Modern Utopia: Yuval Noah Harari

Kornienko Natalia Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0003-1968-5575 Senior Teacher at Saint Petersburg State University, Higher School of Journalism and Mass Communications 199034, Russia, Saint Petersburg, nab. University, 7/9 nvkornienko07@gmail.com

As is known, the phenomenon of utopia manifested itself most vividly with the heyday of humanism as an ideological trend in the Renaissance, and has a close correlation with humanism, the essence of which in the classical sense is reduced to a worldview system based on the protection of dignity and self-esteem of the individual and freedom, and the right to happiness ^{[1, p. 196]}. Humanistic ideas about human welfare, which in turn sprouted on the basis of the prevailing Christian dogma, according to which man for centuries perceived himself and all his aspirations and deeds a priori sinful, gave a completely new meaning to the essence of man. With the proclamation of man as the crown of the universe, the demiurge, with the emergence of a new thought about happiness and well-being as a natural human desire, the first projects to achieve it, which today we know as "utopia", are born and consolidated in the public consciousness.

During its existence, utopia has undergone unprecedented transformational changes and manifested itself in various forms – from ephemeral dreams of a "bright future" to loud manifestos that radically changed the course of events in the world.

Utopia is defined as a special attitude of consciousness (K. Manheim), daydreams (E. Bloch), social dreaming (L.T. Sargent), social experiment (E. Mach), unscientific social theory (K. Marx, F. Engels), folklore genre (K.V. Chistov). G. Marcuse, for example, defined utopia as "a project of social change that is considered impossible" ^[2]. Within the framework of the social approach, utopias can be defined as "all those constructions of a better social future that have not found practical implementation" ^{[3, p.3]}. According to G. Klees, utopia is not limited solely to a literary genre, utopia is not a theological branch, it is also not exclusively a spiritual impulse or impulse, although its elements are certainly found in all three hypostases. Also, the goal of utopia is not necessarily the desire to make society a better place ^{[4, p.150]}.

Utopia as a concept has not only acquired many definitions, but has acquired its own discursive field, represented by such categories as utopian communities, utopian politics, utopian space, utopian consciousness and is a multifaceted phenomenon. The versatility of utopia is also manifested in its continuous conceptual transformation, which led to the emergence of its varieties, derivatives and antipodes, such as dystopia, praktopia, dystopia, etc.

As for its current state, it can be characterized in the words of the Russian researcher R.I. Sokolova: "... in the last decades of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the flow of utopian thought suddenly turned out to be interrupted" ^{[5, p. 16]}.

This fact is confirmed by the results of recent studies. The modern American cultural critic and sociologist Krishan Kumar, referring to the works of F. Jamieson, notes that the active period of science fiction of the twentieth century fell mainly in the period before 1980 ^{[6, p. 550]}. As for the following years, "Utopia, if it was still possible, was only in a latent, potential state, and its influence was extremely limited" ^{[5, p.17]}.

For a long time, there was a utopia of globalization, the essence of which was to maintain in the minds of mankind the idea of achieving universal happiness and prosperity in a homogenized society, in conditions of erased cultural and ethnic boundaries. Its essence was described very succinctly by F. Jamison: "In one of these worlds, social disintegration has reached an absolute level — squalor, poverty, unemployment, hunger, filth, violence and death reign all around — so that the detailed social schemes of utopian thinkers in this context become as empty as they are inappropriate. In the other world, there is unprecedented prosperity, computerized production, scientific and medical discoveries unimaginable a century ago, and an equally amazing endless variety of commercial and cultural entertainment" ^[7]. However, partly due to the fact that one part of humanity came to the idea of the unattainability of universal well-being, while the other, living, as a rule, in more developed countries, suddenly realized that it had already achieved this happiness, the utopia of globalization has failed and continues to fail. K. Kumar called this phenomenon "glocalized utopia" ^{[6, p. 561]} — constructed according to territorial, regional and ethnic characteristics as a result of the failure of the utopia of globalization.

With obvious ambiguity regarding the phenomenon of utopia, increasingly loud-sounding manifestos about the crisis of utopian thought become predictable. Back in 1970, G. Marcuse wrote that the "End of utopia" lies in the fact that "... the new possibilities of human society and its environment can no longer be considered either extensions of the old, or even existing with them in the same historical continuum" ^[2].

With this state of affairs, the obvious question arises: why is there a crisis of utopian thought today, in an era of widely discussed topics about the inviolability of human life, universal tolerance, and humanity?

