Important Books: ISHMAEL
BY DANIEL QUINN
page 3
back to previous page...
When Ishmael refers to "your culture" he is referring to all of the modern nations of the world. He believes [and again, he is very convincing in laying out this argument] that all of these - Russia, Iran, The United States, Japan, China - all arose from the one culture which 10,000 years ago began enacting the story, "The world was made by man and man was meant to rule it. But man was flawed and had no way to gain knowledge about the right way to live, so things keep going wrong." He calls east and west twins of the same birth. The differences are superficial - the story they are enacting is the same.
The only cultures of the world which are not part of this culture (this story) are the few Leaver cultures which still exist around the globe - fewer and fewer each day. Leaver cultures, on the flip side, are all enacting the same story as each other as well.
(Part Nine of the Book)
I will come back to this part later. This section of the book talks about the book of Genesis and is fascinating and exciting but I am going to put it at the end, since it is not necessary for spelling out the outline of this book. (It is a big part of understanding and accepting these ideas however.)
(Part Ten of the Book)
The Leaver Story
Leavers the world over live by an accumulation of wisdom and knowledge gained by all those who lived before them, going back 3 million years. Ten thousand years ago, the progenitors of our culture decided that no one before them had know n anything important and threw all this knowledge out, deciding to start from scratch on everything.
"When the people of your culture encountered the hunter-gatherers of Africa and America, it was thought that these were people who had degenerated from the natural, agricultural state, people who had lost the arts they'd been born with. The Takers had no idea that they were looking at what they themselves had been before they became agriculturists."
But the Takers didn't throw away all knowledge. They saved knowledge about how to make things. Leavers don't tend to value this knowledge as highly, saving it only when it is important for a present need. Leavers saved a different kind of knowledge: They save knowledge about what works well for them.
"each Leaver culture is an accumulation of knowlege that reaches back in an unbroken chain to the beginning of human life. This is why its no great wonder that each of them is a way that works well. Each has been tested and refined over thousands of generations." pg. 220
"Takers want...to know the one right way to live." pg. 220 (as opposed to one among many)
"Every one of the Leaver's ways came into being by evolution...None of these cultures were inventions." pg. 221
"The Takers accumulate knowledge about what works well for things. The Leavers about what works well for people." pg. 222
(Part Eleven of the Book)
"Why bother to learn what story is being enacted here by the people of your own culture?...So they can stop enacting it." pg. 229
"People can't just give up a story. That's what the kids tried to do in the sixties and seventies. They tried to stop living like Takers, but there was no other way for them to live. They failed because you can't just stop being in a story, you have to have another story to be in." pg. 230 This is why it is important to know what the Leaver's story was - so we can see an alternative story to our own.
So what is the leaver story about? The same thing as every story... about the meaning of the world, about divine intentions in the world and about the destiny of man.
Mother Culture teaches that the agricultural revolution was a technical discovery. But really it was more of a religious movement. Various Leaver cultures for the past 3 million years had done some form of agriculture or another. It wasn't growing their own food that was the innovation.
"Takers believe in their revolution, [the move from Leaver society to Taker society] even when they enjoy none of the benefits. There are no grumblers, no dissidents, no counterrevolutionaries. They all believe profoundly that, however bad things are now, they were infinitely preferable to what came before." pg. 235
Why do we dread the idea of living like people did ten thousand years ago? We have a gut idea (taught by Mother Culture) that this was a horrible, stressful, painful life - solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. But in fact, that describes most Taker lives over the past 10,000 years. Leaver existence was rarely like that. "Hunter-gathers no more live on the knife-edge of survival then wolves or lions or sparrows or rabbits. Man was as well adapted to life on this planet as any other species, and the idea that he lived on the knife edge of survival is just biological nonsense. As an omnivore, his dietary range is immense. Thousands of species will go hungry before he does...Far from scrabbling endlessly and desperately for food, hunter-gathers are among the best fed people on earth, and they manage this with only two or three hours a day of what you would call work - which makes them among the most leisured people on earth as well." pg. 237
The horror that we have of that life comes from the fact that in the natural cycle of things, there are times when famine hits and people die. Takers try to control their own food supply so that this never has to happen to them - so that they never have to take their turn on the cycle of plenty and scarcity which regulates the world. (Never mind that this has never worked - far more Takers starve to death than ever happened in Leaver society).
