As we’ve seen, Sapiens evolve genetically to organize themselves into large groups, so they formed societies through the use of imagined orders and writing.
We require these imagined orders to function, but they’re not equitable or impartial. They result in systems that discriminate some and privilege others. In fact, there’s no known society that doesn’t discriminate.
Hierarchies have a purpose: they let us know how to interact with others without actually knowing them, which in theory is more efficient and lets us function in large societies. For instance, a woman selling flowers doesn’t know all her customers personally. To figure out how to divvy up her energy and time, she uses the social cues dictated by each person’s place in the hierarchy—such as the way he’s dressed, his age, and, often, his skin color—to determine who is the executive, likely to buy a lot of expensive roses, and who is the messenger boy, only able to afford daisies.
Almost all hierarchies are imagined (we’ll look at a possible exception, the hierarchy of males and females, at the end of this chapter). But we usually claim that they’re natural. For example, capitalists believe that the rich are wealthy because they have better business sense, make better choices, and are smarter and harder working. They earn their wealth and the high-quality health care, education, and nutrition that come with it. But (according to Harari) it’s proven that most rich people are wealthy because their parents were wealthy, and that most poor people are poor because their parents were poor. Wealth is rarely purely “earned.”
Just because our hierarchies are imagined doesn’t mean there isn’t diversity in our biological aptitudes and abilities. Some people are smarter or more skilled than others. But we don’t succeed or fail based on these aptitudes alone. Society still largely determines who wins and who loses by dictating whose abilities are nurtured and who get what opportunities.
Imagined societies are generally propped up by three elements: a historical accident, the fear of pollution, and the vicious cycle of discrimination.
Historical Accident: The roots of prejudicial hierarchies often lie in a random occurrence in history rather than biological differences.
Fear of Pollution: Humans are biologically programmed to feel repulsed by people and animals that might carry disease. This is a survival instinct. But although the fear is biologically-based, its historical manipulation and exploitation is based in fiction. If you want to ostracize a group (such as Jews, gays, blacks, or women), tell your society that they’re polluted and could contaminate you if you interact with them.
Vicious Cycle of Discrimination: Once a random historical event that benefits one group and discriminates against another occurs, that hierarchy is perpetuated by the people who benefit from it. This reinforces the prejudices used to justify the system. These prejudices, in turn, help maintain the system, and the cycle continues.
Let’s look at how these three elements perpetuate discrimination in America.
Example: Racial Discrimination in America
Historical Accident
One of the primary sources of America’s racial hierarchy is the slave trade of the 16th through 18th centuries. In a sense, it was a historical accident that Europeans imported to America millions of slaves from the African continent rather than Europe or Asia.
Firstly, it was cheaper to get slaves from Africa than Asia because Africa was closer to America.
Secondly, a slave trade already existed in Africa. It made financial sense to buy slaves from a market that already existed rather than create a new market on a different continent. > * Thirdly, plantations in American colonies like Virginia, Haiti, and Brazil were plagued by yellow fever and malaria, diseases that originated in Africa. Africans had, over time, become more immune to these diseases than Europeans or Asians, so it made economic sense to invest in people who would live longer to work the plantations. Let that irony sink in: the genetic advantage of immunity contributed to the social disadvantage of Africans. They were slaves to masters who were genetically inferior to them in this sense.
Fear of Pollution
The Europeans justified their dominance in America by exploiting the idea that blacks were filthy and carried diseases. Even after the abolishment of slavery in America in 1865, the stigma of being unpure continued and intensified. The “Jim Crow” laws in the South were established to “protect” whites from being violated and contaminated by blacks. Whites thought they could catch diseases by studying in the same schools, shopping in the same stores, and eating at the same restaurants as blacks. Interracial sex was considered the filthiest and most dangerous violation.
