PEGI EYERS
There seems to be no end in sight, for references being made to, and quotations appearing from, "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari. Shortly after the book was released in 2016, from my own reading I noticed an appalling set of issues. As "Sapiens" continues to gain traction, here are some important points to keep in mind.
(a) Ethnocentric Tone. This is history from a western perspective. It does not take into account the thousands of Indigenous societies that developed successfully *outside* of the model(s) Harari proposes. What about them? There is no such thing as "ONE HUMANITY” – only western academics have the audacity to continue with this privileged definition and make invisible non-western societies. There are countless cultures outside the rubric of western knowledge that cannot be described by the themes in this book, but does this occur to western academics with PHD’s?? NO – and I am really tired of this implicit racism.
(b) Racist Comments. Harari decimates the integrity of Indigenous peoples with various insults, plus he conflates the western development timeline with the flourishing of Indigenous societies, which is a complete misconception. How horrified a First Nations person must be, to read this tripe~! For example this piece of racist nonsense on page 28: “People can easily understand that ‘primitives’ cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering each full moon to dance around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis. Take for example the world of business corporations. Modern business-people and lawyers are in fact, powerful sorcerers. The principle difference between them and tribal shamans is that modern lawyers tall far stranger tales.”
THERE IS SO MUCH WRONG WITH THIS PASSAGE I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN. Harari has absolutely no knowledge of anthropology and/or the study of Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous lifeways, Indigenous peoples and/or Indigenous epistemologies all over the globe, that ironically still carry oral traditions and knowledge through the centuries from the ancient times Harari is describing. Another imperialist error of western academics is to think that living traditions would not hold important or contradictory information to their own thesis.
(c) Harari Discounts the Sacred. Magic and mystery do exist, the numinous does exist, the Gods and Goddesses do exist, the Earth Spirits do exist, the Divine Feminine does exist - as do all the other ephemeral and metaphysical aspects of both human and other-than-human life on this mysterious and multi-layered planet.
(d) Harari is Condescending. He includes a brief, shallow and erroneous explanation of animism. Harari trivializes the capacity of the human being to have transcendental experience, and the need for spiritual expression. Humans are four-fold beings – emotional, rational (mental), physical and spiritual. Like so many western reductionist thinkers, Harari only dwells in the realm of the physical and rational, and ignores, pokes fun at, devalues, or scorns the human capacity and necessity for the spiritual.
(e) A Poor Grasp of Root Causes. Harari engages with an ideology or movement well into its development and then conflates it with things that are not even connected. This book includes the worst description of the rise and maintenance of the patriarchy I have ever seen, and his suggested reasons for patriarchal dominance are a complete insult to western women.
(f) Better Academics and Scientists than Harari have determined that Neantherthals went extinct from a naturally-occurring virus or maladaption, not from some kind of “ethnic cleansing”! There is evidence of the gene pool being mixed from intimate contact between Neanderthals and other groups, so why would early human-like creatures then slaughter the entire group? Much more accomplished anthropologists and ethnologists than Harari have concluded that Indigenous groups almost NEVER wipe out entire tribes – their focus is on acts of bravery, warrior-to-warrior combat, making a statement, and absconding with captives such as women and children (who were treated kindly) to add new relatives to the gene pool.
(g) The Megafauna Were NOT Wiped Out By Humans. I thought everyone knew that this ridiculous theory has been repeatedly debunked. (See Vine Deloria Jr., archaeologists Todd Surovell, Brigid Grund, and many more.) The study of contemporaneous Indigenous societies show that they *never* destroy a species or food source to the point of extinction, but remain *within* the carrying capacity of the land. The plant or animal species is *always* left with a colony, or colonies, to re-propagate itself. There has *never* been an instance of Indigenous peoples wiping out an entire species, unlike European or western groups who have no problem with mass and total annihilation. As western thinkers support ethnocide and genocide so readily, this theory appears over and over through the western lens. How absurd that if Indigenous groups today (and let’s say for the past 800 years) did *not* practice ecocide, why in the world would our most ancient forebears practice it? Habitation on the planet was only beginning! That small scattered groups of hunter–gatherers could kill entire giant species is a ridiculous notion, and those who subscribe to it seriously misguided.
(h) And the final and most important point – the title says it all – “A Brief History of Humankind.” Many Indigenous and anti-colonial groups have *never* followed the civilizational impulse, and the title of this book invisibilizes them. I come across this *all the time* – white or white-passing authors who have the audacity to speak about “humanity” when they are *only* describing western knowledge systems, the white POV, and the world as seen through a western lens. *Absolutely* there are countless cultures outside the rubric of western knowledge systems, who have *never* lost their connection to the Earth. But this does not occur to PhD’s like Harari, and this implicit racism needs to stop.
Ending on a positive note, this meme offers a quotation from Harari's work that is actually true, and worth considering.