The primary difference between Takers and Leavers is that the Takers are trying to take control of their lives and the lives of all other things into their own hands and the Leavers are leaving such things in the "hands of the gods."
(Part Twelve of the Book)
What happens to people who live in the hands of the gods? They evolve. Man became man by evolving.
"How would you live so as to make creation come to an end with man?...You would live the way the Takers live. We're definitely living in a way that's going to put an end to creation..." pg. 257
Every story is the working out of a premis...The premise of the Taker's story is "The world belongs to man." ...The premis of the Leaver's story is "Man belongs to the world." pg.259
The Taker's story is: "The gods made the world for man, but they botched the job, so we had to take matters into our own, more competent hands." pg. 259
The Leaver's story is: "The gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows and rabbits for the world; this seemed to have worked pretty well so far, so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods." pg. 259
Ishmael proposes that maybe the gods did not intend man to be the only intelligent, self-aware creature on the earth, but only the first. The gods meant man to show the way as all creatures evolved towards self-awareness. This was what man's role was meant to be - to show the others the path.
What must we do if we want to stop destroying the world? "The story of Genesis must be reversed. First, Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you're to survive. The Leavers are the endangered species most critical to the world - not because they're humans but because they alone can show the destroyers of the world that there is no one right way to live. And then, of course, ...you must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet." pg. 268
To do this, each person who learns from Ishmael must teach others what they learned. Because you can't change the world until you change the way people think.
So does living a more healthy way mean we go back to being hunter-gathereres? "That of course is an inane idea," Ishmael said, "The Leaver lifestyle isn't about hunting and gathering, its about letting the rest of the community live - and agriculturists can do that as well as hunter-gatherers."
"...it should be noted that what is crucial to your survival as a race is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison, but rather the destruction of the prison itself." pg. 272
Follow-Up
For more about these ideas and other works by Daniel Quinn's click here to go to his website.
When Ishmael refers to "your culture" he is referring to all of the modern nations of the world. He believes [and again, he is very convincing in laying out this argument] that all of these - Russia, Iran, The United States, Japan, China - all arose from the one culture which 10,000 years ago began enacting the story, "The world was made by man and man was meant to rule it. But man was flawed and had no way to gain knowledge about the right way to live, so things keep going wrong." He calls east and west twins of the same birth. The differences are superficial - the story they are enacting is the same.
The only cultures of the world which are not part of this culture (this story) are the few Leaver cultures which still exist around the globe - fewer and fewer each day. Leaver cultures, on the flip side, are all enacting the same story as each other as well.
(Part Nine of the Book)
I will come back to this part later. This section of the book talks about the book of Genesis and is fascinating and exciting but I am going to put it at the end, since it is not necessary for spelling out the outline of this book. (It is a big part of understanding and accepting these ideas however.)
(Part Ten of the Book)
The Leaver Story
Leavers the world over live by an accumulation of wisdom and knowledge gained by all those who lived before them, going back 3 million years. Ten thousand years ago, the progenitors of our culture decided that no one before them had know n anything important and threw all this knowledge out, deciding to start from scratch on everything.
"When the people of your culture encountered the hunter-gatherers of Africa and America, it was thought that these were people who had degenerated from the natural, agricultural state, people who had lost the arts they'd been born with. The Takers had no idea that they were looking at what they themselves had been before they became agriculturists."
But the Takers didn't throw away all knowledge. They saved knowledge about how to make things. Leavers don't tend to value this knowledge as highly, saving it only when it is important for a present need. Leavers saved a different kind of knowledge: They save knowledge about what works well for them.
