“From an ethical perspective, monotheism was arguably one of the worst ideas in human history.”
I have just finished reading Yuval Noah Harari‘s excellent new book ’21 Lessons for the 21st Century.’ Like his previous books ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ (2014) and its sequel, ‘Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow,’ (2016) Harari’s new offering deals with big historical questions. I have written before that I find the decay of the great subject of History into a caricature of ‘Henry and Hitler’ in British schools profoundly depressing. Still less do I like the childish political posturing about the past that mostly consists of tendentious interpretations of a very few events; the Atlantic slave trade and the Holocaust are two particular favourites of people who have little to no understanding of the multi-causal and complex nature of the past. Harari’s book is the exact opposite of what usually passes for debate in 2018; his work is an superb antidote for anyone bored by shrill screams about ‘phobias’ from people who go on about the Crusades without knowing anything about either the proximate or long term causes of wars that lasted for two centuries.*
Harari deals with the whole span of human history in his books and he doesn’t pull any punches. He has said in the past that he is an outsider many times over – being an atheist, a vegan, a homosexual and an Israeli (the only group the apostles of identity politics consider it legitimate to racially abuse). He is also comes across as rather pessimistic and cynical in his work. Like another of my favourite historians, Niall Ferguson, Harari is something of a provocateur; in his latest book he has included chapters with titles like ‘Immigration – some cultures might be better than other,’ ‘War – never underestimate human stupidity’ and (my personal favourite) ‘Ignorance – you know less than you think.’ Much of what Harari writes is conditional and provisional – he claims to think rather than know; this is unlike the fanatical followers of the world’s major religions who don’t just claim to know but to know everything.
Ranging across issues from climate change to biotechnology, Harari makes the point that what human beings evolved to do – survive on the African savannah – will make little sense when we, as a species, try to deal with the challenges of 2050 or even 2100. What is clear is that the old Abrahamic religions(s) have nothing to say about the challenges humanity will face over the next few decades. Judaism, a Bronze Age nightmare can tell us nothing about Artificial Intelligence; Christianity, which is little more than Santa for grown-ups, will not solve the problems of Big Data; Islam, the motherlode of bad ideas, is clueless about Harari’s particular bugbear, the merger of infotech and biotech. And what can the Talmud, the Bible or the Koran tell us about climate change?
I have previously written about Catherine Nivey’s book The Darkening Age which explains how the spread of Christianity destroyed the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome and ushered in the horrors of the Christian Dark Ages and split the world of the Mediterranean into hostile camps divided by religion – a division that continues to this day. As Harari sarcastically notes, the Jews should not take ‘credit’ for introducing monotheism but leave it to Christians and Muslims. Monotheism is an inherently bigoted idea. If you believe in many gods then it is natural to assume that other peoples will worship different gods to you. If you believe in The One True God then anyone who does not worship your god is not merely mistaken but positively evil. Harari makes the link to secular religions like fascism (only the nation is worthy of your loyalty) and communism (the working class and/or the great leader) – certainty in one ideology is the road to Hell.
I thoroughly recommend Harari’s book but I would warn you that it is not an easy read and he assumes a great deal of knowledge and attention to current events in his readers.
*For your information, the proximate cause of the First Crusade was the appeal for help from his Western co-religionists by Byzantine emperor Alexis I, who had lost most of Anatolia (modern Turkey) to the Seljuks. The Seljuks had also been harassing and enslaving Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. The long term cause was the relentless wars of aggression by various Muslim empires against the Christian states of southern Europe that had begun when two-thirds of the Byzantine Empire was conquered by Arab armies.
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