However, before asking whether utopia is really in crisis at the moment, we must certainly take into account the current situation and understand what is the essence of humanism at the beginning of the XXI century, which underlies both humanitarian law and reasoning about ethics and morality ^[8]. Why are we now talking about the crisis of utopia, whose purpose, according to the British sociologist Ruth Levitas, is to take care of "human nature and human prosperity" ^[9], and we still cannot talk about the achieved universal prosperity and happiness, at a time when the world is still drowning in the abyss of natural disasters, diseases and conflicts?

The problematic of this issue, in our opinion, lies in the following: the history of utopian thought is considered to be quite deeply studied in the works of researchers, starting from the conceptual theoretical foundations of utopia formed in the XIX century by A.Sventokhovsky, A.Kirchenheim, A.Voigt, later by E. Bloch, K. Manheim, H. Maraval, F. and Fr. Menueli, M. Laski, E. Rode, L. Mumford and others, and ending with the works of twentieth-century researchers F. Polak, R. Merton, X. Ortega y Gasset, N. Fry, F. Fukuyama, V. Chalikova, as well as the "father of utopian thought" L.T. Sargent, his follower and disciple T. Moylan and others. However, it is noted that the available knowledge regarding the theory of utopian thought does not take into account the current state of utopia, as well as the place of man in the modern world.

Today, the present is so elusive that any fabrications about it either become instantly irrelevant, or they try to cover what has not yet come and be updated, thereby ahead of their time. Speaking in scientific language, today we personally observe the principles of the "sociology of knowledge", which K. Manheim wrote about back in the early twentieth century. According to Manheim's concept, knowledge about the world is a system of information and beliefs that have a collective nature: "Only in a very limited sense does the individual himself create the type of language and thinking that we associate with him. He speaks the language of his group, thinks in the forms of his group" ^{[10, p. 7]}. Knowledge, according to Manheim, like language, originates and develops in a social context, and, in addition to the scientific basis on which it is formed, absorbs the values and ideals of his era. K. Manheim identifies two systems views, or natural attitudes of consciousness, which form the basis of human knowledge about the world – ideology and utopia. Ideology and utopia, built according to the principles, patterns and ideological attitudes of their era and according to the mechanisms known and predictable for contemporaries ^{[11, p. 154]}, nevertheless, turn out to be untenable in criticizing the present because of its false nature. Ideology is an attitude of consciousness based on the experience of the past, while utopia is oriented towards a possible future. However, according to K. Manheim, ideology and utopia are the only tools available to human consciousness for understanding reality, which are a direct link between public consciousness and the idea of the world. Based on this, we cannot talk about the crisis of utopia, expressed in its disappearance.

And if, in the words of K. Kumar, with the loss of utopia as a literary genre, the functions that utopia once performed in the past were also lost ^{[6, p. 554]}, since modern man no longer needs a "representative picture of the future", then utopia as a special attitude of consciousness (according to Manheim), giving the idea of reality still exists today. "... all those ideas transcendent to existence (hence, not only projections of aspirations) that have ever had a transformative effect on historical and social existence" ^{[10, p. 7]}. Consequently, the man of the XXI century, as hundreds of years ago, is still inclined to comprehend reality utopian.

If Manheim spoke about ideology and utopia as two equal types of understanding reality, then today we can rightfully say that utopianism actively displaces the present, replacing it as a new worldview paradigm.

In this aspect, it is relevant to refer to the works of one of the thinkers of our time – the ideologist of the new vector of development of human civilization, Yuval Noah Harari. Philosophical views, as well as the personality of Yuval Noah Harari lately. Works in the field of sociology and cultural studies by such researchers as G. Boehme, J.G. Riera, I.A. Frolova, D.A. Davydova, I.G. Hangeldieva, A.S. Mukhina and others are devoted to him. Harari's works are of interest in the framework of philological research by E. Y. Vizirova. There is also negative criticism, where an attempt is made to convict the author of striving to equate man with God ^[12]. Danish historian D. Nye, in particular, points out the categoricality of the deterministic approach chosen by the author and his disregard for the importance of cultural differences and human free will in the proposed concept of the emergence of a unified world culture and the inevitable replacement of human consciousness by artificial intelligence ^[13].

In our opinion, the works of this author are of particular interest nowadays, being a vivid example of the designers of the ideology of the future.

It is no coincidence that one of his works is called "Homo Deus. A brief history of the future." With this title, Harari clearly shows that for a modern person, the present is already history, the past, which does not make sense to actualize, and in order to keep up with modern trends, his views must be directed towards the future. «Homo Deus. A Brief History of the Future" is a work describing the future, the probability of which is confirmed by the events of the present happening around us.

