Into the last lap of reading Sapiens. The book continues to amaze me with the level of detailing and the editor deserves every award possible for ensuring coherence and continuity in this mega book. But one peeve that I’ve against the book is its representation of India or the lack of it. To the author other than caste system (only in couple of instances that too) and Buddhism, there is hardly any reference about India at all. Europe finds major mention for all the renaissance and industrial revolution related information. May be the reason for India finding a miss could well be the answer for the same? That we didn’t had anything significant going on for last 3 centuries? Even if I accept that with a pinch of salt, how about our architecture or culture or civilization? For that matter, neither does any of the river valley civilizations find a mention in the book, barring some passing references to Ming’s of China and couple of Mesopotamians kings. So, in that way the author has been uniformly biased against all 4 of the river valley civilizations. Infact, rivers have never found any major mention at all in such a wonderful book detailing human evolution!!! As much as fire, if not for rivers and harnessing the potential of that key element, the innumerous mention of agricultural revolution wouldn’t have taken place at all. Felt like a key miss in an otherwise awesome book.
I’ve reached that stage in the book where references against, are we happy with what we’ve as against where the ancients happy with what they had, takes place. Throughout the book there has been repeated attempts to link the previous section of the book with succeeding section so that there is relatability. With so much being produced and so much of effort going to procure and sustain and improve on those produce, is it really worth it? Was it really worth it? At hind sight, the author quotes the last 50 years as golden age of humans where there is no major war and life expectancy having gone up with infant mortality coming down etc. Those are the macro stats that have definitely improved. But are these and should they be the benchmark? Just because one is living long than their ancestors couple of centuries back, should that necessarily mean he should be happy or is being grateful mistaken as happiness? If survival is the essence of human existence how can it be the benchmark for happiness??!! May be the answers might come in subsequent sections. Will wrap the review series with one final post.
I’ve reached that stage in the book where references against, are we happy with what we’ve as against where the ancients happy with what they had, takes place. Throughout the book there has been repeated attempts to link the previous section of the book with succeeding section so that there is relatability. With so much being produced and so much of effort going to procure and sustain and improve on those produce, is it really worth it? Was it really worth it? At hind sight, the author quotes the last 50 years as golden age of humans where there is no major war and life expectancy having gone up with infant mortality coming down etc. Those are the macro stats that have definitely improved. But are these and should they be the benchmark? Just because one is living long than their ancestors couple of centuries back, should that necessarily mean he should be happy or is being grateful mistaken as happiness? If survival is the essence of human existence how can it be the benchmark for happiness??!! May be the answers might come in subsequent sections. Will wrap the review series with one final post.
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On a relatedly unrelated note, recently, watched the movie 'Seven Years in Tibet'. This dialogue by a Tibetian stuck with me: "This is another great difference between our civilization and yours. You admire the man who pushes his way to the top in any walk of life, while we admire the man who abandons his ego.”. Try watching it, if you can. Unfortunately, today's success is not measured by the ability to abandon one's ego - probably, sometime in the future.
Oh, there is no doubt that we are infintely more happy than our ancestors of the past. We tend to have a rose tinted view of the past - in fact there was much misery for most of history. War, famine, hunger were the defining characteristics of societies. People simply died of what are now avoidable causes. If you just go back two three generations in our own families - how many children died, how many women became widows in their 20s, how much misery was propagated by the caste system, - I could go on and on. We are far more prosperous and happy now, despite all the problems and we should be grateful.