21 Lessons for the 21st Century

21 Lessons for the 21st Century - Yuval Noah Harari

Contents

Introduction ix

Part I: The Technological Challenge 1

1. DISILLUSIONMENT 3

The end of history has been postponed

2. WORK 19

When you grow up, you might not have a job

3. LIBERTY 44

Big Data is watching you

4. EQUALITY 73

Those who own the data own the future

Part II: The Political Challenge 83

5. COMMUNITY 85

Humans have bodies

6. CIVILISATION 93

There is just one civilisation in the world

7. NATIONALISM 110

Global problems need global answers

8. RELIGION 127

God now serves the nation

9. IMMIGRATION 139

Some cultures might be better than others

Part III: Despair and Hope 157

10. TERRORISM 159

Don’t panic

viii

11. WAR 171

Never underestimate human stupidity

12. HUMILITY 181

You are not the centre of the world

13. GOD 197

Don’t take the name of God in vain

14. SECULARISM 203

Acknowledge your shadow

Part IV: Truth 215

15. IGNORANCE 217

You know less than you think

16. JUSTICE 223

Our sense of justice might be out of date

17. POST-TRUTH 231

Some fake news lasts for ever

18. SCIENCE FICTION 245

The future is not what you see in the movies

Part V: Resilience 257

19. EDUCATION 259

Change is the only constant

20. MEANING 269

Life is not a story

21. MEDITATION 309

Just observe

Acknowledgements 319

Notes 322

Index 341

Introduction

In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.

In theory, anybody can join the debate about the future of humanity, but it is so hard to maintain a clear vision. Frequently, we don’t even notice that a debate is going on, or what the key questions are. Billions of us can hardly afford the luxury of investigating, because we have more pressing things to do: we have to go to work, take care of the kids, or look after elderly parents. Unfortunately, history gives no discounts. If the future of humanity is decided in your absence, because you are too busy feeding and clothing your kids – you and they will not be exempt from the consequences. This is very unfair; but who said history was fair?

As a historian, I cannot give people food or clothes – but I can try and offer some clarity, thereby helping to level the global playing field. If this empowers even a handful of additional people to join the debate about the future of our species, I have done my job.

My first book, Sapiens, surveyed the human past, examining

how an insignificant ape became the ruler of planet Earth. Homo Deus, my second book, explored the long-term future of life, contemplating how humans might eventually become gods, and what might be the ultimate destiny of intelligence and consciousness.

In this book I want to zoom in on the here and now. My focus

is on current affairs and on the immediate future of human societies. What is happening right now? What are today’s greatest 

x INTRODUCTION

challenges and choices? What should we pay attention to? What

should we teach our kids?

Of course, 7 billion people have 7 billion agendas, and as

already noted, thinking about the big picture is a relatively rare

luxury. A single mother struggling to raise two children in a

Mumbai slum is focused on the next meal; refugees in a boat in

the middle of the Mediterranean scan the horizon for any sign of

land; and a dying man in an overcrowded London hospital gathers all his remaining strength to take in one more breath. They all

have far more urgent problems than global warming or the crisis

of liberal democracy. No book can do justice to all of that, and I

don’t have lessons to teach people in such situations. I can only

hope to learn from them.

My agenda here is global. I look at the major forces that shape

societies all over the world, and that are likely to influence the

future of our planet as a whole. Climate change may be far beyond

the concerns of people in the midst of a life-and-death emergency,

but it might eventually make the Mumbai slums uninhabitable,

send enormous new waves of refugees across the Mediterranean,

and lead to a worldwide crisis in healthcare.

Reality is composed of many threads, and this book tries to

cover different aspects of our global predicament, without claiming to be exhaustive. Unlike Sapiens and Homo Deus, this book is

not intended as a historical narrative, but rather as a selection of

lessons. These lessons do not conclude with simple answers. They aim to stimulate further thinking, and help readers participate in

some of the major conversations of our time.

The book was actually written in conversation with the public.

Many of the chapters were composed in response to questions I was asked by readers, journalists and colleagues. Earlier versions of

some segments were already published in different forms, which

gave me the opportunity to receive feedback and hone my arguments. Some sections focus on technology, some on politics, some

on religion, and some on art. Certain chapters celebrate human

wisdom, others highlight the crucial role of human stupidity. But 

Introduction xi

the overarching question remains the same: what is happening in

the world today, and what is the deep meaning of events?

What does the rise of Donald Trump signify? What can we

do about the epidemic of fake news? Why is liberal democracy

in crisis? Is God back? Is a new world war coming? Which civilisation dominates the world – the West, China, Islam? Should

Europe keep its doors open to immigrants? Can nationalism solve

the problems of inequality and climate change? What should we

do about terrorism?

