Important Books: ISHMAEL
BY DANIEL QUINN
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The Teachings of Ishmael (continued)
So, now we know the story which Taker culture is built on:
"The world was given to man to turn into a paradise, but he's always screwed it up, because he's fundamentally flawed. He might be able to do something about this if he knew how he ought to live, but he doesn't - and he never will, because no knowledge about this is obtainable. So, however hard man might labor to turn the world into a paradise, he's probably just going to go on screwing it up." pg. 94
This is built on a very important maximum - the claim that there is no way to "obtain any certain knowledge about how people should live....And therefore there is no point in looking for such knowledge." pg. 96
"...by studying the universe, you've learned how to fly, split atoms, send messages to the stars at the speed of light and so on, but there's no way of studying the universe to acquire the most basic and needful knowledge of all: the knowledge of how to live." pg 100
(Part Six of the book)
Ishmael says, "I reject this axiom...We don't need prophets to tell us how to live; we can find out for ourselves by consulting what's actually there." pg. 100
GOING EXTINCT
The law of Gravity says "Unsupported objects fall to the ground...The laws of aerodynamics don't provide us with a way of defying gravity...they simply provide us with a way of using the air a support..." pg. 110 The law we are looking for is like that. If it is following this law, a civilization (or a pride of lions or a swarm of bees) will last forever. If it is not in compliance with this law, it will fail.
Ishmael uses a great metaphor to illustrate that our society has been failing towards extinction since its beginning. He uses the example of an early attempt at flight in which a man jumps off a very high cliff in a bike with wings. He petals to flap the wings and, hopefully, fly. The craft doesn't work, but it takes a while for the man to realize this. At first, the man believes he is flying - he is in the air, after all. It is only as he approaches the bottom that he begins to get worried. At first he just petals harder, reasoning that he has been flying with this craft all along so maybe he just needs to do more of what has worked in the past. But eventually he sees clearly that he is actually falling (and has been all the time) and that there is a very fatal end approaching.
Our society, which began about 10,000 years ago when its story was invented, is like that man. We believed for the past 10,000 years that we were flying and with each new civilization which rose and fell, we reasoned that this kind of life has worked for 10,000 years ("all of human history," right?) so we just need to try harder. It's only in the past 50 years have we realized the ground is rising up to meet us very fast and in fact we have been falling all along.
But the craft isn't going to save us no matter how hard we petal. It is the craft which is carrying us towards catastrophe.
The Teachings of Ishmael (continued)
So, now we know the story which Taker culture is built on:
"The world was given to man to turn into a paradise, but he's always screwed it up, because he's fundamentally flawed. He might be able to do something about this if he knew how he ought to live, but he doesn't - and he never will, because no knowledge about this is obtainable. So, however hard man might labor to turn the world into a paradise, he's probably just going to go on screwing it up." pg. 94
This is built on a very important maximum - the claim that there is no way to "obtain any certain knowledge about how people should live....And therefore there is no point in looking for such knowledge." pg. 96
"...by studying the universe, you've learned how to fly, split atoms, send messages to the stars at the speed of light and so on, but there's no way of studying the universe to acquire the most basic and needful knowledge of all: the knowledge of how to live." pg 100
(Part Six of the book)
Ishmael says, "I reject this axiom...We don't need prophets to tell us how to live; we can find out for ourselves by consulting what's actually there." pg. 100
- "The early aeronauts had to proceed by trial and error, because they didn't now the laws of aerodynamics - didn't even know there were laws." pg. 101
- The people of our culture are in the same condition about learning how we ought to live.
- To learn about the habits of bees, you don't study mountains, you study bees. To learn about how to live, you study life - the great community of life on this earth.
- Mother culture tells us that any laws that apply to the rest of the community of life wouldn't apply to us because we are too far above them. But humans are not exempt from any other laws of nature (gravity, aerodynamics, physics). Neither are they exempt from the laws of nature which govern how one ought to live.
