Homo Deus: a brief History of Tomorrow

Survivor  is  often  credited  (or  blamed)  for  turning  reality  shows  into  a  craze.
Survivor  was  the  first  reality  show  to  make  it  to  the  top  of  the  Nielsen  ratings,
and in 2007 Time magazine listed it among the hundred greatest TV shows of
all time.
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 In  each  season,  twenty  contenders  in  minimal  swimsuits  are  isolated
on  some  tropical  island.  They  have  to  face  all  kinds  of  challenges,  and  each
episode  they  vote  out  one  of  their  members.  The  last  one  left  takes  home  $1
million.
Audiences  in  Homeric  Greece,  in  the  Roman  Empire  or  in  medieval  Europe
would have found the idea familiar and highly attractive. Twenty challengers go
in – only one hero comes out. ‘Wonderful!’ a Homeric prince, a Roman patrician
or  a  crusader  knight  would  have  thought  to  himself  as  he  sat  down  to  watch.
‘Surely  we  are  about  to  see  amazing  adventures,  life-and-death  battles  and
incomparable acts of heroism and betrayal. The warriors will probably stab each
other in the back, or spill their entrails for all to see.’
What a disappointment! The back-stabbing and entrails-spilling remain just a
metaphor.  Each  episode  lasts  about  an  hour.  Out  of  that,  fifteen  minutes  are
taken up by commercials for toothpaste, shampoo and cereals. Five minutes are
dedicated  to  incredibly  childish  challenges,  such  as  who  can  throw  the  most
coconuts into a hoop, or who can eat the largest number of bugs in one minute.
The rest of the time the ‘heroes’ just talk about their feelings! He said she said,
and  I  felt  this  and  I  felt  that.  If  a  crusader  knight  had  really  sat  down  to  watch
Survivor,  he  would  probably  have  grabbed  his  battleaxe  and  smashed  the  TV
out of boredom and frustration.
Today  we  might  think  of  medieval  knights  as  insensitive  brutes.  If  they  lived
among us, we would send them to a therapist, who might help them get in touch
with themselves. This is what the Tin Man does in The Wizard of Oz. He walks
along the yellow brick road with Dorothy and her friends, hoping that when they
get to Oz, the great wizard will give him a heart, while the Scarecrow wants a
brain and the Lion wants courage. At the end of their journey they discover that
the great wizard is a charlatan, and he can’t give them any of these things. But
they discover something far more important: everything they wish for is already
within  themselves.  There  is  no  need  of  some  godlike  wizard  in  order  to  obtain
sensitivity, wisdom or bravery. You just need to follow the yellow brick road, and
open yourself to whatever experiences come your way.
Exactly  the  same  lesson  is  learned  by  Captain  Kirk  and  Captain  Jean-Luc
Picard as they travel the galaxy in the starship Enterprise, by Huckleberry Finn
and Jim as they sail down the Mississippi, by Wyatt and Billy as they ride their
Harley-Davidsons  in  Easy  Rider,  and  by  countless  other  characters  in  myriad

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other road movies who leave their home town in Pennsylvania (or perhaps New
South  Wales),  travel  in  an  old  convertible  (or  perhaps  a  bus),  pass  through
various life-changing experiences, get in touch with themselves, talk about their
feelings,  and  eventually  reach  San  Francisco  (or  perhaps  Alice  Springs)  as
better and wiser individuals.
The Truth About War
The formula Knowledge  =  Experiences  ×  Sensitivity  has  changed  not  just
our  popular  culture,  but  even  our  perception  of  weighty  issues  like  war.
Throughout  most  of  history,  when  people  wished  to  know  whether  a  particular
war  was  just,  they  asked  God,  they  asked  scriptures,  and  they  asked  kings,
noblemen  and  priests.  Few  cared  about  the  opinions  and  experiences  of  a
common soldier or an ordinary civilian. War narratives such as those of Homer,
Virgil  and  Shakespeare  focused  on  the  actions  of  emperors,  generals  and
outstanding  heroes,  and  though  they  did  not  hide  the  misery  of  war,  this  was
more  than  compensated  for  by  a  full  menu  of  glory  and  heroism.  Ordinary
soldiers  appeared  as  either  piles  of  bodies  slaughtered  by  some  Goliath,  or  a
cheering crowd hoisting a triumphant David upon its shoulders.
Jean-Jacques Walter, Gustav Adolph of Sweden at the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631).
© DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence.
Look,  for  example,  at  the  painting  above  of  the  Battle  of  Breitenfeld,  which
took place on 17 September 1631. The painter, Jean-Jacques Walter, glorifies
King Gustav Adolph of Sweden, who led his army that day to a decisive victory.
Gustav Adolph towers over the battlefield as if he were some god of war. One

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gets the impression that the king controls the battle like a chess player moving
pawns.  The  pawns  themselves  are  mostly  generic  figures,  or  tiny  dots  in  the
background. Walter was not interested in how they felt while they charged, fled,
killed or died. They are a faceless collective.
Even  when  painters  focused  on  the  battle  itself,  rather  than  on  the
commander, they still looked at it from above, and were far more concerned with
collective  manoeuvres  than  with  personal  feelings.  Take,  for  example,  Pieter
Snayers’s painting of the Battle of White Mountain in November 1620.
The  painting  depicts  a  celebrated  Catholic  victory  in  the  Thirty  Years  War
over heretical Protestant rebels. Snayers wished to commemorate this victory by
painstakingly  recording  the  various  formations,  manoeuvres  and  troop
movements.  You  can  easily  tell  the  different  units,  their  armament  and  their
place  within  the  order  of  battle.  Snayers  gave  far  less  attention  to  the
experiences and feelings of the common soldiers. Like Jean-Jacques Walter, he
makes  us  observe  the  battle  from  the  Olympian  vantage  point  of  gods  and
kings, and gives us the impression that war is a giant chess game.
Pieter Snayers, The Battle of White Mountain.
© Bpk/Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen.
If you take a closer look – for which you might need a magnifying glass – you
realise  that  The  Battle  of  White  Mountain  is  a  bit  more  complex  than  a  chess
game. What at first sight seem to be geometrical abstractions turn upon closer
inspection into bloody scenes of carnage. Here and there you can even spot the
faces  of  individual  soldiers  running  or  fleeing,  firing  their  guns  or  impaling  an
enemy  on  their  pikes.  However,  these  scenes  receive  their  meaning  from  their
place within the overall picture. When we see a cannonball smashing a soldier to
bits,  we  understand  it  as  part  of  the  great  Catholic  victory.  If  the  soldier  is

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fighting  on  the  Protestant  side,  his  death  is  a  just  reward  for  rebellion  and
heresy.  If  the  soldier  is  fighting  in  the  Catholic  army,  his  death  is  a  noble
sacrifice  for  a  worthy  cause.  If  we  look  up,  we  can  see  angels  hovering  high
above the battlefield. They are holding a billboard which explains in Latin what
happened in this battle, and why it was so important. The message is that God
helped Emperor Ferdinand II defeat his enemies on 8 November 1620.
For  thousands  of  years,  when  people  looked  at  war,  they  saw  gods,
emperors, generals and great heroes. But over the last two centuries, the kings
and  generals  have  been  increasingly  pushed  to  the  side,  and  the  limelight
shifted  onto  the  common  soldier  and  his  experiences.  War  novels  such  as  All