Though this book takes a global perspective, I do not neglect

the personal level. On the contrary, I want to emphasise the connections between the great revolutions of our era and the internal

lives of individuals. For example, terrorism is both a global political problem and an internal psychological mechanism. Terrorism

works by pressing the fear button deep in our minds and hijacking the private imagination of millions of individuals. Similarly,

the crisis of liberal democracy is played out not just in parliaments

and polling stations, but also in neurons and synapses. It is a cliché to note that the personal is the political. But in an era when

scientists, corporations and governments are learning to hack the

human brain, this truism is more sinister than ever. Accordingly,

this book offers observations about the conduct of individuals as

well as entire societies.

A global world puts unprecedented pressure on our personal

conduct and morality. Each of us is ensnared within numerous

all-encompassing spider webs, which on the one hand restrict

our movements, but at the same time transmit our tiniest jiggle

to faraway destinations. Our daily routines influence the lives of

people and animals halfway across the world, and some personal

gestures can unexpectedly set the entire world ablaze, as happened

with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, which

ignited the Arab Spring, and with the women who shared their

stories of sexual harassment and sparked the #MeToo movement.

This global dimension of our personal lives means that it is

more important than ever to uncover our religious and political 

xii

biases, our racial and gender privileges, and our unwitting complicity in institutional oppression. But is that a realistic enterprise?

How can I find a firm ethical ground in a world that extends far

beyond my horizons, that spins completely out of human control,

and that holds all gods and ideologies suspect?

The book begins by surveying the current political and technological predicament. At the close of the twentieth century it

appeared that the great ideological battles between fascism, communism and liberalism resulted in the overwhelming victory of

liberalism. Democratic politics, human rights and free-market

capitalism seemed destined to conquer the entire world. But as

usual, history took an unexpected turn, and after fascism and

communism collapsed, now liberalism is in a jam. So where are

we heading?

This question is particularly poignant, because liberalism is

losing credibility exactly when the twin revolutions in information technology and biotechnology confront us with the biggest

challenges our species has ever encountered. The merger of infotech and biotech might soon push billions of humans out of the

job market and undermine both liberty and equality. Big Data

algorithms might create digital dictatorships in which all power

is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite while most people suffer not from exploitation, but from something far worse – irrelevance.

I discussed the merger of infotech and biotech at length in

my previous book Homo Deus. But whereas that book focused on

the long-term prospects – taking the perspective of centuries and

even millennia – this book concentrates on the more immediate

social, economic and political crises. My interest here is less in the

eventual creation of inorganic life, and more in the threat to the

welfare state and to particular institutions such as the European

Union.

The book does not attempt to cover all the impacts of the

new technologies. In particular, though technology holds many

INTRODUCTION

Introduction xiii

wonderful promises, my intention here is to highlight mainly the

threats and dangers. Since the corporations and entrepreneurs

who lead the technological revolution naturally tend to sing the

praises of their creations, it falls to sociologists, philosophers and

historians like myself to sound the alarm and explain all the ways

things can go terribly wrong.

After sketching the challenges we face, in the second part of

the book we examine a wide range of potential responses. Could

Facebook engineers use AI to create a global community that will

safeguard human liberty and equality? Perhaps the answer is to

reverse the process of globalisation, and re-empower the nation

state? Maybe we need to go back even further, and draw hope and

wisdom from the wellsprings of ancient religious traditions?

In the third part of the book we see that though the technological challenges are unprecedented, and though the political

disagreements are intense, humankind can rise to the occasion if

we keep our fears under control and are a bit more humble about

our views. This part investigates what can be done about the menace of terrorism, about the danger of global war, and about the

biases and hatreds that spark such conflicts.

The fourth part engages with the notion of post-truth, and

asks to what extent we can still understand global developments

and distinguish wrongdoing from justice. Is Homo sapiens capable

of making sense of the world it has created? Is there still a clear

border separating reality from fiction?

In the fifth and final part I gather together the different threads

and take a more general look at life in an age of bewilderment,

when the old stories have collapsed, and no new story has emerged

so far to replace them. Who are we? What should we do in life?

What kinds of skills do we need? Given everything we know and

don’t know about science, about God, about politics and about

religion – what can we say about the meaning of life today?

This may sound overambitious, but Homo sapiens cannot

wait. Philosophy, religion and science are all running out of time.

