6: Building Pyramids
From Harari — Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Again, the author presents controversy in the beginning of this chapter, did agriculture revolution lead humankind to prosperity and progress or to perdition. It is always good to reflect and ask ourselves questions of these kind. However, not matter which side you are on, I believe we all agree agricultural revolution is a turning point in human history.
Large scale farming ensured more stable and enormous amount of food supply, that opened many possibilities to humankind. This was unprecedented. Agriculture revolution, undoubtedly, brought also worries, the concept of planning for future and imagined order. The last entry, imagined order, you and I probably have never thought about how it is related to farming. This very concept of imagined order is what the author focuses and elaborates in details in this chapter.
The author on pp.112–113 first points out that farmers need to start worry about future, and plan about it because they now “could so something about it”, in contrast to their counterparts of hunter-gathers which were subjected to the amount of belongings they could carry. The author then further argue that the stress of farming established the foundation of political and social system. But how?
The emergence of imagined order was from the need to make cooperation among large among of people now cramming together in large villages, in towns, and even in cities. Biologically, the author argued, human kind did not know how to cooperate, but shared myth provided a tool or I would call a magic too to put people together to work towards the same goal. Otherwise, the people at that time might end up fighting or having war with each other every minute for limited resources or to solve their conflict. Remember, the word “imagined” is really important here, and also catches most of my attention, it means it does not exist in reality. Two examples of application of myths are given by the author, the code of Hammurabi in c.1776 BC and the Declaration of independence of USA in A.D. 1776. Of course, if you remember, Peugeot, the French automobile manufacturer was given earlier in the book as well. More than that, the author provides three factors on pp.127 preventing people from realizing the order is only imaginary and concludes the chapter by saying “There is no way out of the imagined order.”
When going through this chapter, one may feel offended if they have been upholding some fundamental values or principles which are mentioned in this chapters; one may also feel this is not something brand new. In the world of politics, along human history dimension, the invention of, the use of and the spread of ideology what we experience in daily life, noticeably, unnoticeably or unwillingly noticeably. But the author do provide an perspective on how to link agricultural revolution to the societal development of humankind.
