Yuval
Noah Harari (2018), 21 lessons for the 21st century,
Jonathan Cape,
pp. 352
Yuval Noah Harari is an
Oxford-educated historian to watch out for! Through his three books Sapiens,
Homo Deus and 21 lessons for the 21st century, Harari
makes sense of what this century is all about, with historical and contemporary
evidence on the biggest forces sweeping our times. The merging of biotech with
infotech, the global dimensions of our personal lives and inequality resulting
from institutional complicity are the scenarios he examines the most through
his work. He speaks of our times as one in which ‘the old stories have
collapsed and new stories have not taken over’ and his attempt is to bring
light to this liminal space.
The limits of the liberal story
At the heart of his argument
is the perceived limit of the liberal story that dominated the political and
economic ideologies of the twentieth century. As we shift authority from humans
to algorithms, we are shifting the battle from one against exploitation to that
against irrelevance. In this battle, ideas about ‘free will’ and freedom go for
a toss and the common enemy becomes flawlessly rational and empirical evidence
more compelling. An example is the nature of discrimination that we have
historically fought (group prejudice that is based on social attitudes against
minority groups which is malleable) to one that we might fight against
algorithms (personal prejudice based on empirical evidence of incompetence that
is not easily mutable). How is the protection and rights of the majority of us
to be conceived in this unfolding age? And who is to lead us in thoughts and
value models in the age of flux? Harari ominously warns that historically
corporations were never ideal vehicles to launch social and political
revolutions because of their focus on wealth maximization. The pre-eminence of
corporate solutions to human problems has to be evaluated afresh and the
resurgence of public-funded institutions such as universities is the need of
the hour.
The secular ideal
The resurrection of extreme
ideologies such as the rise of the religious right and the extreme left is to
be seen in this context. The path that Harari pursues is re-examining our commitment
to what he refers to as the ‘secular ideal’. He charts out the tenets of this
ideal based on commitment to truth based on evidence, compassion based on
appreciation of suffering, equality based on suspicion of a priori hierarchies,
freedom to think, investigate and experiment and courage to fight biases and
oppression. This might seem like an idealist’s dream, but the author warns us
with a grounded pragmatism that human history is not one long story blessed
with a continuous evolving meaning. It is made up of disparate strands of
episodes each with its own illuminating inferences. To think through our times
is the first step of appropriating agency.
A superb companion to the new
year!