People have debated the meaning of life for thousands of years. We 

xiv

cannot continue this debate indefinitely. The looming ecological

crisis, the growing threat of weapons of mass destruction, and the

rise of new disruptive technologies will not allow it. Perhaps most

importantly, artificial intelligence and biotechnology are giving

humanity the power to reshape and re-engineer life. Very soon

somebody will have to decide how to use this power – based on

some implicit or explicit story about the meaning of life. Philosophers are very patient people, but engineers are far less patient,

and investors are the least patient of all. If you don’t know what to

do with the power to engineer life, market forces will not wait a

thousand years for you to come up with an answer. The invisible

hand of the market will force upon you its own blind reply. Unless

you are happy to entrust the future of life to the mercy of quarterly revenue reports, you need a clear idea what life is all about.

In the final chapter I indulge in a few personal remarks, talking

as one Sapiens to another, just before the curtain goes down on

our species and a completely different drama begins.

Before embarking on this intellectual journey, I would like to

highlight one crucial point. Much of the book discusses the shortcomings of the liberal world view and of the democratic system. I

do so not because I believe liberal democracy is uniquely problematic, but rather because I think it is the most successful and most

versatile political model humans have so far developed for dealing

with the challenges of the modern world. While it may not be

appropriate for every society in every stage of development, it has

proved its worth in more societies and in more situations than any

of the alternatives. Therefore, when examining the new challenges

that lie ahead of us, it is necessary to understand the limitations of

liberal democracy, and to explore how we can adapt and improve

its current institutions.

Unfortunately, in the present political climate any critical

thinking about liberalism and democracy might be hijacked by

autocrats and various illiberal movements, whose sole interest is

to discredit liberal democracy rather than to engage in an open

discussion about the future of humanity. While they are more

INTRODUCTION

Introduction xv

than happy to debate the problems of liberal democracy, they

have almost no tolerance of any criticism directed at them.

As an author, I was therefore required to make a difficult choice.

Should I speak my mind openly, risking that my words could be

taken out of context and used to justify burgeoning autocracies?

Or should I censor myself? It is a mark of illiberal regimes that

they make free speech more difficult even outside their borders.

Due to the spread of such regimes, it is becoming increasingly

dangerous to think critically about the future of our species.

After some soul searching, I chose free discussion over selfcensorship. Without criticising the liberal model, we cannot repair

its faults or go beyond it. But please note that this book could

have been written only when people are still relatively free to think

what they like and to express themselves as they wish. If you value

this book, you should also value the freedom of expression.

PART I

The Technological

Challenge

Humankind is losing faith in the liberal story

that dominated global politics in recent decades,

exactly when the merger of biotech and infotech

confronts us with the biggest challenges humankind

has ever encountered.

1

DISILLUSIONMENT

The end of history has been postponed

Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group

and nation has its own tales and myths. But during the twentieth century the global elites in New York, London, Berlin and

Moscow formulated three grand stories that claimed to explain

the whole past and to predict the future of the entire world:

the fascist story, the communist story, and the liberal story. The

Second World War knocked out the fascist story, and from the

late 1940s to the late 1980s the world became a battleground

between just two stories: communism and liberalism. Then the

communist story collapsed, and the liberal story remained the

dominant guide to the human past and the indispensable manual for the future of the world – or so it seemed to the global

elite.

The liberal story celebrates the value and power of liberty. It

says that for thousands of years humankind lived under oppressive regimes which allowed people few political rights, economic

opportunities or personal liberties, and which heavily restricted

the movements of individuals, ideas and goods. But people fought

for their freedom, and step by step, liberty gained ground. Democratic regimes took the place of brutal dictatorships. Free enterprise overcame economic restrictions. People learned to think

for themselves and follow their hearts, instead of blindly obeying bigoted priests and hidebound traditions. Open roads, stout 

4

21 LESSONS

bridges and bustling airports replaced walls, moats and barbedwire fences.

The liberal story acknowledges that not all is well in the world,

and that there are still many hurdles to overcome. Much of our

planet is dominated by tyrants, and even in the most liberal countries many citizens suffer from poverty, violence and oppression.

But at least we know what we need to do in order to overcome

these problems: give people more liberty. We need to protect

human rights, to grant everybody the vote, to establish free markets, and to let individuals, ideas and goods move throughout

the world as easily as possible. According to this liberal panacea

– accepted, in slight variations, by George W. Bush and Barack

Obama alike – if we just continue to liberalise and globalise our

political and economic systems, we will produce peace and prosperity for all.1

Countries that join this unstoppable march of progress will

be rewarded with peace and prosperity sooner. Countries that

try to resist the inevitable will suffer the consequences, until they

too see the light, open their borders and liberalise their societies,

their politics and their markets. It may take time, but eventually

even North Korea, Iraq and El Salvador will look like Denmark

or Iowa.

In the 1990s and 2000s this story became a global mantra.

