"Human power depends on mass cooperation, mass cooperation depends on manufacturing mass identities – and all mass identities are based on fictional stories, not on scientific facts or even on economic necessities."
(...)
"Religions, rites and rituals will remain important as long as the power of humankind rests [...] on belief in shared fictions."
(Yuval Noah Harari)
3
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.I think this is mostly true, with one exception. Just about everybody seems to assume that those shared fictions are also blatant falsehoods.
The word fiction does not only, or even primarily, mean a lie. It primarily refers to a class of literature that is written, more often than not, to convey a “moral” or subtle truth about human nature using characters and/or settings that may not be historically factual. This is not at all the same thing as information whose purpose is to deceive or mislead people for nefarious purposes.
It appears to me that the original intent behind most religious literature (subsequent perverse uses notwithstanding) was, and still can be, to educate the masses in the tried and true ways of functioning as a cohesive society, for the betterment of all concerned.
There is no reason, that I can see, why these truths could not just as easily be embedded in stark, factual prose as in entertaining and memorable poetry, parable or myth, if that’s what a modern readership prefers.
If the fictions that have been used to bond Homo sapiens (Latin: "wise man" ) into a highly successful, functioning unit were built of rank falsehoods they simply would not have worked. No person, wise or otherwise, can use an erroneous blueprint to build high functionality.
skado
Level 9
Oct 21, 2018
0
@Matias
Allegories, fables, and parables are types of writing that are considered truth-laden fictions. The story of the fox and the sour grapes, for example, is a fable that depicts a truth about human nature, but we are not expected to believe there was actually a talking fox in reality. It’s fiction but it conveys a truth. A very different thing from a story that is simply not true.
@Matias
Well, as I say, I don’t disagree with the Harari quote. You have said “These tales, myths, narratives and so on can have an educational function, but that is not necessary”
Did Harari say that specifically or is that your interpretation of Harari? In either case, I have my doubts. I recognize that some fictions, such as paper money, started out as more portable stand-ins for real goods, chickens, cows, gold, and then later became backed by nothing but trust in the government, based on the momentum of custom. At that point the system becomes hollow and vulnerable to collapse. If everyone (in the US) went to the government today to exchange their paper for gold, the system would implode.
I’m saying the same is true of religion. I used a micro fiction to illustrate a principle, but the same is true for the major world religions. They started out (I believe) as portable (metaphorical) representations of human truths, and over the millennia became “inflated” or hollowed out by ignorance and greed, and are now vulnerable to collapse.
In any case, I don’t think just any old fiction will serve the purpose, at least at first. In the beginning, the fiction must have the substance of truth behind it to be believed. And if that substance is removed, it may coast for a while on faith, but will eventually become vulnerable to collapse. I could be wrong about this, but that’s the way it looks to me.
@Matias
I appreciate the discussion. It’s a point worth exploring, even though we may be splitting some fine hairs here. I’m not sure we’re not saying the same thing using different words. I really don’t claim to know for certain but it seems to me if something works, that’s a sure sign it does correspond to something ‘out there’ even if we don’t yet know what that something is.
I just don’t think humans will swallow any random meaningless story just to find cohesiveness. There must be something about the story that resonates with their worldview before they will pledge allegiance to it. It can be fiction, but it must have, at minimum, a symbolic truth, or at least correspond to an unconscious need, before people, in any numbers will follow.
If you, and/or Harari are saying that any empty falsehood will serve just as well, I’ll have to remain a skeptic.
Mass manipulation is much more all about controlling what the people don't know, than what they do.
LenHazell53
Level 9
Oct 21, 2018
1
We are a ''story-telling'' species...and a tribal one, too. Put these together and it's not always a good result.
LucyLoohoo
Level 9
Oct 21, 2018
0
Pan Narrans.
I find your argument as prudent as this video. . . . and equally entertaining on the same level of intellectual merit.
NoMagicCookie
Level 8
Oct 21, 2018
1
No, that was Lenin's idea.
It is shown thruout history that One person, who can lead the masses, is what creates change!
Martin Luther King? Lincoln? Even Hitler? Etc etc etc
Leadership, not "the masses" en masse
AnneWimsey
Level 9
Oct 21, 2018
3
where the Übermensch leads the herd follows
@LenHazell53 or even Rosa Parks........
@AnneWimsey Yeah I watched Doctor Who last night too.
Rosa Parks an Übermensch if ever there was one 
@LenHazell53 I have never seen Dr. Who...must be picking it up from the "ether"?
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