- "and when you are on the brink of extinction and want to live for a while longer, the laws governing life might conceivably become relevant." pg. 105
- "You have to remember that when Newton articulated the law of gravity, no one was astounded...Newton's achievement was not in discovering the phenomenon of gravity, it was in formulating the phenomenon as a law." pg. 106
- "Though the takers don't know it yet, the gods did not exempt man from the law that governs the lives of grubs and ticks and shrimps and rabbits and mollusks and deer and lions and jellyfish. they did not exempt him from this law any more than they excepted him from the law of gravity, and this is going to be the bitterest blow of all to the Takers." pg. 108
- Ishmael claims that species that live in compliance with this particular natural law live forever and those that stop living in compliance with it become extinct. Absolutely. No exceptions.
GOING EXTINCT
The law of Gravity says "Unsupported objects fall to the ground...The laws of aerodynamics don't provide us with a way of defying gravity...they simply provide us with a way of using the air a support..." pg. 110 The law we are looking for is like that. If it is following this law, a civilization (or a pride of lions or a swarm of bees) will last forever. If it is not in compliance with this law, it will fail.
Ishmael uses a great metaphor to illustrate that our society has been failing towards extinction since its beginning. He uses the example of an early attempt at flight in which a man jumps off a very high cliff in a bike with wings. He petals to flap the wings and, hopefully, fly. The craft doesn't work, but it takes a while for the man to realize this. At first, the man believes he is flying - he is in the air, after all. It is only as he approaches the bottom that he begins to get worried. At first he just petals harder, reasoning that he has been flying with this craft all along so maybe he just needs to do more of what has worked in the past. But eventually he sees clearly that he is actually falling (and has been all the time) and that there is a very fatal end approaching.
Our society, which began about 10,000 years ago when its story was invented, is like that man. We believed for the past 10,000 years that we were flying and with each new civilization which rose and fell, we reasoned that this kind of life has worked for 10,000 years ("all of human history," right?) so we just need to try harder. It's only in the past 50 years have we realized the ground is rising up to meet us very fast and in fact we have been falling all along.
But the craft isn't going to save us no matter how hard we petal. It is the craft which is carrying us towards catastrophe.
"The worst part of it is this...that the survivors, if there are any, will immediately set about doing it all over again exactly the same way." pg. 115
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(Part Seven of the Book)
In order to discover what this natural law is, we need to look at three things...
"It is the peace-keeping law, the law that keeps the community from turning into the howling chaos the Takers imagine it to be. It 's the law that fosters life for all - life for the grasses, life for the grasshopper that feeds on the grasses, life for the quail that feeds on the grasshopper, life for the fox that feeds on the quail..." pg. 124
"...about ten thousand years ago, one branch of the family of Homo sapiens sapiens said, 'Man is exempt from this law. The gods never meant man to be bound by it.' And so they built a civilization that flouts the law at every point, and within five hundred generations - in an eye-blink in the scale of biological time - the branch of the family of Homo sapien sapiens saw that they had brought the entire world to the point of death..." pg. 125
At the time that Taker society spread to the Americas, the Leavers on this continent had been trying to find a civilization that would not drive them to extinction but would give them the benefits of civilization and settled society which they wanted. "Proceeding simply by trail and error, it might have taken another ten thousand years - or another fifty thousand years. They apparently had the wisdom to know there was no hurry. They didn't have to get into the air." pg. 126
For years there have been great mysteries surrounding the Mayans and other groups which seem to have had great civilizations which simply up and disappeared, leaving their ruins to be claimed by the jungles. Ishmael explains that there is no great mystery - these civilizations simply weren't working. They were ruining their environments, the people weren't happy, they created too many poor and so on. Eventually, the people walked away, formed tribes that worked better and kept on living, maybe trying again for another kind of large-scale civilization hundreds of years later.