"each Leaver culture is an accumulation of knowlege that reaches back in an unbroken chain to the beginning of human life. This is why its no great wonder that each of them is a way that works well. Each has been tested and refined over thousands of generations." pg. 220
"Takers want...to know the one right way to live." pg. 220 (as opposed to one among many)
"Every one of the Leaver's ways came into being by evolution...None of these cultures were inventions." pg. 221
"The Takers accumulate knowledge about what works well for things. The Leavers about what works well for people." pg. 222
(Part Eleven of the Book)
"Why bother to learn what story is being enacted here by the people of your own culture?...So they can stop enacting it." pg. 229
"People can't just give up a story. That's what the kids tried to do in the sixties and seventies. They tried to stop living like Takers, but there was no other way for them to live. They failed because you can't just stop being in a story, you have to have another story to be in." pg. 230 This is why it is important to know what the Leaver's story was - so we can see an alternative story to our own.
So what is the leaver story about? The same thing as every story... about the meaning of the world, about divine intentions in the world and about the destiny of man.
Mother Culture teaches that the agricultural revolution was a technical discovery. But really it was more of a religious movement. Various Leaver cultures for the past 3 million years had done some form of agriculture or another. It wasn't growing their own food that was the innovation.
"Takers believe in their revolution, [the move from Leaver society to Taker society] even when they enjoy none of the benefits. There are no grumblers, no dissidents, no counterrevolutionaries. They all believe profoundly that, however bad things are now, they were infinitely preferable to what came before." pg. 235
Why do we dread the idea of living like people did ten thousand years ago? We have a gut idea (taught by Mother Culture) that this was a horrible, stressful, painful life - solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. But in fact, that describes most Taker lives over the past 10,000 years. Leaver existence was rarely like that. "Hunter-gathers no more live on the knife-edge of survival then wolves or lions or sparrows or rabbits. Man was as well adapted to life on this planet as any other species, and the idea that he lived on the knife edge of survival is just biological nonsense. As an omnivore, his dietary range is immense. Thousands of species will go hungry before he does...Far from scrabbling endlessly and desperately for food, hunter-gathers are among the best fed people on earth, and they manage this with only two or three hours a day of what you would call work - which makes them among the most leisured people on earth as well." pg. 237
The horror that we have of that life comes from the fact that in the natural cycle of things, there are times when famine hits and people die. Takers try to control their own food supply so that this never has to happen to them - so that they never have to take their turn on the cycle of plenty and scarcity which regulates the world. (Never mind that this has never worked - far more Takers starve to death than ever happened in Leaver society).
The primary difference between Takers and Leavers is that the Takers are trying to take control of their lives and the lives of all other things into their own hands and the Leavers are leaving such things in the "hands of the gods."
(Part Twelve of the Book)
What happens to people who live in the hands of the gods? They evolve. Man became man by evolving.
"How would you live so as to make creation come to an end with man?...You would live the way the Takers live. We're definitely living in a way that's going to put an end to creation..." pg. 257
Every story is the working out of a premis...The premise of the Taker's story is "The world belongs to man." ...The premis of the Leaver's story is "Man belongs to the world." pg.259
The Taker's story is: "The gods made the world for man, but they botched the job, so we had to take matters into our own, more competent hands." pg. 259
The Leaver's story is: "The gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows and rabbits for the world; this seemed to have worked pretty well so far, so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods." pg. 259
Ishmael proposes that maybe the gods did not intend man to be the only intelligent, self-aware creature on the earth, but only the first. The gods meant man to show the way as all creatures evolved towards self-awareness. This was what man's role was meant to be - to show the others the path.
What must we do if we want to stop destroying the world? "The story of Genesis must be reversed. First, Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you're to survive. The Leavers are the endangered species most critical to the world - not because they're humans but because they alone can show the destroyers of the world that there is no one right way to live. And then, of course, ...you must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet." pg. 268
To do this, each person who learns from Ishmael must teach others what they learned. Because you can't change the world until you change the way people think.
So does living a more healthy way mean we go back to being hunter-gathereres? "That of course is an inane idea," Ishmael said, "The Leaver lifestyle isn't about hunting and gathering, its about letting the rest of the community live - and agriculturists can do that as well as hunter-gatherers."
"...it should be noted that what is crucial to your survival as a race is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison, but rather the destruction of the prison itself." pg. 272
Follow-Up
For more about these ideas and other works by Daniel Quinn's click here to go to his website.
