英語でSapiens を読もう📖＃10

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 10.

You can check out my recommending strategy of reading as well as a bit of information about this book with a link below.

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!He...

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、10章を読みましょう。

Ch.10 The Scent of Money

第10章最強の征服者、貨幣

Contents

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
- 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

People used coins as a medium of exchange.

The Aztecs

paid in cocoa, beans, bolts of cloth.

The Spanish

a certain yellow metal, gold.
used to make jewelry and statues.
be obsessed.
inexplicable for the Aztecs, since it could not be eaten, drunk, or woven, and it was too soft for weapons.
a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.

issuing coins

for cerebrating the victory
for emblazoning the opponent message.

序論

🚧工事中 🚧

How Much is It?

Barter doesn’t work when the economy gets more complex.

Hunter-gatherer

Self-sufficient economy
No money
Shared their goods and services through an economy of favors and obligations.
Rare goods were obtained from stranger by simple barter.
- seashells
- pigments
- obsidian

The onset of the Agricultural Revolution

Self-sufficient economy
Maintained by favors, obligations, and a little barter.
Villages were small, economies limited, and there could be no full-time particular jobs, such as doctors or shoemakers.

The rise of cities

Improvement in transport infrastructure
Dense population allow to have full-time employment.
Specialize own product and trade
Hone own expertise to benefit of all
Favor and obligation don’t work when large numbers of strangers try to cooperate.
Barter is not effective when exchanging a wide range of products.
- people have to learn anew the relative prices of dozens of commodities.
- requires both sides’ agreement
- Soviet Union, a central barter system: failure

物々交換の限界

🚧工事中 🚧

Shells and Cigarettes

Money is a universal medium of exchange and a creation of a new inter-subjective reality.

Money

required no technological breakthroughs
involved the creation of a new inter-subjective reality

What can be money?

anything that people are willing to use for exchange
enable to compare quickly and easily
easy to exchange
easy to store
- coinage and banknotes (only 10% existed physically, the rest is electronic data)
- shells (4,000 years ago)
- cattle
- skins
- salt
- grain
- beads
- cloth
- promissory notes
- cigarette (modern prisons and POW camps)

Money is a universal medium of exchange

No need to memorize the exchange rates
No need to find buyer who is willing to receive
Everyone always wants money because everyone else also always wants money.
Convert almost everything into almost anything else.
It contributes to the appearance of complex commercial networks and dynamic markets.

貝殻とタバコ

🚧工事中 🚧

How Does Money Work?

Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised. It is tightly bound up with political, social, and ideological systems.

Common imagination, Not a material reality

Monetary imagined order

Not a material reality
Psychological construct
Mutual trust devised the figments of collective imagination
Converting matter into mind.

Monetary imagined order

Not a material reality
Psychological construct
Mutual trust devised the figments of collective imagination
Converting matter into mind.

Money and economy

A very complex and long-term network of political, social, and economic relations.
It is tightly bound up with political, social, and ideological systems.
It was born when the needs of intensifying economic activities.

Commodity or purely cultural invention

Barley money: intrinsic value (commodity)

Sumer around 3000 B.C.
fixed amounts of barley grains used as a universal measure
responded to the needs of intensifying economic activities.

gold and silver: lacked intrinsic value

No inherent biological value.
Be made into luxury goods, which means their value is purely cultural.
Eventually gave birth to coins (640 B.C.).

Coins

Around 640 B.C. in Lydia.
imprinted with an identification mark.
- indicated how much
- identified the authority
counterfeit is a breach of sovereignty.
the power of the emperor rested on the denarius.

貨幣はどのように機能するのか？

🚧工事中 🚧

The Gospel of Gold

Coin appeared in the first century, and the entire world became a single economic and political zone nowadays.

Denarii to the modern currencies

Denarii

In the first century, Roman’s coin.
Lydian-style coinage from the Mediterranean
Became a generic name for coins: dinar
- Jordan
- Iraq
- Serbia
- Macedonia
- Tunisia

Denarii

In the first century, Roman’s coin.
Lydian-style coinage from the Mediterranean
Became a generic name for coins: dinar
- Jordan
- Iraq
- Serbia
- Macedonia
- Tunisia

Later on

By the late modern era, the entire world became a single monetary zone
- relying first on gold and silver
- relying later on the British pound and the American dollar.
A single transnational and transcultural monetary zone laid the foundation for the unification of Afro-Asia: a single economic and political sphere.

Why do people share the belief in gold?

Monetary belief

Once trade connects two areas, the forces of supply and demand tend to equalize the prices of transportable goods.
Another person believes in cowry shells, dollars, or electronic date is enough to strengthen people’s belief in them.
Religion asks us to believe in something, while money asks us to believe that other people believe in something.
Only trust system created by Sapiens that can bridge almost any cultural gap and that does not discriminate on the basis of anything.
Thanks to money, people can cooperate effectively without trust.

