“Fraud (noun): a person or thing that
is not what it claims or pretends to be" - Cambridge Online Dictionary.
As per Yuval Noah Harari (YNH), yes Agricultural Revolution (AR) is history's biggest fraud (from his book, Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind). I am not quite in agreement with his views. In following few paragraphs I will quote some of his views (taken directly from his book, Sapiens), and either I will put forth my reasons of disagreement, or I will raise questions that I feel have been left unanswered, rendering author's views to be incomplete / inaccurate.
Pg87:
"History's Biggest Fraud"
For me - this start
in itself was off-putting. Who has given YNH the authority to suggest (although
he does more than simply suggest, he claims it) AR was a fraud? For fraud to
happen, there should be 2 parties involved - I can either be the fraudster, or
the victim of a fraud - but I cannot defraud myself. As per YNH, Homo sapiens (HS) are one
specie (singular unit, which has become victim of AR fraud) - then who came to
Earth to introduce agriculture to HS and sold a fraudulent concept to HS? If HS
were themselves responsible for agriculture, then why is it a fraud?
If YNH wants to
claim that this is a generational fraud - that the generation that started AR
was the fraudulent one and all following generations are victims - then does he
truly believe his personal life (if still possible) would have been better had
it not been for AR?
Pg89:
"Scholars once proclaimed that the AR was a great leap forward for
humanity. They told a tale of progress fuelled by human brain power. >>
That tale is a fantasy. There is no evidence that people became more
intelligent with time. Foragers knew the secrets of nature long before the AR,
since their survival depended on intimate knowledge of the animals and plants
they gathered."
So many problems
with these few lines...such deep-rooted narcissism from YNH: all previous
scholars knew horse-shit, and I know it all!
Also - YNH claims
foragers' "intimate knowledge", on which their "survival
depended", to be intelligent enough for any addition to that intelligence
not only to be unnecessary, but also not worthy enough to be labelled
intelligence at all.
Pg90:
"AR left farmers with lives generally more difficult and less satisfying
than those of foragers".
Pg91:
"How did wheat convince HS to exchange a rather good life for a more
miserable existence?"
Really? He knows
this how? How many farmers of that era and foragers did he interview to understand
what caused their lives to be difficult and what satisfied them? What is his
source to the claim that foragers themselves didn't want to move away from
hunting and gathering all their life, and that they didn't want to settle down
at one place?
Pg94:
“Why would any sane person lower his or her standard of living just to multiply
the number of copies of the HS genome? Nobody agreed to this deal: the AR was a
trap.”
The once considered
“intelligent” lot, the foragers (Pg89), are now considered insane on Pg94. The
intelligent foragers were insane enough to accept a concept that led to lowering
of their standard of living. But, who decides the standard of living? Who
decides what was good / bad / satisfactory – for something that happened 10,000
years ago????
Pg97:
“Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? >> People were unable
to fathom the full consequences of their decisions."
Pg112: “Foragers discounted the future because they lived from hand to mouth and could only preserve food or accumulate possessions with difficulty. Of course they clearly engaged in some advance planning. >> The AR made the future far more important that it had ever been before."
Is it not possible that foragers were actually the most intelligent ones that humans ever
have been…and knew exactly what
they were doing with AR, i.e. ensuring survival of HS for thousands of years to
come. Probably foragers understood that as long as they continue to be just one
of the animals on Earth, their survival was always going to be questioned by
any already existing specie or a new one (as their coming on scene meant
extinction of few other species).
Pg90: “The AR was history's biggest fraud. Who was responsible? Neither kings, nor priests, nor merchants. The culprits were a handful of plant species, including wheat, rice and potatoes. These plants domesticated Homo sapiens, rather than vice versa."
I still cannot understand why is AR considered to be "History's Biggest Fraud". Unless YNH believes Devil defrauded the "intelligent" foragers into becoming slaves of their own activities by introducing agriculture via handful of plants.
Is it YNH's stance that nature fucked HS - then why is he crying about it? Nature fucked so many species by introducing HS. At least with AR, HS specie has managed to survive and become more "intelligent" by learning to use the brain gifted to us.
It is the use of this brain that led to the very tools YNH used to research his chosen subject, and write a book on his research. Is it YNH's stance that all this intelligence not count to more than the intelligence that he attributes to survival instincts of foragers? Or is it his stance that all this that we have today (2018 A.D.) would still have been possible without AR?
It is easy and utterly useless to put value judgment about past decisions and actions, without understanding what were the circumstances during which these decisions and actions were taken. YNH has neither shed any light on what were the circumstances faced by foragers, nor shown evidence of multiple options that may / may not have been available to foragers for securing long terms survival. It is possible that AR was the best of bad scenarios waiting to happen for foragers – which only means, foragers accepted their fate as becoming domesticated. In this case - no, AR is not a fraud, leave alone history's biggest.
If a layperson, like me, can have so many questions on YNH's views - I do believe those who are more familiar with this subject will find more loopholes with this story. For me anyone claiming such things, when there are unanswered questions and obvious limitation on understanding why things happened back then (as they did), for personal gain is not doing anyone any favours.
Anyone who has believed YNH's words that AR was indeed history's biggest fraud, has been misled and taken for a ride. Does that make YNH a fraud? Hmm...now that is another unanswered question!
-->
