I’ve just read Yuval Noah Harari’s new book 21 Lessons for the 21stCentury. I thoroughly enjoyed his last one Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. And Sapiens, which I haven’t read, catapulted the Israeli academic into global stardom. So, I thought 21 Lessons would be another winner. And I think it is. But not because of the richness of the content more visible in his other writings, but rather for how I felt after reading it.

This loose collection of essays from some of his newspaper articles and lectures covers pretty much everything from civilisation, war and religion to nationalism, education and meditation. The sheer breadth of his work is impressive and somehow, he connects diverse themes together in fresh ways and with real insight. One of his final chapters Meaning particularly grabbed me. In it he demolishes the idea of ‘life as a story’ and the many rituals we use to make these narratives real. Religious, ideological and institutional stories all get a bashing. Even individual experiences of love and romance. He says,

Any story is wrong, simply for being a story. The universe just doesn’t work like a story. So why do people believe these fictions? One reason is that their personal identity is built on the story. People are taught to believe in the story from early childhood. They hear it from their parents, their teachers, their neighbours and the general culture long before they develop the intellectual and emotional independence necessary to question and verify such stories. By the time their intellect matures, they are so heavily invested in the story that they are far more likely to use their intellect to rationalise the story than doubt it.

When I finished the book, I felt exhilarated. Not because I agreed with most of his thinking. In fact, I found some of his conclusions contradictory or a bit trite at times. And whilst he’s been called ‘the guru for our times,’ no person can possibly be an expert in so many complex areas. But what Harari does so well is encourage the reader to expand their mind in order to glimpse the enormity of history and the universe. He provokes and prods us to elevate ourselves above the minutiae we get stuck in, to situate ourselves within a larger time-span, and to contemplate our future from a much wider and more well-informed perspective. This is something, I think all religions have failed on over the past decades. And it’s one reason why many people find religious leaders irrelevant. They have rarely much to talk about outside their narrow circle of interest. They don’t make life feel big. Reading Harari helps me escape my own small thinking. It makes me want to study all the things I’ll never have time for, and (despite the author’s view that religious belief is utter hocus pocus) to keep contemplating God in places and ways I hadn’t thought of.

The Revd Alan Ramsey
Associate Priest