possible. If we feel that something is missing or not quite right, then we probably need to buy a product (a car, new clothes, organic food) or a service (housekeeping, relationship therapy, yoga classes). Every television commercial is another little legend about how consuming some product or service will make life better.
C. The imagined order is inter-subjective.
Even if by some super human effort I succeed in freeing my personal desires from the grip of the imagined order, I am just one person. In order to change the imagined order I must convince millions of strangers to cooperate with me. For the imagined order is not a subjective order existing in my own imagination — it is rather an inter-subjective order, existing in the shared imagination of thousand and millions of people. The inter-subjective is something that exists within the communication network linking the subjective consciousness of many individuals. Many of history’s most important drivers are inter-subjective: law, money, gods, nations. There is no way out of the imagined order. When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison.
“Imagined Order — Culture — Imagined Order : The Cycle of Change”
After the Agricultural Revolution , human societies grew larger and more complex, while the imagined constructs sustaining the social order also became more elaborate. Myths and fictions accustomed people, nearly from the moment of birth, to think in certain ways, to behave in accordance with certain standards, to want certain things, and to observe certain rules. They thereby created artificial instincts that enabled millions of strangers to cooperate effectively. This network of artificial instincts is called “culture”.
Every culture has its typical beliefs, norms and values, but these are in constant flux. The culture may transform itself in response to changes in its environment or through interaction with neighbouring cultures. But cultures also undergo transitions due to their own internal dynamics. Even a completely isolated culture existing in an ecologically stable environment cannot avoid change. Unlike the laws of physics, every man made order is packed with internal contradictions. Cultures are constantly trying to reconcile these contradictions, and this process fuels change.
Thus Sapiens are in this perpetual “maya” (Sanskrit — For illusion). Even the cycle of change takes a new form of “Imagined Order”. This leads to the quote of Adi Shankaracharya, the great master of Advaita(Non-Duality) — Jagath Mithya — Brahman Sathya — which means Brahman (the ultimate reality) is the only truth — the world is an illusion.
This is Part 3 of a 4 Part series on the book “Sapiens” , where I highlight some broad contours of the book. I invite you to take a look at this book. I am quite sure that it will give you valuable insight and perspective into understanding our evolution. .
Part 1
Part 2
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