Yavul Noah Harari, China and A Post Coronavirus World

By Samuel M. Frost, Th.M.

The birches, the poplars, and the wild cherry unfolded their gummy and fragrant leaves, the limes were expanding their opening buds; crows, sparrows, and pigeons, filled with the joy of spring, were getting their nests ready; the flies were buzzing along the walls, warmed by the sunshine. All were glad, the plants, the birds, the insects, and the children. But men, grown-up men and women, did not leave off cheating and tormenting themselves and each other. It was not this spring morning men thought sacred and worthy of consideration not the beauty of God’s world, given for a joy to all creatures, this beauty which inclines the heart to peace, to harmony, and to love, but only their own devices for enslaving one another.  Thus begins Leo Tolstoy’s last great novel, Resurrection (Barnes and Nobles, 2006 reprint, 1889, p. 1).  The beauty of God’s creation marred by the devices for enslaving one another.  Man is the problem.

And how do we enslave one another?  Mainly by ideas.  Donna Tussing Orwin (who taught Russian Literature at University of Toronto) writes the Introduction to Tolstoy’s work cited above and remarks, ‘Every public institution is reduced to an instrument of force and self interest’ for Tolstoy.  I started reading back in January the work of Yuval Noah Harari, who earned his Doctorate from Harvard, and teaches at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  His book, Sapiens, was praised by Bill Gates, President Obama, and several other prominent figures in the world of movers and shakers.  His follow up book, Homo Deus, is even more elaborate than the first in terms of celebrating the emerging necessity for Globalism, or Globalization.  In my blog, I cited how he downplayed the need for “God” as traditionally understood (read, as Christians and Orthodox Jews understand), and how such traditions must give way to the scientific worldview, and to the scientific institutions.  In other words, how we are to trust the scientists as the keepers of the Truth.  Man is evolving into a state of divinity, and he is doing this through biotechnology.  ‘Upgrading Sapiens will be a gradual historical process…merging with robots and computers in the process…Every day millions of people decide to grant their smartphone a bit more control over their lives, or try a new and more effective antidepressant drug.  In pursuit of health, happiness and power, humans will gradually change first one of their features, and then another, and another, until they will be no longer human” (Sapiens, 2017, Harper Collins Publishers, p. 49).  Harari is not downplaying this, and he not warning us of this scenario as if it offers a bleak, apocalyptic portrayal of the future.  No, he is welcoming it.  But, where do these inventions of medicine and technology come from? 

In light of the current pandemic, which I will call the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) pandemic, Harari recently posted on You Tube his understanding of what’s going on and what we  – we being the Global Community – need to do about it going forward.  For Harari, whose You Tube postings end up with well over a million hits, religion must change.  Politics must change.  And, we need to look to China to see how community living is done instead of “blaming” the Communist Party cover up (at which he barely blinks). Oh yes, Harari has posted just this week alone several videos of interviews (he is highly sought after) concerning the pandemic and its after effects.  ‘Harari and Its Impact on Mankind’ is one;  ‘Globalisation, Privacy, Religion Post Coronavirus World’ is another; ‘The World before, during and after Coronavirus’ are just some of the titles on You Tube.   There is a crisis afoot, and the Globalists are seizing the moment.  Why, “even the churches are listening to the scientists” by closing their doors he states in one video.  We “need to trust the scientists and their institutions” in times like these.  And, here it comes, with the current administration in America (and the voters that put him there…and we all know who “him” is) the rise of hatred and nationalism with its fomenting at the mouth despising of the Media, its dismissal of the Paris Treaty, are akin to the “flat earthers” – yes….he said that.  If you deny the 97% Myth (that is, the myth that 97% of “scientists” believe the world will become past the point of manageability in about 12 years unless we get rid of Evangelicals-Mixing-with-Politics), then you are akin to a person that believes in a flat earth.  Toleration, anyone?

In one video, Harari is asked by India Today’s correspondent Rahul Kanwal, what is the fate for Home Sapiens after the Great Pandemic?  Anyone asked you that question recently?  No?  That must mean you don’t a degree from Harvard.  Harari, before Kanwal gets to ask him a question, touts him as “the world’s most famous historian, rock star, living legend who is shaking the thinking of some the sharpest people on the planet.”  Think I am kidding, right?  Not in a long shot. 

