英語でSapiens を読もう📖＃11

ここは英語学習者と日本語学習者のみなさんのためのページです

For English learners!

Hello everyone, how’s your English learning journey going?😃 Reading an English book is sometimes a long journey. You might inadvertently stop if you are alone. But no worries. You are at the right place already. I would like to explore an English book here so that you can try reading the book with me. We are not alone. Let’s enjoy a fun time reading!

The book, which I picked up this time, is called Sapiens, published by Yuval Noah Harari. The Amazon Kindle link below allows you to read up to chapter 3. Today, I am covering chapter 11.

You can check out my recommending strategy of reading as well as a bit of information about this book with a link below. Okay then, let’s get started📖

【英語学習者用】✖【日本語】英語のリーディングが苦手！でもいつか読めるようになりたい！！そんなあなた必読📖英語で読書をはじめる前にするべき３つのこと＋６つのTips

Read an English book for the first time 📖 ここは英語学習者と日本語学習者のみなさんのためのページです For English learners! Hello everyone, how's your...

日本語学習者のみなさん！

みなさん、こんにちは。あずみです。日本語の勉強はどうですか？やさしい日本語で読むのに飽きてきたあなたに、もうワンランク上のリーディングをお届けしたい、ここはそんなブログです。英語部分で私が書いていることを、日本語で書くならこんな感じというのがテーマです。ぜひ、カジュアルな日本語のライティング表現を体験しながら、同時に興味深い本の内容も楽しんでボキャブラリーの幅を広げてくださいね。😃

英語の勉強、はかどってますか？英語の本を読むのって長い旅路ですよね。うっかり止まって挫折してしまうのはとても簡単です。でもこのブログを読んでいるあなたはだいじょうぶ。そんなあなたを応援するのがこのブログです。このブログで私は本を取り上げ、掘り下げていきたいと思いますので、よかったら私といっしょにこの本にチャレンジしてみてください。

今回読む本は、ユヴァル・ノア・ハラリさんの「サピエンス全史」です。本の内容はアマゾンキンドルのリンクから試し読みで確認してみてください。

また、こちらのリンクから英語の本のオススメの読み方について取り上げています📖ぜひ確認してみてくださいね。さぁ、11章を読みましょう。

Ch.11 Imperial Visions

🦧第11章グローバル化を進める帝国のビジョン

Grasp the structure!🦧構成を把握する
Summarize the chapter concisely🦧章を一言でまとめる
Make questions to discuss🦧ディスカッション用の質問を作ろう
1. five questions for discussion🦧ディスカッション用の５つの質問
Expressions and terms🦧覚えておきたい単語・表現

Grasp the structure!🦧構成を把握する

To grasp the chapter, you just try to see its hierarchical configuration. I strongly recommend drawing it either physically or virtually.

階層構造を追い、内容を把握します。実際にメモを取りながらするとはかどります。

Introduction

Empire could lose battle after battle but still, win the war. Almost all people in the 21st century are the offspring of one empire or another.

Who were Numantians?

in northern Iberian
in the middle of 2nd century B.C.
a small insignificant mountain town, inhabited by the peninsula’s native Celts
had fierce love of freedome and inhospitable terran
a symbol of Spanish independence and courage: Numantian heroism

What did Numantia do to the Roman empire?

Numantians forced Roman legion after legion to surrender or retreat in shame.
Eventually, they ran out their food supply and killed themselves so as not to become Roman slaves.

What remained and what lost?

The story remained not by lost Celtic language but by Roman historians.
Even though their heroism remained, their cultures are lost and become oblibion as well as past cultures that the armies of some ruthless empire fell prey to.

序論

🚧工事中 🚧

What is an Empire?

An empire has cultural diversity and territorial flexibility. And, empires were one of the main reasons for the drastic reduction in human diversity.

Definition of Empire

a political order with two important characteristics.
- 1. cultural diversity: rule over a significant number of distinct peoples that possess a different cultural identity and a separate territory.
- 2. territorial flexibility: have flexible borders and a potentially unlimited appetile.

