Why are we Homo Sapiens so Special?
Yuval Noah Harari guides us through a brief, encapsulating journey about our species in “Sapiens”
Cover of “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari
Harari, Y. (2014). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Signal McClelland & Stewart. 450 pages.
Overview
We Homo Sapiens (‘wise man’) made our first appearance nearly 200,000 years ago in East Africa. Since that time, we have not only managed to settle every continent but have achieved feats that distinguish us from all other species. Our ability to make fire, create written languages, and domesticate other species makes us unique.
Books as important as Sapiens do not come around often. Yuval Noah Harari, professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, produced a masterpiece, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” recounting the story of our species from our earliest days to our contemporary time. The text is organized into four parts on the following subjects: the Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, humankind’s unification, and the Scientific Revolution. Readers will be informed, entertained, and forced to contemplate some of life’s and history’s biggest questions. Some ideas are so profound that they may change our previously entrenched beliefs.
Harari sets himself apart from other thinkers and intellectuals since he is impartial, entertaining, and insightful, forcing us to not only rethink our past and present but to contemplate the future.
Impartial
Harari is impartial and unapologetic throughout the book, unafraid to examine people of all stripes throughout history and how we today are not so different from our ancestors. For example, he encourages readers to neither idealize nor vilify our ancient hunting-gathering ancestors because they were both peaceful and ferociously violent towards outsiders (p. 60). It is disingenuous to paint everyone as being either ‘good’ or ‘bad.’
However, some readers may think that humans are benevolent due to our capacity to cooperate on large and highly organized scales to achieve common goals. Harari also reminds us that cooperation networks were often unequal and involuntary. The spectacular Roman amphitheatres required many hands, but they were often built by enslaved people so that Rome’s elites could watch them kill each other. As a more recent example, Nazi concentration camps also required a high degree of cooperation and organization (p. 104). Both are forms of cooperative networks and were morally repulsive. Nevertheless, our species can still cooperate and achieve incredible feats that do not involve brutality.
Our treatment and attitudes towards non-human species are also grayer than black or white. Today, it seems, there are weekly reports for extinct or endangered species. But what might be shocking to readers is that North America lost approximately thirty-four out of forty-seven general large mammals within 2,000 years of Sapiens’ arrival (p. 71). Harari’s point is that we did not, as the tree-huggers erroneously believe, live in harmony with other species since time immemorial (p. 74).
More familiar to readers is Homo sapiens’ domestication of select species, particularly those we like to eat, milk, skin, and sheer them for valuable resources (p. 97). Our species has always been destructive, and acknowledging this fact is necessary to reflect on our nature honestly. The levels of cruelty we inflict on cows, pigs, chickens, and goats, for example, are mind-boggling and heart-wrenching, given that we now know from studies in biology that other creatures experience pain and emotions. It may well be the epitome of our indifference towards other living creatures.
Entertaining
Aside from his unapologetic, impartial analysis of our species’ significant milestones, events, and characteristics, readers will enjoy Harari’s sense of humour.
Expanding on the notion that humans are cooperative, Harari says that no species is entirely utilitarian, whereby they act for the betterment of all. Not even the most organized of species act like bees. He writes you will never find a sign at the entrance to beehive saying “worker bees of the world – unite!” (p. 171), an insult and an argument against one of the cornerstones of Marxist thought, the belief that all people are good and will work collectively to achieve common interests. Passages like this make the book worthwhile to read and reread to appreciate Harari’s brilliance fully.
Sapiens also brims with interesting gems of lesser-known facts of major historical events. When discussing the colonization of the Aztecs in Central America, Harari does not merely recount the well-known details of occupying Europeans, such as the enslavement, murder, rape, destruction, and subjugation of Indigenous populations. He also mentions the perspectives of those often unheard: the Aztecs. He shares with readers how the Aztecs would send someone to accompany the Spaniards wherever they went with burning incense because the Spaniards’ smell was too horrid for the locals in proximity. The Spaniards mistook this as a sign of divine treatment; little did they realize their hygienic practices were poor compared to the locals (p. 292-293). Small anecdotes like these demand our attention since they force us to rethink familiar historical narratives.