Vicious Cycle of Discrimination
While the institution of slavery was still in place, theologians spread the idea that blacks were descendents of Ham, the son of Noah whose offspring were cursed to be slaves. Biologists used the myth of moral and intellectual inferiority to justify African slavery. After slavery was abolished, these myths perpetuated the prejudices that created them, creating a vicious circle.
The Cycle of Economic Disadvantages
The Fourteenth Amendment gave all citizens equal protection under the law, regardless of race. But 200 years of slavery meant that even with these legal changes, the newly free blacks were poor and uneducated. Their chances of getting a well-paid job were low. Therefore, the chance that their children, and their children’s children, would get a good education and a good job were also low.
The Cycle of Racial Disadvantages
But of course, their disadvantages weren’t purely economic.
The Industrial Revolution and subsequent flood of immigrants created an America in which many people were able to start their lives in America poor and end them rich. But although the rags-to-riches story rung true for many immigrants, it didn’t for blacks. Discrimination kept their education and job prospects low. Whites saw their lack of education and money as a result of their laziness and ignorance rather than their lack of opportunity. They also viewed them as dissolute and unclean—polluted, essentially. The stigma reinforced their inability to get jobs, which in turn reinforced the stigma.
Rather than getting better over time, discrimination gets more entrenched over time. Money begets money, and poverty begets poverty. The cycle doesn’t get broken on its own over time. Whites think that because slavery was abolished over 150 years ago, it can no longer explain the discrepancy between white and black career and monetary success in America. Whites see few black professors, doctors, and lawyers, and conclude that this is because they’re not intelligent or hard-working enough to be professors, doctors, and lawyers. This prejudice keeps employers from hiring qualified black candidates, and the vicious circle continues.
Racial prejudice has become so ingrained in our culture that we’ve stopped seeing it, even when it’s right in front of our faces in the form of the Anglo beauty ideals promoted by every commercial and billboard.
The genetic differences between groups of Sapiens is negligible. Genes can’t explain why some groups are privileged and others aren’t. We must see these historical developments in terms of chance events that are perpetuated by those who benefit.
However, there’s one hierarchy that is based in biology: the division of Sapiens into males and females.
In order to understand which elements of the men/women divide are natural, or biological, and which are socially constructed, we need to understand the difference between “sex” and “gender.”
Because what makes someone a man or woman is based on a culture’s myths, the definitions of “man” and “woman” have varied greatly across the world and over the centuries. “Masculine” and “feminine” are also subjective terms based on myth, not biology. Because people are biologically male or female but no one is inherently masculine or feminine, people are pressured to relentlessly prove their masculinity or femininity throughout their lives through rituals such as getting into fights, applying makeup, watching football, and wearing dresses.
While sex characteristics have remained constant over time, characteristics of masculinity and femininity have changed dramatically. This is one way you know that these characteristics are social rather than biological. For example, in the 18th century, King Louis XIV was the picture of virile masculinity, shown in an official portrait in a long curly wig, tights, high heels, and colorful, sumptuous fabrics. In contrast, a portrait of Barack Obama in a suit shows the ideal of masculinity in the 21st century: dark colors and simple, streamlined lines.
Many societies have used biological differences to argue that males and females should have certain rights and behave in certain ways. When an individual or group does something society doesn’t approve of, it’s called “unnatural.”
For instance, throughout history, society has held varying views on the naturalness of homosexuality. In today’s Greece, society holds that females should be sexually attracted to males and vice versa, and that this is a “biological reality” because humans evolved the ability to have sex to procreate, and homosexual relationships do not result in procreation. They believe homosexuality is unnatural. But cultures of ancient Greece saw homosexuality as natural and productive, a way to cement male bonds. Both Achilles in the Iliad and Alexander the Great had male lovers.
So who’s right? Modern or ancient Greece? One way to determine if a behavior is “biologically determined” or a “biological myth” is to remember that “Biology enables, Culture forbids.” From the perspective of biology, if something is possible, it’s natural. Conversely, if something is unnatural, it can’t exist in nature, making it impossible. In this way, biology enables. If something is forbidden, it’s the culture that’s doing the forbidding, not nature.
