21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Having examined humanity’s past in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and questioned its potential in Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, Yuval Noah Harari returns to the present in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century to explore some of the challenges facing our immediate future. Through a collection of essays, Harari breaks life down in to I – Technology, how our relationship with technology could affect our future, II – Political, the need to draw political stories away from old habits like nationalism, III – Despair and Hope, old and new enemies like War and Terrorism, IV – Truth, our means of examining our present, and V – Resilience, what we have in us to not let the century down.
However, if you are coming to this expecting it to be a The 48 Laws of Power style manual for navigating the 21st Century, you will be disappointed. As stated in the introduction of the book, this is much more for prompting discussion than offering solutions. Think ‘lesson’ as in Socratic Method, debating over definition, rather than a school lesson teaching exam answers.
Harari offers incisive, thought provoking opinions on the challenges that may face us in the next one hundred years. The topics up for discussion are worthy of entire books themselves so there were points were I felt ideas were glossed over, Harari indulging his notion of a biotech dependant future at the neglect of discussing the potential social, economic, or perhaps martial consequences of Climate Change. That isn’t to say the shorter essay-chapters were not interesting; his thoughts on Terrorism, how the relative safety of the modern world made an echo chamber for, statistically, the minor threat of being caught in a terrorist attack, this was a point I found the most engaging. The discussion whether our current education system is still appropriate too was a subject I wanted him to explore further. I also found these the most relevant since it could apply to next week, not in ten or fifty years’ time like some of Harari’s other suppositions.
Harari stated his aim was to promote discussion, if I walked away from each reading session continuing the discussion in my head then he certainly accomplished that. Though to meet this goal you do need to step away from the book intermittently. Every essay-chapter would end with a question that neatly segued in to the next topic. A very handy structure for an editor, but for the reader looking for some kind of conclusion, or place to reflect it was obstructive. If this were a conversation Harari would be talking over your response because he thought of another point to add.
This was the key weakness for me. His tone felt condescending, not just in pace but in the treatment. Smartphones, and social media couldn’t be mentioned without a whiff of superiority, not wholly dissimilar from the attitude some journalists hold towards ‘millennials’. When it came to his opinions on religion the cynicism verged on patronising. I couldn’t find the beats of humour, or empathy, Harari misses the James Randi charm. If you can’t explain something without sounding superior, maybe rethink the wording.
I found this highlighted in the controversial final chapter. Minor spoiler, the last essay-chapter is on the benefits of meditation. Harari presents the opinion, based on his experience, that prioritising the development of mindfulness as skill through meditation may help humanity face the problems of the 21st century. In both standalone essay-chapters, and as supporting statements Harari points to religion as one of the most decisive and destructive influences on humanity’s progress; the dependence on myth and reinforced tribalism keeping us from forging a coexistent future. Only to turn and recommend Vipassana, a Buddhist meditation technique, as salve. While I recognise that meditative thought is not unique to Buddhists or religion in general, you cannot cherry pick the practice of Vipassana and ignore its religious origins. It felt appropriative and hypocritical, ‘No, no, you monks can’t meditate since you mix it up with God, I on the other hand can because I’m an atheist’, all too close to the kind of intellectual supremacy that gets waved around by online trolls, and cosmopolitan yuppies.
It was like Harari, rushed for an ending as his editor’s deadline loomed, scrambled for the nearest thing to a cohesive conclusive. Then in the acknowledgements Harari mentions that his publisher came up with the idea for the book. Red flags ahoy. One of the largest essay-chapters is on the future of our relationship with technology and data. Given the extent of research Harari must have done for Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow it makes sense that this would be something of a specialist subject for him. However, on the topic of Climate Change, easily one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, Harari is rather brief. An important topic but also a complex problem which requires plenty of reading. Reading that would have been difficult to finish in time if writing on a short deadline. There were references to writing the book in early 2018, this might have just been a bit of date editing for the sake of relevance, but if it’s true, for a September 2018 release that’s a very quick turnaround for a writer – even if Harari was adapting previously released articles. That would also account for why there’s such a difference between Harari’s aim in the introduction, and the marketing approach.
I was torn how to rate this, my opinion falls somewhere near 2.5. I might not be one of the converted preaching it as revelatory but I’m not going to tell you it’s not worth reading. It prompts introspection and for us to assess the narratives at work in our own lives, a critical thinking skill rapidly growing. Harari raised some insightful points and left me thinking about his opinions for days, yet I’m not able to see past the feeling that this was rushed, or that I could hear the echo of a thousand 4chan users sneering ‘sheeple’.
Full disclosure: I received a digital copy through NetGalley in exchange for a review. The opinions are all my own. The content of my copy may not reflect that of the final product.
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P.S.
WordPress bonus, I requested this book because Tom Hiddleston quote Harari in an interview. Yes, I know, sounds ridiculous but can you see how that would make it disappointing when the authors tone sounds rude?
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