(Part Eight of the book)
There are 3 things Takers do which are never done in the rest of the community of life:
THE LAW: "You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war." pg 135
This law promotes diversity in the community of life. "Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself. A community of a hundred million species can survive almost anything short of total global catastrophe. ..but a community of a hundred species or a thousand species has almost no survival value at all." Pg. 136
Any species which stopped living by this law (call it, "The Law of Limited Competition") would have the same effect on the world. First they kill off their competitors and then our competitors twice removed and thrice removed (kill anything that eats deer, then kill any other animal that eats grass so all the grass goes only to deer for us to eat, then kill any plant that competes with grass...) "Kill off everything you can't eat. Kill off anything that eats what you eat. Kill off anything that doesn't' feed what you eat...it is holy work in Taker culture." pg. 139
"Once you exempt yourself from the law of limited competition, everything in the world except your food and the food of your food becomes an enemy to be exterminated." pg. 139
"One species exempting itself from this law has the ultimate effect of all species exempting themselves from it." pg. 139
"You have to end up where the Takers have ended up - constantly eliminating competitors, constantly increasing food supply and constantly wondering what you are going to do about the over population." pg. 139
Does this mean that human settlements are against nature? No. "Settlement is a biological adaptation practiced to some degree by every species including the human...human settlement isn't against the laws of competition, it's subject to the laws of competition." pg. 142
"Any community which exempts itself from the laws of competition ends up destroying the community to support its own expansion." pg. 142
Mother Culture disagrees - She says that it is possible for humans to increase their food supply without increasing their population. But Ishmael argues - and quite convincingly - that there has never been (that no one can find) an example in human history (or the history of any other species) in which the food increased and population didn't increase (unless something else was at work like a natural disaster).
Without fail: "Increasing food production to feed an increased population inevitably leads to another increase of population." pg. 143 Always. Absolutely. No matter what. [I was skeptical of this claim at first, but Ishmael was ultimately very convincing and I now believe this is scientifically true throughout the history of every human society just as he says. - If you are not convinced, read the book. He backs up his claims with lots of data and sound reasoning.]
"Within our culture as a whole, there is in fact no significant thrust towards global population control. the point to see is that there never will be such a thrust as long as you are enacting a story that says t he gods made the world for man." pg. 144
In order to discover what this natural law is, we need to look at three things...
- What do groups that aren't going extinct do that make them work well
- What do groups that aren't going extinct not do that make them work well
- What do groups that are going extinct do that the other groups don't?
"It is the peace-keeping law, the law that keeps the community from turning into the howling chaos the Takers imagine it to be. It 's the law that fosters life for all - life for the grasses, life for the grasshopper that feeds on the grasses, life for the quail that feeds on the grasshopper, life for the fox that feeds on the quail..." pg. 124
"...about ten thousand years ago, one branch of the family of Homo sapiens sapiens said, 'Man is exempt from this law. The gods never meant man to be bound by it.' And so they built a civilization that flouts the law at every point, and within five hundred generations - in an eye-blink in the scale of biological time - the branch of the family of Homo sapien sapiens saw that they had brought the entire world to the point of death..." pg. 125
At the time that Taker society spread to the Americas, the Leavers on this continent had been trying to find a civilization that would not drive them to extinction but would give them the benefits of civilization and settled society which they wanted. "Proceeding simply by trail and error, it might have taken another ten thousand years - or another fifty thousand years. They apparently had the wisdom to know there was no hurry. They didn't have to get into the air." pg. 126
For years there have been great mysteries surrounding the Mayans and other groups which seem to have had great civilizations which simply up and disappeared, leaving their ruins to be claimed by the jungles. Ishmael explains that there is no great mystery - these civilizations simply weren't working. They were ruining their environments, the people weren't happy, they created too many poor and so on. Eventually, the people walked away, formed tribes that worked better and kept on living, maybe trying again for another kind of large-scale civilization hundreds of years later.
