Week 4: Feb 24 Questions (Chapt 8, 9, 10)

Chapter 8 concludes Part Two (The Agricultural Revolution). Chapter 9 and 10 introduce Part Three (The Unification of Humankind). The whole book, though, seems based on the idea that the world has been made smaller by homo sapiens in that thousands and thousands of people unknown to each other for thousands and thousands of years gradually morphed into a single culture common to the whole planet. The questions that follow are intended to highlight specific points made in each section of each chapter. The truths that flow from them might be summarized in questions such as, What’s next: where are we as homo sapiens going? Is there any turning back? Why are so many people afraid of (or enthusiastic about) world trade, world government, and world unity? How do we resolve disputes that threaten world peace?  
   

CHAPTER 8: There is No Justice in History

1.     What do Hammurabi, Aristotle, the Brahmins, the Shudras, and the authors of the American Declaration of Independence have in common? What fictions support their views? How are these views sustained in contemporary society?

The Vicious Circle

2.     How have concepts of purity and pollution enforced social and political divisions between people?

Purity in America

3.     Why did the lot of the slaves not improve after the American Civil War? What was the impact of the Jim Crow laws (de jure in the South; de facto in the North)?

He and She

4.     What does it mean to say that biology enables, while culture forbids?

5.     Is it natural for an insect to fly or a chimpanzee to use sex to cement political alliances?

Sex and Gender

6.     What is the difference between sex and gender?

What’s so Good About Men

7.     Is there some universal biological reason why almost everyone valued manhood over womanhood?

Muscle Power

8.     Could boxing matches have produced better pharaohs and better popes? (cf Trudeau)

The Scum of Society

9.     How did the militarily challenged Caesar Augustus establish a stable empire?

10.  Could a woman have done so as easily?

Patriarchal Genes

11.  Why ae human woman less likely to play dominant roles in their societies than elephant females in theirs?

CHAPTER 9: The Arrow Of History

12.  What is cognitive dissonance? How is it evident in Christianity, American politics, and Muslim culture? Is it like doublespeak in 1984?

The Spy Satellite

13.  Does the inexorable trend toward unity really bring the New York stockbroker and the Afghan together? If so, what’s next?

The Global Vision

14.  Why can Osama Bib Laden be said to have transcended the binary evolutionary division (us vs them) of homo sapiens?

CHAPTER 10: The Scent of Money

15.  Why did Muslim merchants accept gold coins having the sign of the cross?

How Much Is It?

16.  What is the problem with the barter system? Why did it not work for the Soviet Union?

Shells and Cigarettes

17.  How was it possible to convert forbidden sex into salvation?

How Does Money work?

18.  Why have people trusted money for as long as 5,000 years? When have they not trusted it?

The Gospel of Gold

19.  How does money unify the world? What can challenge that unity?

The Price of Money

20.  Why is money not enough?

Week 3: Feb 10 Questions (Chapt 5, 6, 7)

 Chapter 5: History's Biggest Fraud

 

1.  What was the agricultural revolution according to Harari?  What were the effects?

2.  P. 81 “We did not domesticate wheat.  It domesticated us.” 

Explain whether you agree or disagree.

3. What is the luxury trap?

 Chapter 6: Building Pyramids

 

4.  P. 101  “These forfeited food surpluses fueled politics, wars, art and philosophy. They built palaces, forts, monuments and temples. . . . History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.”

Is history simply something “done” by very few people?  Discuss.

5.  P. 102  “The problem at the root of such calamities (conflicts, collapse of social order, etc.) is that human evolved for millions of years in small bands of a few dozen individuals.  The handful of millennia separating the Agricultural Revolution from the appearance of cities, kingdoms and empires was not enough time to allow an instinct for mass cooperation to evolve.”

People often used words such as “instinct,” “human nature,” and “culture” when they try to explain something that they are NOT too clear about.  What is your understanding of “instinct” in the quote?  Do you agree with the author in his use of “instinct” in explaining the lack of cooperation among Sapiens?

6.  Chapters 5 and 6:  The author seems to argue that the Agricultural Revolution, including planning for the future, brought Sapiens stress and troubles instead of a better life.

Do you think so? Explain.

7.  P. 103  Empires became linked to standing armies around 2250 BCE.  How did the Agricultural Revolution influence the development of empires and standing army?

8.  Pp. 105 – 109  How are both the Code of Hammurabi and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of 1776 myths of history serving as cooperation manuals among large numbers of people?

9.  Pp. 108 -110  Harari quotes the famous line from the American Declaration of Independence and then translates the line into biological terms.  Do you agree with the author’s reasons for the change?  Why or why not?

 Chapter 7: Memory Overload

 

10.  Ch. 7  What is an imagined order?  Why is it necessary in a Sapiens society?  Give examples from the book or your own experience.

11.  Pp. 130 – 132  About the language of numbers and its various “descendants,” Harari writes:  “Writing was born as the maidservant of human consciousness, but is increasingly becoming its master.”   Do you agree or disagree?  Explain.