金の福音

🚧工事中 🚧

The Price of Money

The world is in danger of becoming one big heartless marketplace. Although it has contributed to the unification of humankind as an economic process, it destroys the communal dams, such as local traditions, intimate relations, and

Two universal principles

Universal convertibility
Universal trust

Two universal principles

Universal convertibility
Universal trust

What do these principles bring to people?

①build new dams to protect society, religion, and the environment.
- Strangers to cooperate effectively in trade and industry
- The more people use money, the more trust invested in money
②destroy the communal dams
- local traditions
- intimate relations
- human values
  - honor
  - loyalty
  - morality
  - love

貨幣の代償

🚧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。

Sapiens has used gold, coins, or so as a medium of exchange. In accordance with the growth of the economy, simple barter became insufficient. As the improvement in transport infrastructure provoked the rise of cities, the need for intensifying economic activities brought about a creation of inter-subjective reality. It began with shells about 4,000 years ago, and today coinage, banknotes, cigarettes, electronic data, and so forth are used.

It is tightly bound up with political, social, and ideological systems. Coin appeared in the first century, and the entire world became a single economic and political zone nowadays. The world is in danger of becoming one big heartless marketplace. Although it has contributed to the unification of humankind as an economic process, it destroys the communal dams, such as local traditions, intimate relations, and human values.

サピエンスは交換の媒体として金や硬貨等を使用してきました。経済成長に伴い、従来行っていた単純な物々交換では不十分になりました。交通インフラの向上が都市の台頭を引き起こし、経済活動を強化する必要性が、相互主観的な虚構の現実の創造をもたらしました。それは約4000年前に貝殻から始まり、今日では硬貨、紙幣、タバコ、電子データなどが使用されています。

お金は政治的、社会的、イデオロギー的システムと緊密に結びついています。硬貨は1世紀に登場し、今日では全世界が単一の経済的および政治的ゾーンになりました。そして今、世界は一つの大きく冷淡なマーケットと化す危機にあります。貨幣は経済発展の過程では人類の統一に貢献しましたが、それによって地域にある伝統や、人々がもつ親密な関係、そして人間の価値観などの共同体としてのダムが破壊されようとしているのです。

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

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.

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。

Chapter 10’s Question

Would it be realistic that money corrodes local traditions, intimate relations, and human values, replacing them with the cold laws of supply and demand?

My opinion: Since I’ve been watching a Korean TV show, called Vincenzo, that themed corruption and justice. I can see that how money deprives humanity of Sapiens successfully. It is ironic that Sapiens was able to devise something that helps their activities but corrodes their humanity. So, It is really realistic.

第１０章の質問

人々がもつ親密な関係、そして人間の価値観などの共同体としてのダムが腐敗し、それらを需要と供給の冷たい法則に置き換えているという著者の主張は現実的ですか？

私の意見：ヴィンチェンツォという韓国のテレビドラマを見てるんですが、テーマの腐敗と正義の対決なんです。お金がいかに見事にサピエンスから人間性奪っていくかをみることができます。サピエンスが彼らの活動の役に立つものでありながら同時に彼らの人間性を腐敗させる何かを考案することができたのは実に皮肉に思えます。筆者の主張は現実的だと思います。

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

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。

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
fall back on	One can fall back on barter.
treasury	We accept the dollar in payment because we trust in God and the US secretary of the treasury.
corrode	Money corrodes local traditions, intimate relations, and human values, replacing them with the cold laws of supply and demand.
trounce	Brutal warriors, religious fanatics, and concerned citizens have repeatedly managed to trounce calculating merchants.

単語	例文
頼たよる	一部の人は物々交換に頼る。
財ざい務む省しょう	私たちは神と米国財務省長官を信頼している、ゆえドルでの支払いを受け入れる。
腐ふ敗はいする	お金は人々がもつ親密な関係、そして人間の価値観を需要と供給の冷淡な取り決めに置き換えながら、サピエンスの共同体としてのダムを腐敗させている。
打うち負まかす	残忍な戦士、宗教的狂信者、そして心配性の市民たちは、企みのある商人を何度も打ち負かしてきた。

The story of money was interesting, wasn’t it? I was surprised that people not only issued coins for their victory but also emblazoned the opponent’s message. Money is an inter-subjective reality. And you don’t have to believe it. Only you need to believe that other people do believe it. That’s it.

お金の話、面白かったですよね。人々が戦いに勝利した時にコインを発行しただけでなく、戦いをした相手のメッセージを使ったコインも発行していたというのは、すごくびっくりしました。お金は共有された主観的な現実です。そして、お金の存在を信じる必要はありません。誰かそれを信じていると信じることができればそれでいいんです。

The author asserts that money endangers Sapiens’ communal dams. Would it be possible for Sapiens to devise another tool to strengthen our humanity in this high-technology era? Or, human rights is exactly the one functions for it? What do you think?

著者は、お金がサピエンスの人間性を支える根幹を危険にさらすと主張しています。サピエンスがこのハイテク時代に私たちの人間性を強化するためのお金以外のツールを考案することは可能でしょうか？それとも、人権こそがまさにそのために機能しうるものなのでしょうか。どう思いますか？