How to emerge?

military conquest
a voluntary league; the Athenian Empire
shrewd marriage alliances; the Habsburg Empire

How to rule?

autocratic emperor
democracy; the British Empire, Dutch, French, Belgian, American empires as well as premodern empires of Novgorod, Rome, Carthage and Athens.

Size doesn’t matter

can be puny
- The Athenian Empire at its zenith was much smaller than today’s Greece. It subdued over more than a hundred formerly independent city states.
- The Aztec Empire was smaller than today’s Mexico. It ruled 371 different tribes and peoples.

The Imperial steamroller gradually obliterated the unique characteristics of numerous peoples (such as Numantians), forging out of the subjects people new and much larger groups.

帝国とは何か？

🚧工事中 🚧

Evil Empires?

Even though people see empires as evil, it has been the most common and stable form of political organization and built the most human’s cultures of today.

The contemporary critique

Empires do not work➜ nonsense
- the most common political form
- a very stable form of government
  - alarmingly easy to put down rebellions
  - toppled only by external invasion or a split within the ruling elite
- conquered people tend to be remained subjugated and their cultures tend to fizzle out.
  - their language, worship, thought are all altered.
Empires are evil engines of dstruction and exploitation➜deeply problematic
- the destruction of one empire means that a new empire stepped in.
  - The Middle East’s example
    - 8th century: the Neo-Assyrian Empire
    - 20th century: the British and French empires
    - The people who were conquered by the Assiyrians had long dissapeared.
- the standard imperial toolkit
  - wars
  - enslavement
  - deportation

What are imperial legacies?

most of human culture
- Elite culture and high art: the profits of conquest were financed to not only armies but also philosophy, art, justice and charity.
  - Cicero, Seneca, and St Augustine
  - the Taj Mahal
  - Haydn’s sararies and Mozart’s commission
- common people: most of human speak, think, and dream in imperial languages

悪の帝国？

🚧工事中 🚧

It’s for Your Own Good.

An imperial mantel is to conquer the entire world. They conquered for the sake of inhabitants. The political theory goaded to attempt reunification.

An imperial mantel

The first empire
- the Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great
- Sargon was the king of Kish, in Mesopotamia.
- Sagon’s dominion stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, and he boasted to have conquered the entire world.
For the next 1,700 years
- Assyrian, Babylonian, Hittite kings adopted Sargon as a role model: an imperial mantel to boast conquering the entire world.
- Conquiring for…
  - the greater glory
  - the sake of all its inhabitants (⇔conflicted to the xenophobic characteristic of Sapiens)

The benevolent imperial vision

inclusive and all-encompassing
the opposite trait of Sapiens’ ethnic exclusiveness
the basic unity of the entire world
the mutual responsibilities of all human beings
Humankind is seen as a large family.
passed from Cyrus, to Alexander the Great, Hellenstic kings, Roman emperors, Muslim caliphs, Indian dynasts, Soviet premiers, and American presidents.
justified the existance of empires and negated attempts…
- by subject people to rebel
- by independent peoples to resist imperial expansion

The Mandate of Heaven

in China
Heaven is the source of all legitimate authority
When a ruler enjoy the mandate, he is obliged to spread justice and harmony to the entire world
the Mandate of Heaven is only one, therefore only one independent state can exist
the golden ages of order and justice for Chinese history
the dark ages of chaos and injustice for the modern Western view
Every time an empire collapsed, the dominant political theory goaded to attempt reunification.

これはお前たちのためなのだ

🚧工事中 🚧

When They Become Us.

Empires amalgamate many cultures into small fewer big cultures and spread ideas, institutions, customs, and norms.

What empires do

To gain legitimacy
- ideas, people, goods, and technology spread
- ideas, institutions, customs and norms spread: standization was the boon to emperors
To work for the general welfare
To educate humanity: bring the benefits of culture miserable barbarians
- The Mauryan empire: Buddha’s teaching
- The Muslim caliphs: the Prophet’s revalation
- The Spanish and Portugues empires: the true faith
- The British: liberalism and free trade
- The Soviets: the utopian dictatorship of the proletariat
- America: a moral imperative to bring Third World countries the benefits of democracy and human rights

Two opposite approach

some sought to purify their cultures
most empires have begot hybrid civilisations