Many governments from Brazil to India adopted liberal recipes

in an attempt to join the inexorable march of history. Those failing to do so seemed like fossils from a bygone era. In 1997 the US

president Bill Clinton confidently rebuked the Chinese government that its refusal to liberalise Chinese politics puts it ‘on the

wrong side of history’.2

However, since the global financial crisis of 2008 people all

over the world have become increasingly disillusioned with the

liberal story. Walls and firewalls are back in vogue. Resistance to

immigration and to trade agreements is mounting. Ostensibly

democratic governments undermine the independence of the

judiciary system, restrict the freedom of the press, and portray 

Disillusionment 5

any opposition as treason. Strongmen in countries such as Turkey and Russia experiment with new types of illiberal democracies and downright dictatorships. Today, few would confidently

declare that the Chinese Communist Party is on the wrong side

of history.

The year 2016 – marked by the Brexit vote in Britain and

the rise of Donald Trump in the United States – signified the

moment when this tidal wave of disillusionment reached the core

liberal states of western Europe and North America. Whereas a

few years ago Americans and Europeans were still trying to liberalise Iraq and Libya at the point of the gun, many people in

Kentucky and Yorkshire have now come to see the liberal vision

as either undesirable or unattainable. Some discovered a liking

for the old hierarchical world, and they just don’t want to give

up their racial, national or gendered privileges. Others have concluded (rightly or wrongly) that liberalisation and globalisation

are a huge racket empowering a tiny elite at the expense of the

masses.

In 1938 humans were offered three global stories to choose

from, in 1968 just two, in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail; in

2018 we are down to zero. No wonder that the liberal elites, who

dominated much of the world in recent decades, have entered a

state of shock and disorientation. To have one story is the most

reassuring situation of all. Everything is perfectly clear. To be

suddenly left without any story is terrifying. Nothing makes any

sense. A bit like the Soviet elite in the 1980s, liberals don’t understand how history deviated from its preordained course, and they

lack an alternative prism to interpret reality. Disorientation causes

them to think in apocalyptic terms, as if the failure of history

to come to its envisioned happy ending can only mean that it is

hurtling towards Armageddon. Unable to conduct a reality check,

the mind latches on to catastrophic scenarios. Like a person imagining that a bad headache signifies a terminal brain tumor, many

liberals fear that Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump portend the

end of human civilisation.

6

21 LESSONS

From killing mosquitoes to killing

thoughts

The sense of disorientation and impending doom is exacerbated

by the accelerating pace of technological disruption. The liberal

political system has been shaped during the industrial era to manage a world of steam engines, oil refineries and television sets. It

finds it difficult to deal with the ongoing revolutions in information technology and biotechnology.

Both politicians and voters are barely able to comprehend

the new technologies, let alone regulate their explosive potential. Since the 1990s the Internet has changed the world probably more than any other factor, yet the Internet revolution was

directed by engineers more than by political parties. Did you

ever vote about the Internet? The democratic system is still struggling to understand what hit it, and is hardly equipped to deal

with the next shocks, such as the rise of AI and the blockchain

revolution.

Already today, computers have made the financial system so

complicated that few humans can understand it. As AI improves,

we might soon reach a point when no human can make sense of

finance any more. What will that do to the political process? Can

you imagine a government that waits humbly for an algorithm

to approve its budget or its new tax reform? Meanwhile peerto-peer blockchain networks and cryptocurrencies like bitcoin

might completely revamp the monetary system, so that radical tax

reforms will be inevitable. For example, it might become impossible or irrelevant to tax dollars, because most transactions will not

involve a clear-cut exchange of national currency, or any currency

at all. Governments might therefore need to invent entirely new

taxes – perhaps a tax on information (which will be both the most

important asset in the economy, and the only thing exchanged in

numerous transactions). Will the political system manage to deal

with the crisis before it runs out of money?

Disillusionment 7

Even more importantly, the twin revolutions in infotech and

biotech could restructure not just economies and societies but our

very bodies and minds. In the past, we humans have learned to

control the world outside us, but we had very little control over

the world inside us. We knew how to build a dam and stop a river

from flowing, but we did not know how to stop the body from

ageing. We knew how to design an irrigation system, but we had

no idea how to design a brain. If mosquitoes buzzed in our ears

and disturbed our sleep, we knew how to kill the mosquitoes; but

if a thought buzzed in our mind and kept us awake at night, most

of us did not know how to kill the thought.

The revolutions in biotech and infotech will give us control of

the world inside us, and will enable us to engineer and manufacture life. We will learn how to design brains, extend lives, and kill

thoughts at our discretion. Nobody knows what the consequences

will be. Humans were always far better at inventing tools than

using them wisely. It is easier to manipulate a river by building a

dam across it than it is to predict all the complex consequences

this will have for the wider ecological system. Similarly, it will be

easier to redirect the flow of our minds than to divine what it will

do to our personal psychology or to our social systems.