(a) Ethnocentric Tone. This is history from a western perspective. It does not take into account the thousands of Indigenous societies that developed successfully *outside* of the model(s) Harari proposes. What about them? There is no such thing as "ONE HUMANITY” – only western academics have the audacity to continue with this privileged definition and make invisible non-western societies. There are countless cultures outside the rubric of western knowledge that cannot be described by the themes in this book, but does this occur to western academics with PHD’s?? NO – and I am really tired of this implicit racism.
(b) Racist Comments. Harari decimates the integrity of Indigenous peoples with various insults, plus he conflates the western development timeline with the flourishing of Indigenous societies, which is a complete misconception. How horrified a First Nations person must be, to read this tripe~! For example this piece of racist nonsense on page 28: “People can easily understand that ‘primitives’ cement their social order by believing in ghosts and spirits, and gathering each full moon to dance around the campfire. What we fail to appreciate is that our modern institutions function on exactly the same basis. Take for example the world of business corporations. Modern business-people and lawyers are in fact, powerful sorcerers. The principle difference between them and tribal shamans is that modern lawyers tall far stranger tales.”
THERE IS SO MUCH WRONG WITH THIS PASSAGE I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN. Harari has absolutely no knowledge of anthropology and/or the study of Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous lifeways, Indigenous peoples and/or Indigenous epistemologies all over the globe, that ironically still carry oral traditions and knowledge through the centuries from the ancient times Harari is describing. Another imperialist error of western academics is to think that living traditions would not hold important or contradictory information to their own thesis.
(c) Harari Discounts the Sacred. Magic and mystery do exist, the numinous does exist, the Gods and Goddesses do exist, the Earth Spirits do exist, the Divine Feminine does exist - as do all the other ephemeral and metaphysical aspects of both human and other-than-human life on this mysterious and multi-layered planet.
(d) Harari is Condescending. He includes a brief, shallow and erroneous explanation of animism. Harari trivializes the capacity of the human being to have transcendental experience, and the need for spiritual expression. Humans are four-fold beings – emotional, rational (mental), physical and spiritual. Like so many western reductionist thinkers, Harari only dwells in the realm of the physical and rational, and ignores, pokes fun at, devalues, or scorns the human capacity and necessity for the spiritual.
(e) A Poor Grasp of Root Causes. Harari engages with an ideology or movement well into its development and then conflates it with things that are not even connected. This book includes the worst description of the rise and maintenance of the patriarchy I have ever seen, and his suggested reasons for patriarchal dominance are a complete insult to western women.
(f) Better Academics and Scientists than Harari have determined that Neantherthals went extinct from a naturally-occurring virus or maladaption, not from some kind of “ethnic cleansing”! There is evidence of the gene pool being mixed from intimate contact between Neanderthals and other groups, so why would early human-like creatures then slaughter the entire group? Much more accomplished anthropologists and ethnologists than Harari have concluded that Indigenous groups almost NEVER wipe out entire tribes – their focus is on acts of bravery, warrior-to-warrior combat, making a statement, and absconding with captives such as women and children (who were treated kindly) to add new relatives to the gene pool.
(g) The Megafauna Were NOT Wiped Out By Humans. I thought everyone knew that this ridiculous theory has been repeatedly debunked. (See Vine Deloria Jr., archaeologists Todd Surovell, Brigid Grund, and many more.) The study of contemporaneous Indigenous societies show that they *never* destroy a species or food source to the point of extinction, but remain *within* the carrying capacity of the land. The plant or animal species is *always* left with a colony, or colonies, to re-propagate itself. There has *never* been an instance of Indigenous peoples wiping out an entire species, unlike European or western groups who have no problem with mass and total annihilation. As western thinkers support ethnocide and genocide so readily, this theory appears over and over through the western lens. How absurd that if Indigenous groups today (and let’s say for the past 800 years) did *not* practice ecocide, why in the world would our most ancient forebears practice it? Habitation on the planet was only beginning! That small scattered groups of hunter–gatherers could kill entire giant species is a ridiculous notion, and those who subscribe to it seriously misguided.
(h) And the final and most important point – the title says it all – “A Brief History of Humankind.” Many Indigenous and anti-colonial groups have *never* followed the civilizational impulse, and the title of this book invisibilizes them. I come across this *all the time* – white or white-passing authors who have the audacity to speak about “humanity” when they are *only* describing western knowledge systems, the white POV, and the world as seen through a western lens. *Absolutely* there are countless cultures outside the rubric of western knowledge systems, who have *never* lost their connection to the Earth. But this does not occur to PhD’s like Harari, and this implicit racism needs to stop.
Ending on a positive note, this meme offers a quotation from Harari's work that is actually true, and worth considering.
Pegi Eyers is the author of "Ancient Spirit Rising:
Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community"
an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural
competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon.
Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring Earth Community"
an award-winning book that explores strategies for intercultural
competency, healing our relationships with Turtle Island First Nations, uncolonization, recovering an ecocentric worldview, rewilding, creating a sustainable future and reclaiming peaceful co-existence in Earth Community.
Available from Stone Circle Press or Amazon.