(Part Eight of the book)
There are 3 things Takers do which are never done in the rest of the community of life:
- They exterminate their competitors.
- They systematically destroy their competitors' food to make room for their own.
- They deny their competitors access to food.
- "In the wild, the rule is: You may deny your competitors access to what you're eating, but you may not deny them access to food in general. In other words, you can say, 'This gazelle is mine,' but you can't say, 'All gazelles are mine.'" pg. 133
- "Bees will deny you access to what's inside their hive in the apple tree, but they won't deny you access to the apples." pg. 134
THE LAW: "You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war." pg 135
This law promotes diversity in the community of life. "Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself. A community of a hundred million species can survive almost anything short of total global catastrophe. ..but a community of a hundred species or a thousand species has almost no survival value at all." Pg. 136
Any species which stopped living by this law (call it, "The Law of Limited Competition") would have the same effect on the world. First they kill off their competitors and then our competitors twice removed and thrice removed (kill anything that eats deer, then kill any other animal that eats grass so all the grass goes only to deer for us to eat, then kill any plant that competes with grass...) "Kill off everything you can't eat. Kill off anything that eats what you eat. Kill off anything that doesn't' feed what you eat...it is holy work in Taker culture." pg. 139
"Once you exempt yourself from the law of limited competition, everything in the world except your food and the food of your food becomes an enemy to be exterminated." pg. 139
"One species exempting itself from this law has the ultimate effect of all species exempting themselves from it." pg. 139
"You have to end up where the Takers have ended up - constantly eliminating competitors, constantly increasing food supply and constantly wondering what you are going to do about the over population." pg. 139
- And here we begin to get into what is one of the key reasons Taker culture doesn't work: It is a law of nature that if a population's food supply increases, that population will increase (more babies will be born).
Does this mean that human settlements are against nature? No. "Settlement is a biological adaptation practiced to some degree by every species including the human...human settlement isn't against the laws of competition, it's subject to the laws of competition." pg. 142
"Any community which exempts itself from the laws of competition ends up destroying the community to support its own expansion." pg. 142
Mother Culture disagrees - She says that it is possible for humans to increase their food supply without increasing their population. But Ishmael argues - and quite convincingly - that there has never been (that no one can find) an example in human history (or the history of any other species) in which the food increased and population didn't increase (unless something else was at work like a natural disaster).
Without fail: "Increasing food production to feed an increased population inevitably leads to another increase of population." pg. 143 Always. Absolutely. No matter what. [I was skeptical of this claim at first, but Ishmael was ultimately very convincing and I now believe this is scientifically true throughout the history of every human society just as he says. - If you are not convinced, read the book. He backs up his claims with lots of data and sound reasoning.]
"Within our culture as a whole, there is in fact no significant thrust towards global population control. the point to see is that there never will be such a thrust as long as you are enacting a story that says t he gods made the world for man." pg. 144
Ishmael makes a really simple point which at first I refused to believe. But he argues it clearly and convincingly enough that I can no longer disbelieve it. He claims that in every population of any living thing, if the food stays the same, the population will stabilize. If the food increases the population increases. If the food decreases, the population decreases. And he brings the reasoning back to something that seems so simple - and also so offensive - to modern humans that I wanted to reject it at first. He says that this has to be the way of things because all living things are made out of food. Nothing else can make them. It takes X amount of food to create a human body. If there are 2 human bodies, we know that there was at least 2X amount of food. There has to be, because otherwise what would the second human body be made of?
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So, we've learned one law about how people ought to live to avoid extinction:
"any species that as a matter of policy exempts itself from the law of limited competition will end by destroying the community to support its own expansion" pg. 151
"Obviously Mother Culture must be finished off if you're going to survive" pg. 153
"any species that as a matter of policy exempts itself from the law of limited competition will end by destroying the community to support its own expansion" pg. 151
"Obviously Mother Culture must be finished off if you're going to survive" pg. 153