“the dollar, human rights and the United States of America exist in the shared imagination of billions, and no single individual can threaten their existence. If I alone were to stop believing in the dollar, in human rights, or in the United States, it wouldn’t much matter. These imagined orders are inter-subjective, so in order to change them we must simultaneously change the consciousness of billions of people, which is not easy. A change of such magnitude can be accomplished only with the help of a complex organisation, such as a political party, an ideological movement, or a religious cult. However, in order to establish such complex organisations, it’s necessary to convince many strangers to cooperate with one another. And this will happen only if these strangers believe in some shared myths. It follows that in order to change an existing imagined order, we must first believe in an alternative imagined order.

In order to dismantle Peugeot, for example, we need to imagine something more powerful, such as the French legal system. In order to dismantle the French legal system we need to imagine something even more powerful, such as the French state. And if we would like to dismantle that too, we will have to imagine something yet more powerful.

There is no way out of the imagined order. When we break down our prison walls and run towards freedom, we are in fact running into the more spacious exercise yard of a bigger prison.”

Key Ideas

  • Money, corporations, religions, and nation-states only exist because enough humans believe in them; they’re “intersubjective myths” that enable mass cooperation.
  • Human happiness vs. progress: Historical leaps rarely make individuals lastingly happier; the hedonic treadmill and social comparison persist.

Primary Frame

Sapiens is compelling because it keeps asking “What is really real here, and what survives only because we keep believing it?” Applying that lens to your systems—whether network architecture, corporate culture, or family life—turns history into a practical diagnostic toolkit.