The process of acculturation and assimilation

absorded numerous contribution from conquered peoples
painful and traumatic to adopt a new culture: give up a familiar and loved local tradition
eventually broke down the barriers between the newcomers and the old elite
customes, culture, and the ties of marrige have blended with people
for centuries and even millennia after the empire itself collapsed, they continued to speak the empire’s language

A superior Western culture

last few decades
the modern era Europeans conquered much of the globe by spreading a superior Western culture.
billions of people gradually adopted significant parts of that culture.
- languages: French, English, and Spanish
- beliefs: human rights, the principle of self-determination
- ideologies: iberalism, capitalism, Communism, feminism, and nationalism.

「彼ら」が「私たち」になるとき

🚧工事中 🚧

The Imperial Cycle.

People have accepted much of the imperial culture of their former empires’ overlords while seeking to mold it in accordance with their needs and traditions.

Stages

A small group establishes a big empire
An imperial culture is forged
The imperial culture is adopted by the jubject peoples
The subject peoples demand equal status in the name of common imperial values
The emperire’s founders lose their dominance
The imperial culture continues to flourish and develop

帝国のサイクル

🚧工事中 🚧

Good Guys and Bad Guys in History

Even though all empires are seen as the bad guys with blood and power through oppression and war, most of today’s cultures are based on imperial legacies.

All cultures are in part imperial civilizations

The British and Indian love-hate relationship
- The British conquest and oppupation of India cost the lives of millions of Indians.
- Many Indians adopted with the zest of converts, Western ideas.
- The modern Indian state is a child of the British Empire.
  - the Indian judical system.
  - administrative structure
  - railroad network
  - a newtral tongue, English, that the Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam speakers to communicate
  - chai and cricket
  - commersial tea farming came in the 19th century
There is no authentic culture
- the Mughal Empire and the conquering sultanate of Delhi
- the Gupta Empire
- the Kushan Empire
- the Maurya Empire
- the Muslim empires
  - the Taj Mahal

How many Indians today would want to call a vote to divest themselves of these British legacies? If they did, wouldn’t the very act of calling a vote exactly their debt to their former overlords?

歴史の中の善人と悪人

🚧工事中 🚧

The New Global Empire

What kind of empire will Sapiens live in the future? It will be the global empire that doesn’t have any particular state or ethnic group. It is ruled by a multi-ethnic elite with a common culture and common interests. More and more people are choosing this over remaining loyal to their own state and people.

The Global empire

Since around 200 B.C., most humans have lived in empires.
And most humans will live in one.
Nationalism is fast losing ground.
More people believe that all of humankind is the legitimate source of political authority.

What do people believe now?

nationalism is fast losing ground
all of humankind is the legitimate source of political authority
safeguarding human rights
protecting the interests of entire human species
the appearance of essentially global problems
- melting ice caps
- global warming
- hole in the ozone layer
- greenhouse gases

As of today, 2014

still, politically fragmanted.
increasingly open to …
- the machinations of global markets
- the interference of global companies and NGOs
- the supervision of global public opinion
- the international judicial system
states are obliged to conform to global standards…
- financial behaviour
- environmental policy
- justice
growing disregard for the borders and opinions of states
powerful currents of capital, labor, and information turn and shape the world.

The global empire

It is being gorged without any particular state or ethnic group.
It is ruled by a multi-ethnic elite.
It is held together by a common culture and common interests.
More and more entrepreneurs, engineers, experts, scholars, layers and managers are colled to join the empire.

新しいグローバル帝国

🚧工事中 🚧

Summarize the chapter concisely🦧章を一言でまとめる

To summarize, check the hierarchical configuration and make sentences with important points of each.

階層構造の各部分のポイントを確認して、文にしてまとめます。

An empire is another form that contributes to humankind’s unification. An empire has cultural diversity and territorial flexibility. And, empires were one of the main reasons for the drastic reduction in human diversity. Empires amalgamate many small cultures into fewer big cultures and spread ideas, institutions, customs, and norms. People have accepted much of the imperial culture of their former empires’ overlords. Even though all empires are seen as the bad guys with blood and power through oppression and war, most of today’s cultures are based on imperial legacies. Sapiens is now heading to the global empire that doesn’t have any particular state or ethnic group. It is ruled by a multi-ethnic elite with a common culture and common interests. More and more people are choosing this over remaining loyal to their own state and people.

