I Only Read NON-Fiction
Fairly often someone makes this
statement to me: “I only read NON-Fiction.”
This is spoken condescendingly. Even with a sneer. The message seems to be
people who read frivolous fiction just don’t possess the intelligence to read
the lofty, superior, non-fiction. As
an author, who writes mostly fiction, I’m left sputtering: “But what about
literature? That’s fiction. Why do we humans award the Nobel Prize for great
fiction? Never non-fiction. Why do we celebrate great novelists? What’s so great
about fiction?"
Well. Fiction, and the ability to create
and understand it, made civilization possible.
I am reading a mind-expanding book: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Harari
informs us that at one time there were as many as six types of genuine humans living
on Earth, at the same time. We’re so accustomed to being the only humans on the
planet, this information comes as a bit of a shock. Neanderthals were humans. Homo Neanderthalensis. “Homo” is Latin for “human.” Some others
were homo erectus, homo denisova, homo
rudolfensis and of course, Homo
Sapiens, us, to name a few. For
thousands upon thousands of years all these varied homo’s lived exactly the
same life: hunt small game, dig edible roots, pick berries and fruits, scavenge
what was left of a say, a zebra killed by a lion, but only after all other
scavengers had had their turn. (Thus the creation of tools meant specifically
to crack open bones for their marrow. About all that was left of a kill by the
time the homo’s got to it, were the
bones.) Then about 70,000 years ago, Homo
Sapiens took a giant step forward. After
millennia of communicating with a simple language—all homo’s had simple languages, Sapiens
suddenly understood “imagined reality” or, fiction. Hitherto, all a homo could
communicate with was a maximum of 150 people. This was limiting. Wars aren’t
very successfully carried out by such a small amount of people. Sapiens learned
to establish the fiction, the imagined reality, of a country. A geographical area with imaginary borders that all the tribe
members agreed upon with their collective ability to imagine and respect a
fiction. A large number of Sapiens
pictured this fiction and fought to defend it. They also created the fiction of
religion: tales of prophets raising people from the dead, worshipping a god no
one had ever seen, heard, or smelled, with an unproven fictive afterlife. Thus,
millions could worship (imagine) the same god, the same creation myth, the same
rules for good behaviour, and believe all this so fervently that a country
would go to war to defend these imaginary beliefs. Thus the concept of “faith”
came into being. Sapiens, of course,
met up with Neanderthals, homo denisova,
and other homo’s. They interbred with
them to a certain extent, but their superior foraging skills led them to deplete
an area of edibles so the other humans, slower off the mark, were starved out. Because
their communication skills had advanced beyond the former limit of 150
individuals, Homo Sapiens was now able
to hunt big game in big numbers. A large group could round up and chase an
entire herd of bison over a cliff, then sift amongst them at the base of the
cliff, harvesting enough food and hides to sustain them for long periods. Neanderthals
and the other homo’s could still only
communicate with 150 individuals. They did not have the brain development to imagine
communicating with more—even though Neanderthals had larger brains than ourselves.
Meanwhile,
modern Sapiens have cracked the
genetic code. A four-year study which ended in 2010, put all other theories to
rest. Modern Sapiens, us, carry as
much as 4+ percent of Neanderthal DNA. Likewise, denisova, whose DNA is found in Asian populations. Neanderthals
live on! So the next time a modern Sapiens
sneers at you for loving fiction just reassure yourself: they’re operating from their Neanderthal brain. Hail,
fiction. It made civilization possible. And isn’t it lovely to know that big, sweet,
fire-making, tool creating, Neanderthals live on, in us.
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