Photo: Whale harvest by the Makah Indians, Neah Bay, Washington, circa 1930.
Read Part One
I borrowed a library book last week — Unstoppable Us: How Humans Took Over the World, by historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari — thinking that my granddaughters might enjoy reading it. I left it sitting on the counter in the dining room where they normally eat their breakfast, but so far, neither of the girls has shown an interest in learning how humans took over the world.
I would estimate that the story is aimed at Middle-School-age children.
But professor Harari has written a number of best-selling books for adult audiences, including bestsellers Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011), Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016), and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018). His books have been translated into 65 languages, and have sold, collectively, about 45 million copies.
Professor Harari wrote Unstoppable Us based (I suspect) on the ideas he developed in his adult non-fiction books.
I ran across professor Harari in a 3-minute PBS video on YouTube. He packed a good deal of story into three minutes.
“When I was a kid, I asked these really big questions about life… I mean, what are we doing here? What is this all about? And I think what struck me the most is not that the adults often had no answers, is that they were not concerned about the fact that they really don’t understand the world.
“In a way, I wrote ‘Unstoppable Us’ to answer at least some of the questions that really bothered me when I was ten or twelve. How did we get here? If you look at any major human achievement, it is always based on large-scale cooperation. You want to build pyramids, you want to fly to the moon, you want to create an atom bomb, you want to build a health care system, you always need thousands of people cooperating together.
“And we are the only mammals that can do that…”
We might note the reference here is to “mammals”. Science is discovering more about the ways in which animals cooperate, and we’ve long been aware of high levels of cooperation in the case of, say, ants and honey bees. Evidence is now appearing that even plants and fungi and microorganisms have the ability to cooperate, even across species.
But professor Harari is telling a story about humans, in particular. Unstoppable us.
And how, exactly, does this human cooperation come about?
“By inventing and believing fictional stories. You can’t do that with chimps.
“Humans, unfortunately, are… we are very smart, but despite of our wisdom, we keep doing some very stupid things.
“We know that nuclear weapons could destroy the whole of human civilization. We know that now Artificial Intelligence can escape our control. And yet we keep on producing it…”
Professor Harari obviously knows a thing or two about creating stories, and he appears to understand that even his own stories are fictional.
The second-to-last chapter in Unstoppable Us, Volume 1: How Humans Took Over the World is titled, “Use Your Superpower!”
“When our ancestors caused the extinction of the mammoths and diprotodons, they didn’t know what they were doing. But we can’t use that excuse today. We know what we’re doing to lions, elephants, whales, and dolphins. We’re responsible for their future. And no matter how young you are, you can do something about it. Remember, even as a kid, you’re already more powerful than a lion or a whale!”
Professor Harari counsels his readers to consider the plight of the whale, which (in his story) does not understand how corporations and governments function, and thus are at the mercy of humans.
“Whales and other animals can’t protect themselves. They can’t write articles for newspapers, send letters, or put pressure on governments. But you can. If you understand how corporations work, and if you know how to post a story on Instagram, or organize a demonstration, you can help save whales and other animals. From a whale’s point of view, you can do so many amazing things that you almost seem like a superhero.”
The final chapter in the book is titled, “The Most Dangerous Animal in the World”.
You can easily imagine the message in that part of the story.
But all is not lost. The children who have read to the end of Unstoppable Us now know a thing or two about how humans evolved and how they learned to cooperate, a skill that ultimately led to the extinction of numerous animals species and plants.
“And you know that if you invent a good story that enough people believe, you can conquer the world…”
I’ve written a few stories since I began editing the Daily Post in 2004, though I can’t say how “good” they are, or how many people have believed them. I can say with some confidence that, generally speaking, my stories have had minimal impact on the way the corporations and governments operate, and cooperate, in Pagosa Springs.
But how about those whales?
Whaling is a centuries-old tradition for the Makah Indians living on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula. The Makah are guaranteed whaling rights under a 1855 treaty with the U.S. government — becoming the only tribe in the United States with a treaty expressly guaranteeing the right to whale.
For centuries, the Makah hunted gray whales but stopped hunting in the 1920s, after the grays were decimated by commercial whaling. The tribe sought to resume whaling after gray whales were removed from the federal endangered species list in 1994, and applied in 1995 to again exercise its treaty right to hunt whales. That hunt led to the harvesting of a 30-foot gray whale in 1999.
Animal welfare and other groups decried the 1999 killing and later sued to stop the hunts. Legal challenges then put the whale hunts on hold.
In 2004, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Makah could not obtain a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act until an environmental assessment was prepared. We’ve all heard stories about how long that type of process can take.
It’s now been 25 years since the Makah tribe last harpooned a gray whale, a practice its members consider a sacred tradition but which was halted by the federal government.
On Thursday, June 13, the tribe was granted their long-sought waiver, which will allow them to hunt up to 25 whales over the next decade.
Another version of the story, about unstoppable us.