21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Harari discusses the “clash of civilizations” thesis. American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington first proposed this thesis in the early 1990s, arguing that future wars will be fought between cultures and religious identities. The justification for this thesis is that “humankind has always been divided into diverse civilizations whose members view the world in irreconcilable ways” (93). These irreconcilable viewpoints will lead to inevitable conflict with only the strongest surviving this natural selection test.

To Harari, this thesis is misleading. For one, human conflict is vastly different from natural selection. Natural selection is a key mechanism of evolution. It is the process through which species adapt and change. Individuals that are better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring than those who are not. Different species can also not produce fertile offspring, which means they can never merge (e.g., elephants cannot merge with zebras). Human cultural viewpoints are not genetically determined. There are no genes that make an individual German or American. Humans define these groups through stories, which often change through time. Furthermore, human groups can merge because we are the same species. This ability has led to our current single global civilization.

Harari uses a thought experiment to illustrate how far humans have come in creating a global civilization. He asks the reader to imagine trying to organize an Olympic Games in 1016—an impossible task. For example, the Chinese Song Empire did not recognize any other political entity as its equal; thus, the Olympic committee would not give its delegation the same status as delegations from other empires. In addition, no empire or cultural group in 1016 had a flag to fly or anthem to play at the awards ceremony. While nations compete in the modern Olympics, it is due to an “astonishing global agreement” (105) that all nations come together and have anthems and flags that conform to the same model.  

Nationalism, according to Harari, “is not a natural and eternal part of the human psyche, and it is not rooted in human biology” (110). For most of humanity’s history, we have lived in small communities/tribes. Humans began to form larger collectives of people (e.g., nation-states) due to facing problems that a single group could not solve on their own. To Harari, there is nothing wrong with benign patriotism. People should believe that their nation is unique because all nations are unique. It also inspires people to care about others who they do not know within their country and make sacrifices on their behalf. The problem, Harari warns, is when “benign patriotism morphs into chauvinistic ultranationalism” (112).

Ultranationalism is when an individual believes that their nation is supreme, and that allegiance should only be to the nation. To Harari, this mindset led to violent conflicts in the 19th and 20th centuries. The invention of nuclear weapons helped decrease ultranationalism because people feared total annihilation. A global community began to develop during this period because only global collaboration could help solve the challenges presented by nuclear weapons. This global political approach is why the Cold War ended with minimal bloodshed.

To Harari, there are three major challenges facing humanity today: nuclear, environmental, and technological. Nuclear annihilation is still a threat. Abandoning the global community and reverting to ultranationalism could escalate tensions between nations, possibly leading to nuclear war. The planet is also facing potential ecological collapse due to human activities. Climate change already has and will continue to have profoundly negative impacts on society. Unless we cut greenhouse gas emissions in the next two decades, average global temperatures will increase by several degrees, causing desert expansions, rising sea levels, ice caps disappearing, and more frequent extreme weather events. Parts of the planet will become uninhabitable, disrupting human life as we know it. While individual countries can adopt green policies, these policies will not help reverse the effects of climate change if the policies are not adopted on a global level. The final challenge is technological disruption caused by combining biotechnology and AI. This combination could result in the disappearance of our species.

None of these three challenges can be solved with a nationalist answer. As Harari notes, a common enemy helps forge a common identity. Humanity now has three such enemies: nuclear war, ecological collapse, and technological disruption. Humans must come together and use global cooperation to prevent the destruction of human civilization. An important question remains though: If nationalism cannot unite the planet, then what other ideology or belief can?

In this chapter, Harari examines whether human religious traditions can help solve three different 21st-century problems: technical, policy, and identity problems. To Harari, religion is irrelevant to the first two problems. In premodern times, religious traditions helped solve technical problems, such as in the areas of agriculture and medicine. Yet the advent of modern science has changed this. People now turn to biologists and doctors rather than priests. Harari notes that priests’ and gurus’ true expertise has always been interpretation. While this is true of scientists as well, science is also based on the willingness to admit failure and try new things. As a result, science provides answers to technical questions and religious traditions do not.

Science over traditional religious thought also guides policy. This is the case even in countries where religious leaders either have a direct say in their country’s economic policy or try to influence public opinion on a range of issues. Traditional religious texts—written thousands of years ago—cannot solve modern problems. They are simply out of date. Harari agrees with Karl Marx that “religion doesn’t really have much to contribute to the great policy debates of our time” (133).

In contrast to the first two problems, Harari believes that religion is relevant to identity problems. However, he argues that religious traditions are often part of this problem rather than the solution. Religion determines “us” versus “them” through rituals and ceremonies. Some religious traditions inspire hate and ugliness, such as promoting caste discrimination or homophobia. States also use religion to help create their national identity as seen with Catholicism in Poland, Judaism in Israel, Shiite Islam in Iran, Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia, and Orthodox Christianity in Russia. Thus, this makes religion a “handmaid of modern nationalism” (138). To Harari, religion is part of humanity’s problem: It makes it harder for people to transcend national differences and come together to find solutions to global problems.

To Harari, the European Union is one of greatest multicultural experiments. Yet, it is on the verge of disintegration due to challenges around immigration. There are four debates around immigration. The first is whether a host county accepts immigrants based on duty or favor. Individuals who support immigration believe humans have a moral obligation to other humans; thus, countries have a moral duty to accept refugees and people seeking a better life. Anti-immigrationists, in contrast, believe that you are doing immigrants a favor by allowing them into the host country.

The second debate is whether immigrants must assimilate into their host country’s culture. Pro-immigrationists argue against forcing immigrants to adhere to a European identity, because one does not exist. Europe is itself extremely diverse. Perhaps the only unifying core European values are those of tolerance and freedom, which further support pro-immigrationists belief that Europeans are tolerant of immigrants and allow them the freedom to follow their own cultural traditions. Anti-immigrationists also agree that freedom and tolerance are the core values of Europe. Because they cherish tolerance, they believe their country should not allow in too many intolerant people, which could radically alter these values in Europe. They also argue that immigrants should fully assimilate into the host culture.

The third debate is whether the host country must treat immigrants as their own citizens if the immigrants try to assimilate. Anti-immigrationists often want a longer probation period for determining citizenship than pro-immigrationists. The root issue is the divide between collective timescale and personal timescale. The human collectives’ viewpoint holds that it is hard to assimilate individuals in a short period of time. Yet from a personal viewpoint, not being considered a citizen after decades of living in and contributing to a country or being born to the country to immigrant parents seems ridiculous.

These three debates lead to the fourth debate, which is whether the immigration deal is working. Anti-immigrationists believe that immigrants are not fulfilling their side of the deal, whereas pro-immigrationists lay the blame on the host country.

Underpinning these debates is a fundamental question, which concerns whether some human cultures are superior to others. This has led to the rise of culturism, or belief in the superiority or inferiority of some cultures. In turn, this has led to prejudice based on assumptions about culture. It remains unclear “whether Europe can find a middle path that will enable it to keep its gates open to strangers without being destabilized by people who don’t share its values” (156). More importantly to Harari, the European Union experiment is a test of whether the liberal values of freedom and tolerance is enough to resolve the world’s cultural conflicts and unite humanity so that we can find solutions to nuclear war, environmental collapse, and technological disruption.