Insightful
Perspective-taking is hard for many laypeople and academics alike, but Harari makes it look easy as he challenges us to rethink our commonly-held beliefs and behaviours.
Consider, for example, how Sapiens’ brain size decreased since our hunting-gathering days (p. 49). Hunting-gathering required Sapiens to have an intimate, in-depth knowledge of the surroundings since our survival depended on it. Today, however, we are all specialists in our narrowly defined fields, entirely reliant on collective knowledge and expertise to maintain our livelihoods and survival. An office worker does not have to know how to hunt, farm, preserve food, plumb, or build their home when they can very easily pay someone more qualified to figure everything out. We need to rethink the lives and abilities of our ‘primitive’ ancestors, as they may well have been more well-rounded than we are today, despite the stark differences in living standards our current organizational arrangements provide.
In a similar vein, our understanding of the world improved drastically in large part to what Harari calls our “revolution of ignorance” (p. 251), often thought of as the Scientific Revolution starting in seventeenth-century Europe. Acknowledging what we do not know is revolutionary because it forces us to observe and explain physical phenomena in the world around us. We must continuously ask specific questions based on previous knowledge and find new answers. If we are smart, our species will continue acknowledging and attempting to understand our ignorance. If we are foolish, we will assume we know all that there is to know. Knowing the limits of our knowledge is necessary if we wish to address future challenges without clear causes or solutions.
But science and scientific thinking are limited. Harari explains that scientific research and development are never void of political, economic, or religious interests because they do not prioritize what we feel is essential, ‘good,’ or what we should do (p. 273). He is correct, and it is a point worth contemplating. It is noble to openly contest vested interests and money in all disciplines to ensure fairness. But our species must realize that attempting to do so entirely is a futile effort. Our increasing needs must be met, whether mundane, like engineering the perfect smart coffee machine to improve our morning routine, or innovative, like developing a new drug to cure a painful disease for a loved one.
With our increased scientific thinking and market development, colonialism and empire followed in tandem. Here, too, Harari shows us that our understanding is myopic. It would be easy to fill a book with abhorring accounts of violence and subjugation against colonized people, as well as another book of how colonialism benefited subject populations. The reality is that many achievements resulted from “the exploitation of conquered populations” (p. 193). We cannot label past European empires as either “good” or “evil” (p. 302). Colonialism lasted multiple generations across all continents, and each subject population adopted new cultural, linguistic, religious, technological, and political aspects of the colonizer (p. 205) for better or worse. And Harari reminds us that western Europeans were not the only ones guilty of colonization; the Roman Empire, Islamic civilizations, and countless others had their time, too. We all have blood on our hands.
Overall Impression
The critical takeaway of Sapiens is that, in our brief history, we have proven ourselves to be remarkable but imperfect. We can push our biological and genetic limits further with consistent effort, funding and organization. Rapid advancements in technology and medicine will help us address our current bodily limitations. But technological advancements also create new political, legal, and societal challenges. We achieved quite a bit from our humble hunting-gathering beginnings – that is an understatement. We domesticated plants and animals, built empires, invented literal and mathematical forms of communication, waged war and enslaved others in the name of religion and glory, cured incurable illnesses, and landed on the moon. All societies are guilty of atrocities, and all have contributed, some more so than others.
Harari’s objective commentary, insight, wit, and humour create a beautiful tapestry of human history that regularly challenges us to think about tough questions and issues of our contemporary age. Regardless of one’s previous knowledge, most readers will learn immensely about world history after reading this book. In this sense, his book may serve as a gateway into studying other subjects readers may find appealing, whether the extinction of species, human cognition, human organization (networks and hierarchy), gender norms, financial intermediaries, or nanotechnology.