First off, Coronavirus is a problem for science, not God.  Right off the bat (Wuhan bat? – sorry, couldn’t resist)…right off the bat Harari excoriates the idea that God “punishes” human beings on earth.  Perhaps he missed the reference to his middle name in Yavul Noah Harari, but that can slide.  What must he think of the Theologians (who have devoted themselves to the ‘science’ of interpreting Scriptures)?  Harari says we “need a united, global plan of action” – i.e., we need to work with corrupt regimes like the Chinese Communist Party who (as it is increasingly becoming ever so obvious) by their actions – the actions of Politicians, not Scientists – Politicians whose ideas for governing people is collectivism, socialism, and world domination of their idea rooted in Marxist originations – are atheistic (like Harari) to the core.  It gets worse.  American “leaders” are now saying, “we no longer care about humanity, we only care about America.”  Funny.  I have not heard one “leader” in America say that, but, hey, who cares, right?  Make it up.  See, when Ebola happened, America led the response (says Harari).  Well, yeah.  We were Johnny on the spot because we had the full cooperation and total facts needed to do that (a point Harari forgets to mention…ahem, Chinese Communist Cover up).

Amazingly he touts the same line that Hilary Rodham Clinton was bashed for saying, even among the Liberal Media outlets.  Remember when America reached the highest number of deaths due to the CPC virus?  She tweeted, “He did promise America First”.  Such a callous tweet.  Yet, here, this week, the most famous historian in America says the same thing, “we are first in deaths” because of Trump’s “America First” slogan.  See what’s happening here?  It’s not Trump – he is a pin head, a figure head – it’s the idea of Americanism as a unique group of individuals from all ethnicities – American success in the world – and not just that, because that can be translated in any way one wishes to do so.  No, it’s the fact that there is this very, very large group of people particularly in America that call themselves Bible believing Christians.  One of America’s largest exports is the export of Religion; namely, Evangelicalism.  However, there is another firebrand in the oven of ideas: the Conservative Roman Catholic Church, whose equally growing numbers within are not buying into the Bull (that’s a pun for you historians) of the current Pope, who are directly targeting and calling out the Homosexual onslaught from within the Catholic Bishops and Clergy, calling for a return to true Catholic Faith (take Church Militant, a weekly show hosted by Michael Voris, who spouts a scathing rebuke of the current leadership in Catholicism by a devoted Roman Catholic); or take the growing conservative efforts among Jews who support the State of Israel (Trump’s move of the embassy to Jerusalem had a powerful theological impact to the world’s elitists, albeit a negative one); see, it’s these people that are the problem, the deniers, the haters of Communist philosophy because we know how it is oppressive (untold millions of Christians have died at the hands of Communist regimes).  But, now, we are told that the real problem are those who do not yield to the Hallowed Institutes of Science and the High Priest Scientists.

Harari is calling for a “global leader that can unite humankind”.  Messiah, anyone?  I digress, because I don’t believe the Scriptures foretell of such a person, more than it foretells of such persons – plural who want nothing more than a global Tower of Babel (it’s an old story that keeps repeating itself from Pharaohs to Caesars, from Dictators to globalist Technocrats).  Now, to Harari’s credit, he does say in this interview that had Communist China had a “democratic form of government” that espoused the freedom of information without suppression then “this whole thing may not have happened.”  Aha!  A nod!  Dang!  Not so fast, because he very quickly moves on to praise Communist China for its leadership efforts that is forging a global cooperationalism; Fortunately, nobody is buying it.  See, it’s not “just America” that pissed.  It’s Japan, Australia, Germany, France, Canada, Switzerland, South Africa (whose citizens living in China, by the way, are being discriminated against on a national level) and others.