The main difference between the Harari future project and the previous ones, in our opinion, lies in the conceptual difference of the constituent elements, namely, the status of reality, the status of a person in this reality, and, finally, what constitutes the happiness of a new person in a new reality.

First of all, this difference manifests itself in a qualitatively different status of reality. In addition to the objective and subjective, another type of reality has become available to humanity of the XXI century – intersubjective. Intersubjective reality serves as a connecting bridge between objective reality and subjective realities of individuals. This is the reality of human-created meanings, or myths, which is the result of many years of unique collective human activity to create intersubjective entities, which in turn are the result of human imagination. The ability to imagine and create these entities is the main difference between humans and animals. A person, being the creator of intersubjective reality, at the same time staying in it, is able to create meanings, change them, transform them, and also get rid of them. As N. Zangwill notes, the creation of myths is the greatest ability of mankind, and the right, in particular, the right to freedom, is one of its fundamental myths ^[14]. Harari predicts that "... intersubjective reality will absorb objective reality, and biology will merge with history. Thus, the myth can become the most powerful force on Earth in the XXI century – cleaner than wandering asteroids and natural selection" ^{[15, p. 180]}. This means that by shifting the subject-object reality to the periphery, it will be enough to destroy old meanings and create new ones in order to radically change reality.

Defining the man of the XXI century as the "most vulnerable living being" on the planet, meaning not so much his physical as his essential insecurity, Harari puts man on a par with animals, calling him "animal". It is worth paying special attention to what constitutes the essence of man in the modern world. By providing access to their biological and informational component, a person, while remaining physically whole, becomes inherently vulnerable. It is easy for marketing companies and advertising agencies to "hack" him, who own technologies and know algorithms that can influence his moods and anticipate desires, as a result of which a person becomes easily manageable.

As you know, the word "animal" means "animal" in English. However, the modern interpretation in the dictionary "General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus" gives its following definition: "A living organism characterized by the ability to move freely, the presence of cells with non-cellulose walls and special sensory organs that provide a quick response to external irritation, as well as the consumption of complex organic substances such as plants or other animals" ^[16]. Humans as a biological species also fit this definition. Obviously, this fact is the background to the consideration of the issue of recognizing animals and humans as beings of the same order.

In this vein, we can observe a living example of the implementation of the proposed Harari project in action: on March 28, 2024, the news was released that the king of the indigenous people of New Zealand, Maori, demanded that whales be given the status of a person on an equal basis with humans ^[17]. It is noteworthy that earlier, in 2017, the Maori recognized Mount Tanganaki and the Wanganui River as personalities ^[17]. We can say that on the one hand, this is an example of how elements of mythological thinking are integrated into the secular picture of the world. On the other hand, with this approach to understanding man, of course, we cannot talk about humanism in its traditional sense, which, as we mentioned above, having once declared man the crown of creation, at one time served as one of the foundations of utopian thought. A person of a new formation can live only within the framework of technohumanism – in conditions where he is part of a homogenized mass along not only with his own kind, as the utopia of postindustrialism manifested, but also with animals, as well as robots and machines with artificial intelligence, while preferably not identifying himself as a Human Being.

What will constitute the happiness of a person of the new formation?

At the beginning of his work "Homo Deus. A brief history of the Future" Yuval Harari writes that for centuries the main enemies of mankind have been famine, epidemics and wars. A society without wars, famine and widespread deaths from incurable diseases has been dreamed of by mankind for centuries as the highest good. Most utopian plots were built in such a way as to defeat these enemies, and thereby gain universal happiness. In the XXI century, there was a radical change in worldview: epidemics ceased to be a threat due to the invention of antibiotics, there was no need to wage wars for territories and resources, and hunger in the modern world is a priori impossible: "At the beginning of the XXI century, the average inhabitant of the planet Earth is more likely to die from overeating at McDonald's than from a draft, Ebola or an Al-Qaeda terrorist attack ^{[15, p.10]}. Harari suggests that modern man is more concerned not with fighting hunger, but with overeating, in particular, with consumption products such as sugar and meat, which yesterday made up the usual human diet.