In the past, we have gained the power to manipulate the world

around us and to reshape the entire planet, but because we didn’t

understand the complexity of the global ecology, the changes we

made inadvertently disrupted the entire ecological system and

now we face an ecological collapse. In the coming century biotech

and infotech will give us the power to manipulate the world inside

us and reshape ourselves, but because we don’t understand the

complexity of our own minds, the changes we will make might

upset our mental system to such an extent that it too might break

down.

The revolutions in biotech and infotech are made by engineers,

entrepreneurs and scientists who are hardly aware of the political

implications of their decisions, and who certainly don’t represent

anyone. Can parliaments and parties take matters into their own 

8

21 LESSONS

hands? At present, it does not seem so. Technological disruption is

not even a leading item on the political agenda. Thus during the

2016 US presidential race, the main reference to disruptive technology concerned Hillary Clinton’s email debacle,3

 and despite all

the talk about job losses, neither candidate addressed the potential impact of automation. Donald Trump warned voters that the

Mexicans and Chinese will take their jobs, and that they should

therefore build a wall on the Mexican border.4

 He never warned

voters that the algorithms will take their jobs, nor did he suggest

building a firewall on the border with California.

This might be one of the reasons (though not the only one)

why even voters in the heartlands of the liberal West are losing

faith in the liberal story and in the democratic process. Ordinary

people may not understand artificial intelligence and biotechnology, but they can sense that the future is passing them by. In 1938

the condition of the common person in the USSR, Germany or

the USA may have been grim, but he was constantly told that

he was the most important thing in the world, and that he was

the future (provided, of course, that he was an ‘ordinary person’

rather than a Jew or an African). He looked at the propaganda

posters – which typically depicted coal miners, steelworkers and

housewives in heroic poses – and saw himself there: ‘I am in that

poster! I am the hero of the future!’5

In 2018 the common person feels increasingly irrelevant. Lots

of mysterious words are bandied around excitedly in TED talks,

government think tanks and hi-tech conferences – globalisation,

blockchain, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, machine

learning – and common people may well suspect that none of

these words are about them. The liberal story was the story of

ordinary people. How can it remain relevant to a world of cyborgs

and networked algorithms?

In the twentieth century, the masses revolted against exploitation, and sought to translate their vital role in the economy into

political power. Now the masses fear irrelevance, and they are

frantic to use their remaining political power before it is too late. 

Disillusionment 9

Brexit and the rise of Trump might thus demonstrate an opposite trajectory to that of traditional socialist revolutions. The Russian, Chinese and Cuban revolutions were made by people who

were vital for the economy, but who lacked political power; in

2016, Trump and Brexit were supported by many people who still

enjoyed political power, but who feared that they were losing their

economic worth. Perhaps in the twenty-first century populist

revolts will be staged not against an economic elite that exploits

people, but against an economic elite that does not need them any

more.6

 This may well be a losing battle. It is much harder to struggle against irrelevance than against exploitation.

The liberal phoenix

This is not the first time the liberal story has faced a crisis of confidence. Ever since this story gained global influence, in the second

half of the nineteenth century, it has endured periodic crises. The

first era of globalisation and liberalisation ended in the bloodbath

of the First World War, when imperial power politics cut short

the global march of progress. In the days following the murder of

Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo it turned out that the great

powers believed in imperialism far more than in liberalism, and

instead of uniting the world through free and peaceful commerce

they focused on conquering a bigger slice of the globe by brute

force. Yet liberalism survived this Franz Ferdinand moment and

emerged from the maelstrom stronger than before, promising that

this was ‘the war to end all wars’. Allegedly, the unprecedented

butchery had taught humankind the terrible price of imperialism,

and now humanity was finally ready to create a new world order

based on the principles of freedom and peace.

Then came the Hitler moment, when, in the 1930s and early

1940s, fascism seemed for a while irresistible. Victory over this

threat merely ushered in the next. During the Che Guevara

moment, between the 1950s and the 1970s, it again seemed that 

10

21 LESSONS

liberalism was on its last legs, and that the future belonged to

communism. In the end it was communism that collapsed. The

supermarket proved to be far stronger than the Gulag. More

importantly, the liberal story proved to be far more supple and

dynamic than any of its opponents. It triumphed over imperialism, over fascism, and over communism by adopting some

of their best ideas and practices. In particular, the liberal story

learned from communism to expand the circle of empathy and to

value equality alongside liberty.

In the beginning, the liberal story cared mainly about the liberties and privileges of middle-class European men, and seemed

blind to the plight of working-class people, women, minorities

and non-Westerners. When in 1918 victorious Britain and France

talked excitedly about liberty, they were not thinking about

the subjects of their worldwide empires. For example, Indian

demands for self-determination were answered by the Amritsar

massacre of 1919, in which the British army killed hundreds of

unarmed demonstrators.