Okay.  Finally we get to the “most dangerous problem” according to Harari.  It’s not viruses.  It’s not this virus (there will be others).  It’s the “internal demons within humanity itself”.  Now this sounds like Tolstoy!  It’s also a theological speculation; or a metaphysical one if you prefer.  It’s an ontological speculation concerning a collective condemnation of humanity itself.  However, just when I thought that maybe, just maybe, the Doctor was about to deliver something profound, he reverts back to the tree hugging philosophy of ‘can’t we all just get along’?  The term “hatred” comes out a lot with the idea that “blaming” the actions of the source of this pandemic is akin to hatred.  That is, if we found the source and, thus, the reason for the spread of the virus (this is called, “blame”) then we must “hate” the source.  But, this is a narrative that is loaded with nonsense.  I am not blaming the Chinese people, wonderful as they are, made in the image of God Almighty Himself.  I am blaming a corrupt, suppressive form of government that is rooted in a religion hating philosophy and thereby seeks to eradicate by scientific knowledge that parades itself as absolute dogmatic truth.  If anyone has ever read Hannah Arendt (and if you haven’t, shame!) no one political philosopher as she was has ever penetrated with such depth the dangers of losing human individuality, uniqueness and plurality of ideas in an arena of free expressions.  Ayn Rand was another (and she was an atheist).  Socialism (of the Marxist amalgamations) demands herd mentality because it sees itself as the Keeper of Truth – and what populace can disagree with Truth?  If the Government is the Keeper of Truth, and the Scientists are the Teachers of Truth, then the disagreers have to be “dealt with” – permanently.  Can’t have social disunity.  For Socialism to work it must have the explicit cooperation of the people.  For Communism to work, the same is true.  Questions about metaphysical Higher Powers, or Higher Ethics (do I obey God, or Caesar?) cannot be appealed to.  The Media (that is, the progenitors of State Propaganda) dictates what the State says.  Any objections, any doubts in the Institutes of Higher Learning (the Higher Learned) is condemned: “flat earthers” they are called.  “Bible believers”.  “Dangerous people.” Ask the Communist Party how they “deal” with Christians.  Heck, ask Stalin (who Rand obliterates), or Pol Pot, or Hitler (who Arendt obliterates), or Mao Zedong (why we turn a blind eye to Mao and not Adolph is a mystery to me).

Again, Harari is not advocating a Dictatorship.  He argues for a democracy – a global democracy made up of nationalities that are unique to their own cultures.  But, the culture must have allegiance to the global cooperation which seeks the betterment of mankind.  There is no God that is going to save you.  There is no God that stops pandemics.  If one has to make a choice between Science and faith, choose science.  “You can’t understand this virus if you don’t believe in the theory of evolution” he says.  “And this is why it is important to teach the theory of evolution in schools.”  Need I comment on this?  Need I go back and quote Darwin?  Evolution was not an Asian theory.  It did not come from Japan, or Taiwan.  It came from England.  Darwin was a Rationalist – a child of the Enlightenment.  That’s Western Rationalism; Aristotelian Logic (he was a Greek), rooted in later British Empiricism.  Marx comes floating in here, too.  I could throw Freud in as well, but that’s another blog.  These men, Darwin, Marx and Freud have had a tremendous impact on the world of ideas; and each of them explicitly sought to squeeze out the religious life from the market place, from the educational place, from the political place, and from the “news you can trust” place.  Any smell of it, any hint, any attempt by the Christian, be they Catholic, Greek or Russian Orthodox, or Evangelical to assert themselves into these arenas are immediately dismissed as quacks, flat earthers, fundamentalists, Bible thumpers, “right wingers”, bigots, homophobes, science deniers, racists, women haters, uneducated conspiracy kooks.  Ideas matter and they have consequences (Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver is another must read).  The better idea is one that allows the freedom to “question” the Media, and the Institutes.  A government that assures its people that it has no monopoly on Truth.  A promotion of healthy skepticism in an age of “infodemics” (yes, info-demic, the pandemic of information and the epistemological problem of “knowing” who does, and who does not “know” what the hell they are talking about – a healthy dose of Leibniz would work here).  A government that does not “demand” that Evolution is the only Truth, no other Truth, and the Truth by which all other scientific theoretical constructions are banned; or that the Liberal “spin” on Chickens Little’s “the sky is falling!  The sky is falling!” Environmentalism is not necessarily The Truth.  Let the places of learning argue and figure it out, and let them flourish where each of them can.  Let the people figure it out, the individuals.  If they don’t want to wear a medical mask, okay.  If they do, okay.  If you want to own firepower, okay.  If not, okay.  It’s called freedom and liberty, and it, too, is an idea – and it, too, has consequences – sometimes…oftentimes dangerous ones – but my liberty and your liberty is too much to sacrifice because of these consequences: “Give me liberty, or give me death.”  Man, I wish we knew what that meant again.