Sapiens: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Harari revisits imagined orders, saying they make humans cooperate in large numbers, but they’re “neither neutral nor fair.” Hammurabi’s Code argues that aristocracy are innately superior to commoners and slaves, meaning aristocracy get to live much better lives under that imagined order. The Hindu caste system also establishes some groups of people as innately superior. White supremacists believe that white people are genetically superior, so their imagined order marginalizes people of color. Capitalism celebrates the wealthy and characterizes the poor as indolent or lazy. Harari thinks it's important to remember “these hierarchies are all the product of human imagination.” No “known biological difference” exists between slaves and aristocracy, and there’s no biological evidence connecting race to intelligence or moral aptitude.

To Harari, it seems that large, complex societies rely on discrimination to work: people create order in their societies by dividing people into categories, which makes cooperation more efficient. Strangers don’t have to get to know each other personally. Instead, they make assessments about how to interact on the basis of obvious social cues (like markers of wealth, gender, or race). The downside of this, to Harari, is that not everyone gets the chance to discover their individual potential, especially if they’re treated poorly for being low in the hierarchy. Imagined orders, thus, make societies flourish, but they also rig the game in favor of some groups of people.

Harari thinks all societies are based on imagined hierarchies, but he wonders why the actual hierarchies differ between societies. He thinks hierarchies come about by historical happenstance. He suggests the Hindu caste system (which determines which job a person can have in society) came about when Indo-Aryans invaded the Indian subcontinent in 2000 B.C.E and subjugated the local population. The rulers likely created a story that “cosmic forces” established them as the priests and warriors (high castes), and the local population as servants (low castes). They also argued that the castes had to stay separate, because the local population (or lower caste) were “impure.” This kept the society in order but marginalized the local population in the long term.

Harari thinks convenience determined the United States’s racial hierarchies. European conquerors imported slaves from Africa and not East Asia because transport costs from Africa was lower. They also avoided Latin American slaves because of a widespread malaria outbreak at the time. These circumstances led early American leaders to create a caste system of their own. They imagined white people were biologically smarter and more moral than Black people. They also argued that Black people spread disease to prevent intermingling and keep the hierarchy in place. Even after slavery was abolished, the stigma stuck—many saw Black people as lazy, unintelligent, and innately less prone to succeed in life, even though poverty and lack of opportunities actually limited their chances.

Although it seems like humanity should realize imagined hierarchies are myths, the prejudices they establish create “vicious circles” that keep people disenfranchised. After slavery was abolished, social prejudices prevented access to education for Black people, which made others believe they really were less intelligent, prompting them to establish more discriminatory laws to prevent intermingling, thereby reinforcing, rather than dismantling the original imagined hierarchy. Harari thinks imagined hierarchies can persist for centuries and even millennia, even though they’re rooted in chance events.

Harari recalls that different societies adopt different imagined hierarchies. Race matters in the United States, but it wasn’t so important in medieval Muslim societies. Caste matters in India but not in many other societies. One hierarchy that prevails across societies, however, is the one between men and women. Harari wonders if there’s a biological justification for societies that privilege men over women. Harari thinks the question get murky because human beings tend to isolate biological differences (like having a womb) and use them to keep people in a marginalized social place. Harari also thinks about modern human societies that claim homosexuality is unnatural—noting that ancient societies (like Ancient Greece) believed the opposite.

Harari thinks that culture, and not biology, is responsible for creating rules that limit human activity. For example, biology enables women to have children, and it enables men to enjoy having sex with other men. Culture puts limitations on these activities—for example, by dissuading women from staying childless, or prohibiting men from realizing their capability to enjoy sex with other men. Culture tends to say it prohibits things that are “unnatural,” but to Harari, nothing is unnatural in biology: things are only possible or impossible. He thinks this idea of “natural” and “unnatural” activities actually comes from Christian theology, and he argues that Christian doctrine considers person’s behavior natural when they do what God wants, and unnatural otherwise.

Harari decides it’s silly to say that it’s “natural” for women to give birth and “unnatural” for people to be homosexual. Although biological differences do exist between people—some have XX chromosomes, ovaries, and less testosterone, while others have XY chromosomes, testicles and more testosterone—there’s no biological evidence connecting these differences with social capabilities like being smart enough to vote. Gendered concepts like masculinity and femininity are typically socially—rather than biologically—enforced, and they tend to fluctuate across societies and time periods.

Although social rules vary widely across societies and time periods, nearly all human societies since the Agricultural Revolution have been patriarchal—they tend to place men at the top of their social hierarchies. Harari says there are many theories suggesting that men are biologically superior to women, but he’s not convinced by any of them. One theory suggests that men are physically stronger, and they used their physical power to suppress women. Harari doesn’t agree. He thinks there’s no necessary correlation between being strong and being in charge, noting that any societies privilege their elderly, despite their physical frailty.

Another theory suggests that men are more violent and aggressive, and they use their aggression to assert dominance. Harari agrees that men’s hormones do make them more aggressive, but to him, that means men make good soldiers, not good leaders. Yet another theory suggests that biological differences (such as childbearing) made women evolve to be dependent on men to survive, but Harari thinks women in history could have just as easily relied on help from other women, so there’s nothing substantive in that claim either.