Sapiens 9 -- Imperial Visions

See also these transcripts, posted by someone else who took Dr. Harari's Coursera course.

The unification of human kind was driven forward by three main forces; money, empires and religions. Lecture 8 examined the role of money and trade . This lesson focuses on the part played by conquerors and empires.

Lesson 09 - part 1 -- Empires are central to human history and modern culture.

• Defining an "empire" -- culturally diverse, territorially flexible
• *not* defined by type of government, as an empire does not have to be ruled by an emperor
• size doesn't matter:  Aztecs, Athenians had small empires
• Modern prejudices against the idea of "empire" 
• Empires don't work; it's not possible to rule over such a large territory
• Yet empires have been the most common form of political organization for the last 2,500 years!  
• Most empires collapse not because of internal rebellions, but rather because of external invasions or splits between the ruling elites
• Destruction of one empire resulted in the formation of a new one (Middle East)
• Empires are evil and corrupt, violate the principle of self-determination, and are built and maintained through war, enslavement, deportation and genocide
• True, but also yield prosperity and thus great advancements in culture (art, philosophy, etc.)
• Another positive legacy = unification through language

Lesson 09 - part 2 -- How empires spread and became such important players in history

• 1st empire:   Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great, established around 2250 BC in southern Mesopotamia; a major ideal in Mesopotamian and Middle Eastern political thinking for close to 2,000 years after Sargon
• 500 B.C., Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, had an even more ambitious dream than conquering the whole world -- to conquer peoples for their own benefit (rather than for the benefit of the conqueror)
• "This presumption, to rule the entire world for the benefit of all humans, was a very startling, even unnatural presumption for somebody to have. Evolution made Homo sapiens, like all other social animals, xenophobic creatures."
• "Cyrus the Great of Persia had a new imperial ideology characterized by being inclusive and all encompassing. Cyrus saw the whole of humankind as a single group, everybody belonged. His task as king of the world was not to take care of all people, of all humanity."
• Examples of how empires claim to conquer people for their own good:  China, Rome, Muslims, Spanish/Portuguese, British, USSR, USA
• Once the subject people accepted the culture, language, religion and behaviour patterns of the ruling elite there was no longer much difference between them. Barriers collapsed and they merged with one another.
• Examples:  Roman emperors who weren't Roman, Muslim rulers who weren't Arabs
• New citizens adopt the conquering culture as their own, such that it persists even after the empire itself collapses, still basically adhere to the culture, ideologies and ideas of their conquerors:
• Spain's Roman Catholicism and Latinate language; 
• Chinese people who adopted the Han Chinese culture; 
• non-Westerners today who believe in European ideologies of self-determination, liberalism, capitalism, nationalism, etc.
• Most of today’s cultures are based on imperial legacies. If empires are by definition bad, evil, what does it say about us and our cultures? 

Lesson 09 - part 3 -- The failures of nation-states, the rise of a global caste, and why a global empire is the way of the future.

• All human cultures today are at least in part the legacy of empires and of imperial civilizations. 
• It's impossible to the purge human culture from all the imperial legacies and return to a "pure, authentic civilization" -- India example:  Would Indians want to give up the legacies of the British Empire?  To give up the legacies of the Mughal empire before that?  To return to what?  What is "purely" Indian, anyway?
• Nationalism seems to have been a wrong turn in the 20th century; Should there really be as many independent states as there are distinct peoples?  Having close to 200 independent states is a hindrance to reaching global objectives (esp. environmental issues, human rights).
• Rise of a "global caste" of people, united horizontally by interests/culture rather than by nation-state.  For example, a banker in NYC has more in common with a banker in Shanghai than with a poor person in NYC.