The next component of a new person's happiness, according to Harari, is the desire for immortality and eternal youth. Since man has never put up with the fact of death as an integral part of human existence, the idea of immortality has worried him from time immemorial. Possessing rational thinking, having made discoveries in the field of science and technology, he is especially concerned today with the problem of the finiteness of his existential essence. In the 21st century, science seems to have come closer than ever to translating into reality the idea of eternal life, which until then was available only in mythical and biblical stories, in religious or esoteric practices, or within the framework of separate ideas about the immortality of the soul and its reincarnation. The reason for this thought was the fact that since about the 1920s, infant mortality has been noticeably decreasing, and human life expectancy has increased from about 40 to 70 years in a relatively short period of time. In addition, "A dizzying leap in such fields as genetic engineering, regenerative medicine and nanotechnology gives rise to the most rosy forecasts" ^{[15, p. 34]}. Back in 2005, the American inventor and futurist R. Kurzweil suggested that by 2045 man would be able to come close to immortality: nanotechnology would reach such a level that it would allow replacing organs with artificial implants, changing appearance, and even restoring the human brain and consciousness, practically eliminating the concept of death ^[18].

However, humanity's desire for immortality will involuntarily entail profound changes in the structure of society, which indicates the utopian nature of the proposed project of the future, its social nature. Harari warns that when science succeeds in the fight against death, humanity will face a new format of war - the war for eternal youth.

When talking about life expectancy in the near future, Harari does not proceed from baseless fantasies, but from the principles of rational logic and bases his judgments on already available results in the field of technology and medicine, and suggests a more realistic age – 90 years. In this case, we can note another property inherent in utopia – its relevance, logical rationality and validity.

So, modern man lives in a world where, it would seem, he has achieved the goals of all previous utopias, which formed the idea of happiness. However, he is still in a state of dissatisfaction and obviously wants to be in a state of permanent euphoria of happiness: "Although we have ended many of yesterday's troubles, it will be much more difficult for a person to find real happiness than to get rid of open public ulcers" ^{[15, p. 44]}. As Harari notes, a person is no longer interested in the very process of striving for happiness, he wants to have happiness here and now, and the thesis of Epicurus, to which the author refers, turns out to be inapplicable to modern man. He certainly wants to challenge the direct relationship between work and happiness, so his aspirations are directed towards the latest developments in the field of brain biochemistry and management of human feelings and emotions at the level of pharmacology ^{[15, p. 54]}.

Returning to the problem of the utopia crisis, it is worth paying attention to Harari's point of view on this issue. He talks about the possible end of utopia, while giving a completely rational justification. According to Harari, any human aspirations become achievable provided that the intellect of the person of the future remains unchanged ^{[15, p. 59]}. This means that any utopia will end as soon as human consciousness begins to comprehend reality in other categories. Thus, Harari points to the direct connection between utopia and the picture of the world in which it is born. Based on the fact that utopia is built according to the canons and concepts conditioned by the current historical epoch, we can talk about the presence of a property inherent in utopia – this is temporality ^[19], when the content, form and purpose of utopia are actualized by the realities of their historical time.

Conclusion.

Based on the definition of utopia as an idealized social construct, fundamentally unrealizable in general, it can be argued that the proposed Yu. Harari's project of the future is a utopia, and its "creator" is a utopian of modernity. Using L. Mumford's terminology, in our opinion, the utopia proposed by Y. Harari is an escapist type utopia ^[20] because, having at its core the goal of striving for universal happiness and prosperity, its essence is to hide the topicality of pressing problems, replacing them with new threats, which, according to its author, pose the greatest danger. If someone decides to go on a diet, paying tribute to following fashion, at the same time someone may suffer from malnutrition. If on one side of the Earth someone cares about the personal rights of whales, on the other side of the planet someone may not have the right to decent housing and education. In other words, in an attempt to make one part of humanity happy, at the same time, utopia is a screen behind which, as hundreds of years ago, the same pressing threats such as famine, wars and epidemics still pose a threat to another part of it.

Therefore, we can assert that the utopia of Yuval Noah Harari is a modernist utopia based on the rational and logical attitudes of the capitalist world, which is based on social stratification. The utopia of the XXI century described by Yuval Harari, in our opinion, fully corresponds to the classical definition of utopia, since it also aims to achieve universal happiness and prosperity. However, in the modern world, the achievement of universal happiness and well-being has acquired a different conceptual meaning due to the conceptual changes indicated by intersubjective reality. And this is the main difference between modern utopia and all previous ones.

Of course, the presented analysis is not complete and comprehensive, since it highlights only certain aspects of Yuval Noah Harari's research activities. The phenomenon of modern utopia also requires further research, since as it develops, being an integral part of civilizational processes, it continues to undergo conceptual transformations that continue to be of great interest to researchers.