When we argue that men shouldn’t have sex with other men because sex is meant to produce children, it sounds like we’re making a biological argument. But it’s actually a Christian one.
Theologians believe that God created each of our organs for a specific purpose, and if we use them for any other purpose, that use is “unnatural.” Therefore, to a theologian, because God didn’t intend sex organs to be used for anything other than procreation, homosexuality is unnatural. This is “theological nature.”
But according to “biological nature,” God doesn’t create organs. Evolution does. And evolution doesn’t “create” an organ for a specific purpose. How animals use their organs changes throughout the history of their species.
For example, mouths evolved so organisms could get nutrients from their environments. If any other use of the mouth is “unnatural,” we have to ban kissing and speaking. But the fact that our “worm-like ancestors” didn’t kiss or speak doesn’t make these behaviors unnatural for us.
Similarly, many animals use sex for purposes other than procreation. For instance, chimpanzees use sex to form alliances and ease tensions. These uses aren’t unnatural simply because they weren’t the original purposes of sex. If biology makes these behaviors possible, they’re natural.
Since the Agricultural Revolution, most cultures have valued males over females, regardless of how each culture defined men and women. Why? Is there a biological basis for this preference?
We can’t explain the prevalence of patriarchy throughout the world and history the same way we can explain other stratifications in society. Patriarchy is too universal to be explained by accidental events.
It’s more likely that the answer is biological, but researchers still have no idea what it is. The book covers three theories.
Another version of this theory says that males used their strength to monopolize agricultural tasks involving manual labor, like plowing. This gave them power over food production, which gave them power over society.
But there are problems with this theory. Females historically were forbidden from entering professions in law and religion, which require little physical work, but have worked in the fields and done the taxing household chores. Furthermore, there are plenty of women stronger than men, but they don’t have much more social power than weaker women. This pokes holes in this theory.
Further, the historical record shows little relation between physical strength and social power. Slaves in 19th-century Alabama were far stronger than their masters, yet they weren’t the ones in power. In fact, throughout history, the people with the least power in a society are the ones doing the hardest physical work, and those with the most power do the least physically demanding work. Humans rarely choose their leaders by having them compete in a boxing or wrestling match.
Males’ control of armies has made them controllers of society as well. The more control over society they had, the more wars they could fight, and the more wars they fought, the more power they gained in society. Studies of male hormones and cognitive systems lend evidence to the theory that males are more aggressive than females (and therefore make better soldiers).
Similar to the problems with Theory #1, while aggressive men may make better combat soldiers, those in the ranks are usually not the ones in power. It’s the generals and politicians who have the power, and being a general or politician requires less aggressiveness and physical strength and more tact, organizational skills, and cooperation. It also requires the ability to view a situation from multiple perspectives. Being an aggressive person makes you a bad choice to run a war.
Females are stereotyped for having more tact than men and being better able to see things from multiple viewpoints. If these stereotypes are true, females would make better generals and politicians than men. Therefore, their biology should make females more powerful than men, not less.
A variation of Theory #2, Theory #3 says that males had to compete against one another to impregnate females, so they evolved to be aggressive and competitive. Conversely, females didn’t have trouble finding a male to impregnate them, but they did have trouble getting food while they were pregnant and caring for young children. Therefore, they evolved to be submissive and dependent on males to provide for them. Females who weren’t submissive and who fought for power didn’t have as good a chance at securing a mate and passing on their genes.
There are problems with this theory, too. Even if they were necessarily dependent, it’s not obvious why females would be dependent on males rather than other females. Females of many species, such as bonobo chimpanzees and elephants, form networks of females to collectively raise children. The societies of these species are also matriarchal rather than patriarchal.
Because females had to work together, they developed more refined social skills. Males, on the other hand, spent their time competing, and their social skills remain weak. We’d expect the most cooperative and socially skillful to be those in power. But history didn’t turn out this way, and we still don’t know why.