帝国というものは、人類の統一に貢献するもう一つの形態です。帝国には文化の多様性と領土の柔軟性があります。そして、帝国は人間の多様性を劇的に減少させた主な理由の1つとも言えます。帝国は多くの小さな文化をより少ない大きな文化に融合させ、アイデア、制度、習慣、規範を広めます。歴史の中で人々は、自分たちを支配してきた帝国の文化の多くを受け入れてきました。すべての帝国は抑圧と戦争をによる血と権力に象徴される悪者と見なされていますが、今日の文化のほとんどは結局のところ帝国の遺産に基づいています。サピエンスは現在、特定の国や民族グループを持たないグローバル帝国に向かっています。それは、共通の文化と共通の利益を持った多民族のエリートによって支配されているものです。ますます多くの人々が、自分たちの国や人々に忠実であり続けることよりも、このグローバル帝国の一員となることに価値を見出すようになってきています。

Make questions to discuss🦧ディスカッション用の質問を作ろう

To discuss, make questions. It gives you a great topic to talk about in English.

本について話し合うための質問を作ります。作った質問は英語で話をするときのいい話題になりますよ。

Evaluative question　全体的な評価についての質問

How effective is the presentation in whole or in part? Why did the speaker/author make these choices and how well do they work?

Many possible answers can be found outside of the presentation but it’s a reference.

この箇所は全体の中で／この部分においてどう効果的な役割を果たしていますか？どうして話者はこのような表現をしましたか、またそれはどのように機能していますか？

たくさんの答えが本文の議論の外でひとつの例としてみちびかれる可能性があります。

Chapter 11’s Question

Is the author’s assertion that the world is heading to one global empire realistic? If so, where do you find yourself standing?

My opinion: It is really realistic to me. I agree that human rights and self-determination seize the consensus of today’s world. A lot of ideologies are coming to my country, and people are confused. For example, the former Olympic committee chief in Japan had been accused of his sexist speech, and the global pressure rather than the domestic one pushed him out. And, the nation is struggling to deal with the gap. I feel that people nowadays move, live, and work freely regardless of their origin. So as I. I would be definitely seen as a member of the global empire.

第11章の質問

世界が1つのグローバル帝国に向かっているという著者の主張は現実的だと思いますか？もしそうなら、あなたの立ち位置はどこですか？

私の意見：私にとっては、本当に現実的に感じます。人権と自己決定の考え方は国際社会の中でコンセンサスを得ています。多くの概念的な考え方も日本にも迫っていて、人々の混乱が見えます。たとえば、日本の元オリンピック委員会委員長は自身の性差別的な発言で非難され、国内の圧力ではなく世界的な圧力によって彼は辞任に追い込まれました。日本はこの世界とのギャップに対処するのに苦労しているように見えます。今日の世界の人々は、出身地に関係なく、自由に動き、生活し、働くようになっていると感じています。そして出身地と離れた場所で離れた文化で生きる私もまた、間違いなく世界帝国の一員と言えると思います。

five questions for discussion🦧ディスカッション用の５つの質問

Experiential question

How does this make me feel? What does it remind me of?

There are many correct answers that are related to one’s experience; they can be found outside of the text/speech.

Examples

Have you ever…?
Does it make you angry when…?
Which part did you like?
How hard was this to understand?

経験に関する質問

この箇所はどんな風に感じますか？何を思い出させますか？

個人の経験に関連するたくさんの答えが本文の外で見つけられることが考えられます。

例

こんな経験ありますか
こんなとき、怒った気持ちになりますか
どのパートが気に入りましたか
これを理解するのは難しかったですか

Literal question

What does it say?

One correct answer is found in the text.

Examples

Who is …?
What happens first?
Where are …?
What is the difinition of this word?

文脈についての質問

なんと言っていましたか。

答えは一つです。テキスト内でみつけることができます。

例

これは誰？
何が最初に起きた？
これはどこですか？
この言葉の定義はなんですか？

Interpretive question

What does it mean? How are the parts connected? what is the reason for people’s actions?

