When one enters a party that has more people than the house can hold, an individual has many options of how to go about mingling. One can mainly stay with the group they came with and occasionally talk to other people or completely abandon their original group and find a conversation/game of more interest. This party is a good example of human culture when the state and the market is the central influence. As said by Harari, This happens when the state promises Its people that it will take up responsibilities such as protection, education, and needed assistance. Essentially telling people to “Become individuals” (Harari). This system is an adaptation to the previous, which can be described more like a family gathering where one can take their respected places at the table to hold up tradition or have the option of sitting at the kids’ table. The individual society is helpful to people who are born into families with disagreeable traditions, for if they ever wish to separate themselves from them, it is an option. At the same time, it can be seen as beneficial to most people for the larger the population, the more subgroups of interests are available to more people.
At the end of Sapiens, Harari got onto the topic of happiness. Happiness is something that not only historians or anyone in an educated practice should be thinking about, but anything that could hold the perception of happiness. Harari pondered on the idea that perhaps society needs to think bigger than itself in terms of happiness or even survival. Someday we will be eradicated by natural disaster, by our own hands, or replaced by a higher life form. Coming to the conclusion that we are all going to die. Yet we are blessed with the choice of how we live. I believe historians should continue spending their lives doing what they love and in that process find another possible answer to happiness. It is the only way we as scientific thinkers can live in a meaningless world, for one day the party will be over.
Anthony-
That was a really great blog post. I liked your metaphor of the party, and how you tied it all together in the end by saying that the party is eventually going to end. I think you did a really nice job of explaining why the market and state became the central aspect of human life, without just quoting Harari. It is clear that you understood the concept. I also like that you talked about Harari’s thoughts on happiness and the ending of homo sapiens. I think it is cool that you encourage historians to live life the way that they love in order to find another answer to happiness. Do you agree with Harari when he says we may be taken over by a more powerful/higher life form? At some point we all die, do you thin our death or our genocide by a higher life form will come first?