Even in the wake of the Second World War, Western liberals

still had a very hard time applying their supposedly universal values to non-Western people. Thus when the Dutch emerged in 1945

from five years of brutal Nazi occupation, almost the first thing

they did was raise an army and send it halfway across the world to

reoccupy their former colony of Indonesia. Whereas in 1940 the

Dutch gave up their own independence after little more than four

days of fighting, they fought for more than four long and bitter

years to suppress Indonesian independence. No wonder that many

national liberation movements throughout the world placed their

hopes on communist Moscow and Beijing rather than on the selfproclaimed champions of liberty in the West.

Gradually, however, the liberal story expanded its horizons,

and at least in theory came to value the liberties and rights of

all human beings without exception. As the circle of liberty

expanded, the liberal story also came to recognise the importance of communist-style welfare programmes. Liberty is not 

Disillusionment 11

worth much unless it is coupled with some kind of social safety

net. Social-democratic welfare states combined democracy and

human rights with state-sponsored education and healthcare.

Even the ultra-capitalist USA has realised that the protection of

liberty requires at least some government welfare services. Starving children have no liberties.

By the early 1990s, thinkers and politicians alike hailed ‘the

End of History’, confidently asserting that all the big political

and economic questions of the past had been settled, and that the

refurbished liberal package of democracy, human rights, free markets and government welfare services remained the only game in

town. This package seemed destined to spread around the whole

world, overcome all obstacles, erase all national borders, and turn

humankind into one free global community.7

But history has not ended, and following the Franz Ferdinand

moment, the Hitler moment, and the Che Guevara moment, we

now find ourselves in the Trump moment. This time, however,

the liberal story is not faced by a coherent ideological opponent

like imperialism, fascism, or communism. The Trump moment is

far more nihilistic.

Whereas the major movements of the twentieth century all had

a vision for the entire human species – be it global domination,

revolution or liberation – Donald Trump offers no such thing.

Just the opposite. His main message is that it’s not America’s job

to formulate and promote any global vision. Similarly, the British

Brexiteers barely have a plan for the future of the Disunited Kingdom – the future of Europe and of the world is far beyond their

horizon. Most people who voted for Trump and Brexit didn’t

reject the liberal package in its entirety – they lost faith mainly in

its globalising part. They still believe in democracy, free markets,

human rights and social responsibility, but they think these fine

ideas can stop at the border. Indeed, they believe that in order to

preserve liberty and prosperity in Yorkshire or Kentucky, it is best

to build a wall on the border, and adopt illiberal policies towards

foreigners.

12

21 LESSONS

The rising Chinese superpower presents an almost mirror

image. It is wary of liberalising its domestic politics, but it has

adopted a far more liberal approach to the rest of the world. In

fact, when it comes to free trade and international cooperation, Xi

Jinping looks like Obama’s real successor. Having put Marxism–

Leninism on the back burner, China seems rather happy with the

liberal international order.

Resurgent Russia sees itself as a far more forceful rival of the

global liberal order, but though it has reconstituted its military

might, it is ideologically bankrupt. Vladimir Putin is certainly

popular both in Russia and among various right-wing movements

across the world, yet he has no global world view that might

attract unemployed Spaniards, disgruntled Brazilians or starryeyed students in Cambridge.

Russia does offer an alternative model to liberal democracy,

but this model is not a coherent political ideology. Rather, it is

a political practice in which a number of oligarchs monopolise most of a country’s wealth and power, and then use their

control of the media to hide their activities and cement their

rule. Democracy is based on Abraham Lincoln’s principle that

‘you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of

the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people

all the time’. If a government is corrupt and fails to improve

people’s lives, enough citizens will eventually realise this and

replace the government. But government control of the media

undermines Lincoln’s logic, because it prevents citizens from

realising the truth. Through its monopoly over the media,

the ruling oligarchy can repeatedly blame all its failures on

others, and divert attention to external threats – either real or

imaginary.

