The inevitable march of secularism? Not so fast

[creekster]

What's key in such books, is how things are said, as much as what is said. Sapiens is a thinly disguised work of philosophy. As far as the big picture is concerned, I'm not really learning anything new. But it's still an immensely enjoyable and rewarding read. There are wonderful turns of phrase, such as where it posits that actually wheat domesticated humans. Also, I love books that formidably challenge the usual ways of seeing things. The book is mordantly funny in places. Sometimes it's a form of gallows humor. Sapiens is skeptical that the Cognitive Revolution, or the Agricultural Revolution were good things for any living thing. Humans and certainly the rest of the planet may have been better off had sapiens remained of no consequence as they have been for most of their history.

Would the planet have been better off? According to who? It can only be better off it is observed and measured.

[SeattleUte]

Would the planet have been better off? According to who? It can only be better off it is observed and measured.

Again, I tend to agree wiht you. But I like the thought experiments that Sapiens provides.

[SeattleUte]

I really liked Sapiens. ER Coug sent it to me (thanks!). It's a worthwhile exercise sometimes to look at sweeping changes over big swathes of time rather than narrowly focused historical questions.

One area that the book missed was the idea of reckoning time. IMO, the desire (need?) to keep track of time, and all that comes with it, from astronomy & astrology to tax records and harvest-seasons. The human ability to reckon time is a devilishly difficult idea to follow to its sources, but it seems to be extremely important in the creation of human societies.

Actually, he talks about time starting on page 351. I love Sapiens. Now I’m on to Homo Deus. The opening pages are a tour de force, even though a rehash of the latter part of Sapiens. Here is a typical example; similar brilliance recurs throughout (again, there’s nothing here we don’t know. It’s the way he says it. And this is an incicive response to Bernie Standers and Donald Trump (as well as a tribute to secularism’s fruits).

The global economy has been transformed from a material-based economy into a knowledge-based economy. Previously the main sources of wealth were material assets such as gold mines, wheat fields and oil wells. Today the main source of wealth is knowledge. And whereas you can conquer oil fields through war, you cannot acquire knowledge that way. Hence as knowledge became the most important economic resource, the profitability of war declined and wars became increasingly restricted to those parts of the world –such as the Middle East and Central Africa –where the economies are still old-fashioned material-based economies. In 1998 it made sense for Rwanda to seize and loot the rich coltan mines of neighbouring Congo, because this ore was in high demand for the manufacture of mobile phones and laptops, and Congo held 80 per cent of the world’s coltan reserves. Rwanda earned $ 240 million annually from the looted coltan. For poor Rwanda that was a lot of money. In contrast, it would have made no sense for China to invade California and seize Silicon Valley, for even if the Chinese could somehow prevail on the battlefield, there were no silicon mines to loot in Silicon Valley. Instead, the Chinese have earned billions of dollars from cooperating with hi-tech giants such as Apple and Microsoft, buying their software and manufacturing their products. What Rwanda earned from an entire year of looting Congolese coltan, the Chinese earn in a single day of peaceful commerce.

[Solon]

Actually, he talks about time starting on page 351. .

He does talk about how the Industrial Revolution changes conceptions of time, with standardization for things like railroad schedules.

But I'm talking about the much earlier-developing concept of humans measuring and tracking time, albeit imperfectly, with calendars, star-movements, seasons, etc.

There's a place in Herzog's film about Chauvet cave where he shows a couple of cave-drawings of horses, sketched in charcoal. One of the drawings is thousands of years older than the other, although the technology, style, etc. were unchanged. This timeless quality of human history is astounding to modern sensibilities. The notion of charting time, of tracking it, and of measuring human milestones/achievements against it is a relatively recent phenomenon and (IMO) a really big step in human history.

[SeattleUte]

This is terrific; From Homo Deus:

The great political, artistic and religious project of modernity has been to find a meaning to life that is not rooted in some great cosmic plan. We are not actors in a divine drama, and nobody cares about us and our deeds, so nobody sets limits to our power –but we are still convinced our lives have meaning. As of 2016, humankind has indeed managed to have it both ways. Not only do we possess far more power than ever before, but, against all expectations, God’s death did not lead to social collapse.

Throughout history prophets and philosophers have argued that if humans stopped believing in a great cosmic plan, all law and order would vanish. Yet today, those who pose the greatest threat to global law and order are precisely those people who continue to believe in God and His all-encompassing plans. God-fearing Syria is a far more violent place than the secular Netherlands.

If there is no cosmic plan, and we are not committed to any divine or natural laws, what prevents social collapse? How come you can travel for thousands of miles, from Amsterdam to Bucharest or from New Orleans to Montreal, without being kidnapped by slave-traders, ambushed by outlaws or killed by feuding tribes?

The antidote to a meaningless and lawless existence was provided by humanism, a revolutionary new creed that conquered the world during the last few centuries. The humanist religion worships humanity, and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism. Whereas traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans, humanism reverses the roles and expects the experiences of humans to give meaning to the cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe.