There is more than one possible answer, but the viewer’s opinion is based directly on the text.

Examples

Why did the speaker…?
What can we say about the speaker’s point of view?
What is the significance of the title?
What did the speaker mean when they said…?

解釈についての質問

ここはどういう意味でしょう？これらの箇所はどう繋がっていますか？この行動にはどんな意味がありますか？

答えは2つ以上考えられますが、質問の答えは本文に直接基づいている必要があります。

例

どうして話者は．．．？
話者の視点について、どんなことが言えますか。
タイトルにはどんな意味があるでしょう。
話者が．．．といったのはどういう意味でしょう。

Thematic question

What is the message beyond this presentation? What are the greater issues or questions this piece deals with?

The presentation is not directly referenced in the question. There are many possible answers found outside of the presentation, but it’s a starting point.

Examples

How do people…?
Why do people…?
What is the truth about…?

テーマに関する質問

このトピックが伝える、もっと大きなメッセージはなんでしょう？このトピックの先にどんな大きな問題が見えますか？

この質問は、このトピックと直接リンクする必要はありません。この話の外側にたくさんの答えがあるでしょう。でも、このトピックがいいスタートポイントになります。

例

人々はどうやって．．．？
どうして人々は．．．？
．．．の真実は何でしょう？

Evaluative question

How effective is the presentation in whole or in part? Why did the speaker/author make these choices and how well do they work?

Many possible answers can be found outside of the presentation but it’s a reference.

Examples

Is it realistic when …?
How does the speaker use … to show …?
Would this be better if …?
Is the speaker biased towards/against…?

全体的な評価についての質問

たくさんの答えが本文の議論の外でひとつの例としてみちびかれる可能性があります。

例

この箇所は現実味がありますか。
話者がこの．．．をどのように表現しましたか。
もし．．．であればもっとよかったですか。
話者は．．．の考え方に偏っていますか。

Expressions and terms🦧覚えておきたい単語・表現

Pick some terms that you are unfamiliar with from sentences you high-lightened and memorize them　because you need them to discuss this chapter!!

読みながらハイライトした特に重要だと思う文の中から、使い慣れていない言葉を選んで覚えましょう。なぜかというと、ディスカッションで意見や考えを言うために必要になるからです。

term	example sentence
diversity	Empires were one of the main reasons for the drastic reduction in human diversity.
extol	Yet Spanish patriots extol the Numantians in Spanish.
mandate	If a ruler enjoys the mandate, he is obliged to spread justice and harmony to the entire world.
safeguard	Since Swedes, Indonesians, and Nigerians deserve the same human rights, wouldn’t it be simpler for a single global government to safeguard them?

単語	例文
多た様よう性せい	帝国は、人間の多様性が劇的に減少した主な理由の1つだ。
称しょう賛さんする	それでも、スペインの愛国者は、スペイン語でヌマンティア人を称賛する。
任にん務む	統治者が任務を享受する場合、彼は正義と調和を全世界に広める義務があります。
保ほ護ごする	スウェーデン人、インドネシア人、ナイジェリア人は同じ人権に値するので、単一の世界政府がそれらを保護する方が簡単ではないでしょうか。

This chapter successfully changed my preconception of empires. I did believe that empires were evil. But, now I just feel that what we have are the legacies of empires definitely. This whole dynamic to the unification is not something Sapiens can control whether we like it or not. We love that people think, feel, believe in the same ways. We believe that English is a universal language to communicate globally. We will never stop uniting.

この章を読んで、すっかり帝国に対する考え方が変わりました。私も帝国は悪者と、考えていた一人だったのですが。今私たちが持っているもののほとんどは間違いなく帝国の遺産だとわかりました。世界が統一に向かっているというこの全体的なダイナミクスは、私たちがそれを好むかどうかに関係なく、サピエンスが制御できるものではないようです。私たちは、人々が同じように考え、感じ、信じることに価値を見出しています。英語はグローバルにコミュニケーションするための普遍的な言語であることを否定する人はいません。私たちはこの統合の道を止めることは決してないのだと思います。