What I find most provoking, though, is [Yuval Noah] Harari\u2019s insistence that in dealing with these problems, \u201cnothing that exists at present offers a solution,\u201d\u009d and \u201cold answers\u201d\u009d are as \u201cirrelevant\u201d\u009d now as they were (allegedly) during the Industrial Revolution.<\/p>\n
He means this as a critique of religious revivalists in particular: Not only the Islamic State\u2019s seventh-century longings, but any movement that seeks answers to new challenges \u201cin the Quran, in the Bible.\u201d\u009d Such seeking, he argues, led to dead ends in the 19th century, when religious irruptions from the Middle East to China failed to \u201csolve the problems of industrialization.\u201d\u009d It was only when people \u201ccame up with new ideas, not from the Shariah, and not from the Bible, and not from some vision,\u201d\u009d but from studying science and technology, that answers to the industrial age\u2019s dislocations emerged.
This argument deserves highlighting because I think many smart people believe it. And if we\u2019re going to confront even modest versions of the problems Harari sees looming, we need to recognize what his argument gets wrong.<\/p>\n
New ideas, rooted in scientific understanding, did help bring societies through the turbulence of industrialization. But the reformers who made the biggest differences \u201d\u201d the ones who worked in the slums and with the displaced, attacked cruelties and pushed for social reforms, rebuilt community after it melted into air \u201d\u201d often blended innovations with very old moral and religious commitments.<\/p>\n