In his book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,” historian Yuval Noah Harari describes the development of the first human civilizations through to modern society today. He demonstrates how the emergence of societies is always accompanied by a belief in a dominant ‘fictional’ truth in which certain people are portrayed as more important than others. Harari calls this the ‘imaginary order.’ The concept of the ‘imaginary order’ is comparable to the concept of ‘dominance systems’ (originally coined by Walter Wink) to which Marshall Rosenberg refers in his books on Nonviolent communication. Briefly stated, this concept means that if you want to gain and maintain power, you ensure that everyone believes in a truth that reinforces your position as a ruler.
In this blog post, I will use Yuval Noah Harari’s book to explore how dominance systems emerge and shape our thinking. Rest assured, this is not a conspiracy theory, but a historical description of how societies are formed and held together. For me, reading about such mechanisms is enlightening because it helps me put my thoughts and the demands I feel I must meet into perspective. It also provides food for thought regarding the great inequality in the world.
The emergence of power structures
Around 10,000 years ago, members of our human species, Homo Sapiens, who had until then roamed as hunter-gatherers, began to settle in permanent locations. This ‘agricultural revolution’ began in the Levant (Turkey, Syria, Iran) and North Africa and expanded to the Middle East, China, and Central America. By 100 AD, the majority of humanity lived as farmers. Life as agriculturalists offered significant short-term benefits, such as protection from wild animals, rain, and cold. Unfortunately, however, it did not lead to a higher standard of living for most people in the long term. Farmers had to work harder, ate a less varied diet, and were more vulnerable to famine and epidemics than their predecessors.
Living in one place made it possible to own property. And with the increase in possessions, inequality, conflict, and worries about the future inevitably became part of life. While hunter-gatherers lived from day to day, farmers had to plan ahead for dry spells, cold seasons, and lean years, while the global population grew rapidly. Building up stockpiles became necessary for societies to survive. Food surpluses, combined with new transport and storage techniques, enabled humans to cluster together in cities that collectively formed kingdoms.
Everywhere, these surpluses primarily benefited small elites. Large social and political power structures emerged worldwide, competing for supplies and property and living in comfort, while large groups of farmers, soldiers, and slaves performed the heavy labor. Between 2,250 and 500 BC, the first great empires began to emerge: the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires in the Middle East, followed a few centuries before Christ by the Chinese Qin dynasty, the Roman Empire, and the Egyptian Empire.
A good story
How did those kingdoms and empires manage to subjugate entire peoples and make them cooperate? How did a handful of ‘nobles’ succeed in keeping large groups of people spread over vast areas under their thumb? The answer, according to Harari, is ‘fiction.’ Fiction is the human ability to imagine things that do not exist in physical reality but only in our minds. To dominate thousands or even millions of people, you must ensure they all believe in the same story.
Every club, religion, or state is rooted in such a shared narrative. People who have never met can be persuaded to go to war together based solely on a fictional narrative about ancestry, race, or faith. An economic system only functions if we all believe in the value of money, stocks, real estate, and bitcoin. Rights, laws, and regulations only work if everyone is convinced that they must be upheld. All these things exist only in the minds of those who believe in them. All societies function by virtue of these shared beliefs about what is “true” and what “ought to be.”
The imaginary order and dominance systems
The primary method for gaining and maintaining power is by convincing everyone that there is a certain imaginary order in which you or your group is better than everyone else. Install a story about a chosen people, a superior race, the will of a god, or the inevitable laws of economics. Present this story as the only truth that is self-evident and natural, and raise people with this story from birth. In this way, you control the truth, and the system works in your favor.
Yuval Noah Harari describes in his book how this mechanism occurs in all civilizations throughout history up to the present day. For instance, the Greek philosopher Aristotle claimed that slaves naturally have a ‘slavish nature’ and free people a ‘free nature’; Hindus believe there are certain castes superior to others due to specific cosmic forces; and some Christians and Muslims believe that women are not suited for leadership and that homosexuality is unnatural because God did not intend it that way during his creation of the world. The capitalist system wants you to believe that you must be attractive, unique, and successful, and that you must buy all sorts of indispensable products to be happy.
During the industrial revolutions and the accompanying colonizations of recent centuries, European Christianity and racist ‘scientific’ Social Darwinist theories about the superior white ‘race’ were used in this way as an ideological cover for unimaginable injustice, brutal violence, slavery, and genocide in all parts of the world. The inequality to which this ‘imaginary’ order has led continues to this day.
Why is awareness of dominance systems important within Nonviolent communication?
Over time, the norms and ways of thinking of ‘the imaginary order’ become increasingly self-evident and invisible. They are hidden in the world around us—in our culture, media, architecture, and art. They are anchored in systems such as the economy, politics, the judiciary, and education. These are the systems Marshall Rosenberg refers to when he speaks of dominance systems. While these systems have an important function in society, beneath the surface, they do not necessarily serve the interests of everyone, nor necessarily your personal interests.
When living within these systems, it is difficult to see what your needs and interests truly are, and to realize that you always have a choice. On a personal level, Nonviolent communication can reveal learned language and thoughts that deny freedom of choice and personal responsibility. This can sound like “I simply must,” “That is just how it works,” or “I have no other choice,” instead of “I choose to,” “I have a need for,” or “I find it important that.” On a macro level, Nonviolent communication can contribute to exposing systems that cause structural inequality. A small portion of the world’s population lives in luxury, under the impression that they are doing well in addressing global problems. But when we zoom out, it appears that the underlying systems causing these problems remain intact. In recent years, inequality has even increased significantly. This is not something that just ‘happens’ to us. The choices we all make on an individual level, and how we think and talk about ourselves and others, determine how the world develops as a whole.