When you live under such an oligarchy, there is always some

crisis or other that takes priority over boring stuff such as healthcare and pollution. If the nation is facing external invasion or

diabolical subversion, who has time to worry about overcrowded

hospitals and polluted rivers? By manufacturing a never-ending 

Disillusionment 13

stream of crises, a corrupt oligarchy can prolong its rule indefinitely.8

Yet though enduring in practice, this oligarchic model appeals

to no one. Unlike other ideologies that proudly expound their

vision, ruling oligarchies are not proud of their practices, and they

tend to use other ideologies as a smoke screen. Thus Russia pretends to be a democracy, and its leadership proclaims allegiance

to the values of Russian nationalism and Orthodox Christianity

rather than to oligarchy. Right-wing extremists in France and

Britain may well rely on Russian help and express admiration for

Putin, but even their voters would not like to live in a country

that actually copies the Russian model – a country with endemic

corruption, malfunctioning services, no rule of law, and staggering inequality. According to some measures, Russia is one of the

most unequal countries in the world, with 87 per cent of wealth

concentrated in the hands of the richest 10 per cent of people.9

How many working-class supporters of the Front National want

to copy this wealth-distribution pattern in France?

Humans vote with their feet. In my travels around the world I

have met numerous people in many countries who wish to emigrate to the USA, to Germany, to Canada or to Australia. I have

met a few who want to move to China or Japan. But I am yet to

meet a single person who dreams of emigrating to Russia.

As for ‘global Islam’, it attracts mainly those who were born

in its lap. While it may appeal to some people in Syria and Iraq,

and even to alienated Muslim youths in Germany and Britain, it

is hard to see Greece or South Africa – not to mention Canada or

South Korea – joining a global caliphate as the remedy to their

problems. In this case, too, people vote with their feet. For every

Muslim youth from Germany who travelled to the Middle East to

live under a Muslim theocracy, probably a hundred Middle Eastern youths would have liked to make the opposite journey, and

start a new life for themselves in liberal Germany.

This might imply that the present crisis of faith is less severe

than its predecessors. Any liberal who is driven to despair by the 

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21 LESSONS

events of the last few years should just recollect how much worse

things looked in 1918, 1938 or 1968. At the end of the day, humankind won’t abandon the liberal story, because it doesn’t have any

alternative. People may give the system an angry kick in the stomach but, having nowhere else to go, they will eventually come

back.

Alternatively, people may completely give up on having a

global story of any kind, and instead seek shelter with local

nationalist and religious tales. In the twentieth century, nationalist movements were an extremely important political player, but

they lacked a coherent vision for the future of the world other

than supporting the division of the globe into independent

nation states. Thus Indonesian nationalists fought against Dutch

domination, and Vietnamese nationalists wanted a free Vietnam,

but there was no Indonesian or Vietnamese story for humanity as

a whole. When it came time to explain how Indonesia, Vietnam

and all the other free nations should relate to one another, and

how humans should deal with global problems such as the threat

of nuclear war, nationalists invariably turned to either liberal or

communist ideas.

But if both liberalism and communism are now discredited,

maybe humans should abandon the very idea of a single global

story? After all, weren’t all these global stories – even communism

– the product of Western imperialism? Why should Vietnamese villagers put their faith in the brainchild of a German from

Trier and a Manchester industrialist? Maybe each country should

adopt a different idiosyncratic path, defined by its own ancient

traditions? Perhaps even Westerners should take a break from trying to run the world, and focus on their own affairs for a change?

This is arguably what is happening all over the globe, as the

vacuum left by the breakdown of liberalism is tentatively filled by

nostalgic fantasies about some local golden past. Donald Trump

coupled his calls for American isolationism with a promise to

‘Make America Great Again’ – as if the USA of the 1980s or 1950s

was a perfect society that Americans should somehow recreate in 

Disillusionment 15

the twenty-first century. The Brexiteers dream of making Britain

an independent power, as if they were still living in the days of

Queen Victoria and as if ‘splendid isolation’ were a viable policy

for the era of the Internet and global warming. Chinese elites have

rediscovered their native imperial and Confucian legacies, as a

supplement or even substitute for the doubtful Marxist ideology

they imported from the West. In Russia, Putin’s official vision is

not to build a corrupt oligarchy, but rather to resurrect the old

tsarist empire. A century after the Bolshevik Revolution, Putin

promises a return to ancient tsarist glories with an autocratic

government buoyed by Russian nationalism and Orthodox piety

spreading its might from the Baltic to the Caucasus.

Similar nostalgic dreams that mix nationalist attachment with

religious traditions underpin regimes in India, Poland, Turkey

and numerous other countries. Nowhere are these fantasies more

extreme than in the Middle East, where Islamists want to copy

the system established by the Prophet Muhammad in the city of

Medina 1,400 years ago, while fundamentalist Jews in Israel outdo

even the Islamists, and dream of going back 2,500 years to biblical times. Members of Israel’s ruling coalition government talk

openly about their hope of expanding modern Israel’s borders to

match more closely those of biblical Israel, of reinstating biblical

law, and even of rebuilding the ancient Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem in place of the Al-Aqsa mosque.10

Liberal elites look in horror at these developments, and hope

that humanity will return to the liberal path in time to avert disaster. In his final speech to the United Nations in September 2016,

