The Rescue Mission: Introducing Life Studies and Countering Harari’s Vision of Sapiens as a Lost Race

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Dataism has grabbed the real power from man’s hold and placed it in the Facebook and Google. We are now faced with times, thwarting God’s creative monopoly, opines Dr. Jernail and Prof. Manminder, critiquing Yuval Noah Harari, exclusively for Different Truths.

“We are faced with a grim future. Or no future at all. Our knowledge can turn out to be a Frankenstein’s monster. Are we really helpless or we can still initiate a rescue mission?”

William Wordsworth’s oft-quoted line, “the still, sad music of humanity” starts ringing in my ears, as it has now gathered an undertone of pessimism too. Times have changed very fast, and the electronic age has turned every idea, every object, and every philosophy over its head. And, human beings too. Wordsworth was writing at a time when people found themselves at the gods’ mercy who like wanton boys, would predilect with bees. We have graduated from that vision of an all-powerful God who made his people suffer and poets expressed great sympathy for the suffering comrades.

Today, we are faced with the ‘shrill, saddening music of humanity’. Because man is neither that receptacle of divine doings or over-doings, nor has he been left with any faith in the divine dispensation. Now, he does not go to scriptures to find solutions to his problems, as he used to in good old days, but he refers more to himself. His feelings. What he feels good is good. The idea of man has superseded all that was supreme in religion and mystical realms. In fact, there is no mystery now, to terrorise man. The gods who threatened men with tempests and earthquakes, today, look askance at weather forecasts found in ordinary mobile phones. Do we really need astrologers now to tell us of our future?

The gods who threatened men with tempests and earthquakes, today, look askance at weather forecasts found in ordinary mobile phones.

Man knows what he is doing, and if he follows the super-scientific theory of Karma, taking it away from religionetics, there is enough to indicate what is to follow what. In simple reasoning, good follows good, and evil begets evil. No law, human or divine, can set aside this essential supra-terrestrial logic.

From faith to feelings was a quantum jump. But, according to Yuval Noah Harari, what is now going to happen is more disconcerting. Man is increasingly losing his control over himself, and if the algorithms and Google who know more about him. Dataism has grabbed the real power from man’s hold and placed it on Facebook and Google. We are now faced with times, thwarting God’s creative monopoly, when humans will be able to design superhuman elite, thus creating a second universe of second Sapiens. The modern world has left behind physics and chemistry and is now working on bioengineering to lift man out of the controls of the divine, if at all it existed, as Harari considers all these presumptions as shared myths.

According to Yuval Noah Harari, what is now going to happen is more disconcerting. Man is increasingly losing his control over himself…

How to counter this movement? Technology has created a new comfort zone for us, out of which we cannot even dream to trudge. How many would like to live without Facebook? Can we afford to have a peaceful day without data and accessing Google? These extra-terrestrial [cyber] bodies have made the maximum of our weakness and gathered all the data about us. It is an oft-quoted proverb that man knows little about himself. But he knows so much if not everything about the Universe. It was never so true as it is today. He knows so little about himself, about his choices, his wants, and his needs, and, from where they can be fulfilled. Google knows more about us. That is why, on Facebook, they easily tell you what your secret wish is, what you are like, what is your best dream. It is often argued that the study of humanities is approximate, and cannot be precise and exact, as in cases of sciences. Yes, if we look up to Google and FB, they make a far exact study of our ideas, thinking, and passions than what we think of ourselves. And herein lies the danger.

Someone out there knows your password. They can enter young mind. If they succeed in brain-mapping, and your brain can be carried in a pen-drive, and somebody may just delete the data from the pen-drive, you will be left with an empty brain, losing all memory, a vacant vessel. A mere cupboard with all its skeletons gone.

These are terrorising facts coming up the future history of mankind. It may happen one day. We are already on the way towards self-annihilation, and then, self-creation too. God is already dead. Sapiens may rise from its own ashes. We need to look at this scenario from a humanistic angle and come up with possible solutions to our problems.

God is already dead. Sapiens may rise from its own ashes.

One thing is clear. We cannot stop human passion not only to explore the mystery, but also to recreate the mystery. Only the people thus created will be vastly different. Even if we wish with all our passion, we cannot stop the sling from moving forward and backward. Still, we must look up to certain possibilities to contain this bioengineering disaster. Are we ascending or descending, it is such an iconic movement which defies definite description.

I think we must apprise our younger generation of this fast movement into the free-zone, in which all moralistic, ethical, and spiritual considerations evaporate, and man’s existence, its possibilities gain transcendence over every other consideration. For us, the real issue is to survive, and then, comes, how. At what cost? The things that look so precious today, may lose their splendour once we are face to face with immediate threat of extinction. The final choice with man will be his survival. And all other things might come later.

I have an over-powering feeling that it is time to get out of our shells and have a view of the movement of Man into his own brainscape. It may take another century, but it cannot be thwarted or postponed forever. In this over-enveloping gloomy situation, we must seek some moments of hope, joy, and assured peace. Like Sisyphus, we are engaged in a serious battle, with ourselves, pushing ourselves over the top, and watching our own self tumbling down the slope, being reduced to smithereens; in other words, causing, watching and grieving over our

…it is time to get out of our shells and have a view of the movement of Man into his own brainscape.

Study of science must have to be offset with life studies. We are passing through an age in which God does not exist, and Man is on the exit too. Liberalism has passed out as a livable and viable philosophy and turned into more of a myth. Between the loss of liberalist philosophy and the introduction of a suicidal passion for deification of bioengineered man, we have a buffer which can be inserted with life studies. Let our youth study this subject. Let us bring our studies out of examination centres and marks. Let us bring them face to face with life and learn the life skills. Instead of being merely job-oriented which is the passion now, we must have an education which life-oriented.

How to lead this life more meaningfully, more happily, and more substantially. How to understand the dynamics of being, and re-introduce the idea of love, a family bred on love, and ideas of sharing, and uniting again against common catastrophes. At present, our best of men who scored 100% in exams are failures as human beings, as teachers, students, as brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters. This is a far greater disaster for homo sapiens than the fall of religion or even liberalism.

We as homo-sapiens must devise a method to delay the ultimate moment of self-annihilation. And, only life studies can serve as a buffer in-between.

Prof. Manminder Singh Anand is Asstt Prof., Department of English DAV College, Chandigarh