I have always enjoyed reading Yuval Harari (Sapiens, Homo Deus and Nexus).
He is creative and controversial. He covers such a wide range of anthropology, history and politics; and challenges us to think. He also gets some things wrong, whether scientifically, politically or socially. But I love the ideas he throws at us. So, although I despise the New York Times (and the BBC), I had to listen.
Amongst the topics raised were nationalism and liberalism. Once terms of pride. Now a dirty word in the West. Here are some of Harari’s quotes:
“Nationalism has been one of the most successful and one of the most positive stories that humans have ever come up with. Nationalism, at its core, is about loving and caring about a large number of strangers whom you do not know personally, but you’re nevertheless willing to make a lot of sacrifices for them. The nation is not a family. The nation is not even a small tribe. In a small tribe, you know everybody. It’s based on personal relationships. With nations, one of the most striking things about them is that you don’t know 99.99 percent of the other people in your nation. This is true not only of big nations like China or India; this is also true of Israel. There are about 10 million Israelis. I don’t know most of them. Nevertheless, nationalism makes people care about these strangers enough so that, for instance, you pay taxes so other people in your nation will get good health care and education — and ultimately, in some circumstances, you even risk your life for them.”
But Harari has reservations:
“Sometimes, of course, nationalism veers into hatred of others, but this is not an essential feature of nationalism. Nationalism can exist without hating outsiders. It cannot exist without love for insiders.”
And we are seeing in the West the collapse of nationalism into dogmatic exclusivity.
Again, he says, “Many of the people today who present themselves as the champions of nationalism put the emphasis on hatred, and in many cases, they even create hatred within the nation. They divide the nation against itself. They think they are great patriots if they hate outsiders.”
Speaking for myself, I have always had a problem with aspects of nationalism. I grew up in a Britain with royalty which I thought was out of date and irrelevant. I was influenced by a spectrum of political ideas from Plato’s Republic to Karl Popper and George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I rejected authoritarianism and privilege. I thought that Judaism was right to abandon heredity for a rabbinic meritocracy. I thought a rabbinic meritocracy was a good alternative until I discovered its limitations and corruptions. I grew to despise politics. But I called myself a liberal until I discovered that in our frighteningly crazy lost world of today, it has become an unfashionable term of abuse, and I had to admit reluctantly that someone has to govern. But liberals are getting fewer and fewer.
Given the negative aspects of Nationalism that we have seen since the collapse of religious authority in the West and the almost constant warfare between different national States, I would love to see the end of nationalism (in theory). But for as long as this is the current language of political conflict, we Jews must speak it too. I see no viable way to get us to lay down our swords. And we may hope, but we can’t rely on the Messiah.
Here is Harari on Liberalism.
“Liberalism is failing. One of the explanations of what is happening to liberalism in recent decades is that liberalism focused on equality and liberty but tended to forget fraternity, and this proved to be untenable. I think that the important thing to emphasize here is the reason that liberalism lost touch with fraternity is that some people told a very negative story about fraternity, seeing it primarily in terms of conflict with other communities — that fraternity is about hating and fighting with other nations. The big problem is that nations are then driven to become strong, because you cannot survive as a weak nation in such a world. And then all nations are forced to invest more and more of their resources in their military.”
And again
“As of 2026, we can look back and say Liberalism hasn’t failed completely. According to many measures, we are still living in probably the best time in history. But it’s collapsing.
Liberalism does not believe in redemption. You look at the grand historical visions of religions like Christianity or Islam or Judaism; you look at secular ideologies like fascism and Communism — they all believe in redemption. They all believe that eventually history will reach a final destination where everything will be perfect. Liberalism does not believe it. There is no redemption, at least not on Earth. There will always be problems and tensions and conflicts, and the question is: How do we live with them?”
I had only one reservation about what Harari said. My religion, I cannot speak for others, has a range of mechanisms for change within its constitution and always has. But sadly, like all political and religious systems, there is a conservative reluctance to use these tools. And nowhere do we see this more than in the Charedi and Jihadi Muslim worlds today. What Harari has to say about AI is also very important but that’s a topic I am not equipped to talk about.
Here is his conclusion on being Jewish
“If you try to think of what was, maybe, the most important message of Jews to humanity over the last 2,000 years, I will say the message is that it is OK to be different. It is OK to think and behave differently than the majority.”
If you want to hear the whole presentation, here is the link
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-yuval-noah-harari.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen lives in New York. He was born in Manchester. His writings are concerned with religion, culture, history and current affairs – anything he finds interesting or relevant. They are designed to entertain and to stimulate. Disagreement is always welcome.