President Obama warned his listeners against retreating ‘into a

world sharply divided, and ultimately in conflict, along age-old

lines of nation and tribe and race and religion’. Instead, he said,

‘the principles of open markets and accountable governance, of

democracy and human rights and international law ... remain the

firmest foundation for human progress in this century’.11

Obama has rightly pointed out that despite the numerous

shortcomings of the liberal package, it has a much better record 

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21 LESSONS

than any of its alternatives. Most humans never enjoyed greater

peace or prosperity than they did under the aegis of the liberal

order of the early twenty-first century. For the first time in history, infectious diseases kill fewer people than old age, famine kills

fewer people than obesity, and violence kills fewer people than

accidents.

But liberalism has no obvious answers to the biggest problems

we face: ecological collapse and technological disruption. Liberalism traditionally relied on economic growth to magically solve

difficult social and political conflicts. Liberalism reconciled the

proletariat with the bourgeoisie, the faithful with the atheists, the

natives with the immigrants, and the Europeans with the Asians

by promising everybody a larger slice of the pie. With a constantly

growing pie, that was possible. However, economic growth will

not save the global ecosystem – just the opposite, it is the cause of

the ecological crisis. And economic growth will not solve technological disruption – it is predicated on the invention of more and

more disruptive technologies.

The liberal story and the logic of free-market capitalism

encourage people to have grand expectations. During the latter

part of the twentieth century, each generation – whether in Houston, Shanghai, Istanbul or São Paulo – enjoyed better education,

superior healthcare and larger incomes than the one that came

before it. In coming decades, however, owing to a combination of

technological disruption and ecological meltdown, the younger

generation might be lucky to just stay in place.

We are consequently left with the task of creating an updated

story for the world. Just as the upheavals of the Industrial

Revolution gave birth to the novel ideologies of the twentieth century, so the coming revolutions in biotechnology and

information technology are likely to require fresh visions. The

next decades might therefore be characterised by intense soulsearching and by formulating new social and political models.

Could liberalism reinvent itself yet again, just as it did in the

wake of the 1930s and 1960s crises, emerging as more attrac-

Disillusionment 17

tive than ever before? Could traditional religion and nationalism provide the answers that escape the liberals, and could they

use ancient wisdom to fashion an up-to-date world view? Or

perhaps the time has come to make a clean break with the past,

and craft a completely new story that goes beyond not just the

old gods and nations, but even the core modern values of liberty

and equality?

At present, humankind is far from reaching any consensus on

these questions. We are still in the nihilist moment of disillusionment and anger, after people have lost faith in the old stories but

before they have embraced a new one. So what next? The first step

is to tone down the prophecies of doom, and switch from panic

mode to bewilderment. Panic is a form of hubris. It comes from

the smug feeling that I know exactly where the world is heading – down. Bewilderment is more humble, and therefore more

clear-sighted. If you feel like running down the street crying ‘The

apocalypse is upon us!’, try telling yourself ‘No, it’s not that. Truth

is, I just don’t understand what’s going on in the world.’

The following chapters will try to clarify some of the bewildering new possibilities we face, and how we might proceed from

here. But before exploring potential solutions to humanity’s predicaments we need a better grasp of the challenge technology

poses. The revolutions in information technology and biotechnology are still in their infancy, and it is debatable to what extent

they are really responsible for the current crisis of liberalism. Most

people in Birmingham, Istanbul, St Petersburg and Mumbai are

only dimly aware, if at all, of the rise of artificial intelligence and

its potential impact on their lives. It is undoubtable, however,

that the technological revolutions will gather momentum in the

next few decades, and will confront humankind with the hardest trials we have ever encountered. Any story that seeks to gain

humanity’s allegiance will be tested above all in its ability to deal

with the twin revolutions in infotech and biotech. If liberalism,

nationalism, Islam or some novel creed wishes to shape the world

of the year 2050, it will need not only to make sense of artificial 

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21 LESSONS

intelligence, Big Data algorithms and bioengineering – it will also

need to incorporate them into a new meaningful narrative.

To understand the nature of this technological challenge, perhaps it would be best to start with the job market. Since 2015 I

have been travelling around the world talking with government

officials, business people, social activists and schoolkids about the

human predicament. Whenever they become impatient or bored

by all the talk of artificial intelligence, Big Data algorithms and

bio-engineering, I usually need to mention just one magic word to snap them back to attention: jobs. The technological revolution might soon push billions of humans out of the job market, and create a massive new useless class, leading to social and political upheavals that no existing ideology knows how to handle. All the talk about technology and ideology might sound abstract and remote, but the very real prospect of mass unemployment – or personal unemployment – leaves nobody indifferent.