This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world. Accordingly, the central religious revolution of modernity was not losing faith in God; rather, it was gaining faith in humanity. It took centuries of hard work. Thinkers wrote pamphlets, artists composed poems and symphonies, politicians struck deals –and together they convinced humanity that it can imbue the universe with meaning.

[Omaha 680]

This is terrific; From Homo Deus:

This must be why everyone in the West is so happy and optimistic, especially millenials!

[Sleeping in EQ]

This is terrific; From Homo Deus:

Except that it's absolute shit.

[Jeff Lebowski]

This is terrific; From Homo Deus:

Ha. Gotta love those cherry-picked comparisons:

Throughout history prophets and philosophers have argued that if humans stopped believing in a great cosmic plan, all law and order would vanish. Yet today, those who pose the greatest threat to global law and order are precisely those people who continue to believe in God and His all-encompassing plans. God-fearing Syria is a far more violent place than the secular Netherlands.

I wonder why the author didn't pick Stalinist Russia vs. the U.S.

It is exactly this kind of hubris I was referencing in the OP.

[SeattleUte]

This must be why everyone in the West is so happy and optimistic, especially millenials!

He doesn’t say it’s good or it makes us more happy. He’s just saying what is.

I don’t see much of any belief in a cosmic plan here.

[SeattleUte]

Ha. Gotta love those cherry-picked comparisons:



I wonder why the author didn't pick Stalinist Russia vs. the U.S.

It is exactly this kind of hubris I was referencing in the OP.

I expect more discernment and nuance from you.

Communism is a religion, as I’ve said, and so does he! Communism puts more store in a cosmic purpose, inevitable tide of history, ummutable laws, etc. than humanism. You should read the book. Liberal democracy is humanism’s umbrella (he has a very broad definition of religion, and regards these as religions too), certainly not Communism.

[creekster]

I expect more discernment and nuance from you.

Communism is a religion, as I’ve said, and so does he! Communism puts more store in a cosmic purpose, inevitable tide of history, ummutable laws, etc. than humanism. You should read the book. Liberal democracy is humanism’s umbrella (he has a very broad definition of religion, and regards these as religions too), certainly not Communism.

Then why isnt humanism a religion too? It seems like the more broadly he defines religion the less important his point becomes.

[SeattleUte]

Then why isnt humanism a religion too? It seems like the more broadly he defines religion the less important his point becomes.

Yes, he most emphatically regards humanism as religion. Religion includes any “fiction” that is abstraction and requires buy-in, essentially faith. Human rights are a fiction; all humans are created equal is a religion. Capitalism is religion, so are legal codes, and money (money mostly is just pieces of paper and columns of data in computers). According to Harari, we need religion for civilization to occur. Religion is what enables millions of people who are strangers to work together to accomplish amazing things, and it’s intimately related to language. Otherwise, if limited by personal familiarity, humans can only work in groups of a few dozen, like apes. He acknowledges that some people may feel uneasy calling any belief system that omits God religion. So call it what you will, ideology for instance.

[creekster]

Yes, he most emphatically regards humanism as religion. Religion includes any “fiction” that is abstraction and requires buy-in, essentially faith. Human rights are a fiction; all humans are created equal is a religion. Capitalism is religion, so are legal codes, and money (money mostly is just pieces of paper and columns of data in computers). According to Harari, we need religion for civilization to occur. Religion is what enables millions of people who are strangers to work together to accomplish amazing things, and it’s intimately related to language. Otherwise, if limited by personal familiarity, humans can only work in groups of a few dozen, like apes. He acknowledges that some people may feel uneasy calling any belief system that omits God religion. So call it what you will, ideology for instance.

That being true I am a bit underwhelmed by the idea that you presented in the quotation a few posts back. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

[SeattleUte]

That being true I am a bit underwhelmed by the idea that you presented in the quotation a few posts back. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Maybe so. That’s the question. We need “religion,” but are all religions the same? Clearly their outlook and treatment of real concrete problems is not the same. He uses an example. In medieval times, a woman has sex outside marriage. She’s troubled by how much happier she is in the arms of another man, her obligations to spouse and children, etc. She seeks advice from, who else, the priest. He tells her what she has done is condemned by God. A modern woman (not traditionally religious) has sex outside marriage. She’s troubled because what she’s doing feels good and right, but she’s liable to hurt others, including her children. Who does she consult? Her analyst, a friend over coffee, etc. Now the focus is not God, but reconciling the woman’s own personal good feelings and satisfaction with the hurt these will cause others. This value system, albeit devoid of God, is still religion, according to Harari.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I expect more discernment and nuance from you.

Communism is a religion, as I’ve said, and so does he! Communism puts more store in a cosmic purpose, inevitable tide of history, ummutable laws, etc. than humanism. You should read the book. Liberal democracy is humanism’s umbrella (he has a very broad definition of religion, and regards these as religions too), certainly not Communism.

If that is the case, why bother trotting out the same old tired stereotypes illustrating the worst of religious history? If humanism is a religion that provides meaning to the universe, why is it necessary to trash a belief in God to make that point? Can't humanists and traditional believers coexist? Most of us believers don't want to cut your head off.