Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn

[Inverted Things]

TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL
Must have an earnest desire to
save the world. Apply in person.

The narrator of this story sees this ad in his morning paper and recalls the "children's revolt" of the sixties and seventies. Initially, the ad makes him profoundly frustrated and angry, and so he eventually decides to go to the address in the ad to satisfy his curiosity.

Upon entering the specified room, our narrator finds a poster with the vague question "With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?" While he is pondering the meaning of this question, a voice pops into his head. He looks over into the next room and sees a massive gorilla who speaks telepathically. This gorilla introduces himself as the teacher and goes by the name Ishmael.

After telling his story, Ishmael asks "On the basis of my history, what subject woiuld you say I was best qualified to teach?"

Narrator: "I don't know."

Ishmael: "Of course you do. My subject is: captivity

Narrator: "Captivity."

Ishmael: "That's correct."

Narrator: "I'm trying to figure out what this has to do with saving the world."

Ishmael: "Among the people of your culture, which want to destroy the world?"

Narrator: "Which want to destroy it? As far as I know, no one specifically wants to destroy the world."

Ishmael: "And yet you do destroy it, each of you. each of you contributes daily to the destruction of the world."

Narrator: "Yes, that's so."

Ishmael: "Why don't you stop?"

Narrator: "Frankly, we don't know how."

Ishmael: "You're captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order to live."


And that's just the first 25 pages of the book. Although written as a novel, Ishmael is really a philisophical exploration of our culture. Quinn ruthlessly and logically punctures the central tenets of our culture. He has the narrator recite the history of the universe in a science textbook fashion (from the big bang to evolution to present day and into the future), and points out that the subtle message is that "The world was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule it." Quinn also criticizes science for not exploring the question of how people should live, and offers some places to look for such knowledge.

Of course, religion is hardly safe in this book. Ishmael contains perhaps the most plausible interpretations of certain bible stories--interpretations which are essentially polar opposites of how these stories have been interpreted in the past. Quinn interprets the story of Genesis, and the story of Cain and Abel, suggesting in each case that they were written as war propaganda by the semites. I wouldn't be able to do these interpretations justice if I tried, so you'll just have to read the book.

Ishmael divides humankind into two cultures: Takers and Leavers. Takers are those people who attempt to control the world; the telltale mark of taker culture is that they "keep the food under lock and key." Leavers, on the other hand, do not try to lock up the food or control the world. Quinn introduces these terms in order to have neutral terms for the words "civilized" and "primitive."

Ishmael does an inadequate job of telling us how to break free of our destructive civilization, how to become Leavers rather than Takers. One of Quinn's later works is in fact devoted to this very issue. Nonetheless, at the end our narrator sees the opposite side of the poster he had seen on his first day with Ishmael. It reads "With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?"


Basically, Quinn's message can be boiled down to this:
"We've made a mess of the world in 4500 years by becoming civilized, while our ancestors lived as Leavers for 3,000,000 years without making a mess of the world. We obviously can't go back to being tribal, but we can look at why the tribal lifestyle works so well, and learn how to modify civilization so that we stop making a mess of the world."

[dazzleman]

I am sometimes troubled by some of these issues, particulary the reality that our whole economy is based on population growth and the continued entry of new people into the country.  It sometimes seems like a giant pyramid scheme.  There will come a point when population cannot increase further, and what will happen then?

[Inverted Things]

Indeed. Quinn is a big believer in Thomas Maltus's theory: Intensification of production of food to feed a larger population leads to a still larger population.  In the "Story of B," another book of Quinn's, he spends much time arguing this position, and recommends limiting the food supply.

Virtually every human would dislike this idea, but Quinn suggests that since there are 6 billion people on the earth, we ought to produce enough food to feed perhaps 5.9 billion. In 10 years time, drop that to 5.8 billion. Continue this gradual reduction in food production (and therefore population) until there are perhaps 2 billion people (or what ever number the earth can comfortably support).

To those who dislike the idea, it sure as hell beats the alternative: continue our present ways until an inevitable catastrophie.

[patrick1]

The population was 1 million when Malthus made his dire predicitions.  Scientific research has yielded plenty of food for this many people and many more were it not for genetic fears and inadequate distribution.  However,  I do belive that man will have some good old wars and have some pandemnics to balance things out a bit, but I do not agree with the particulars of Thomas Malthus' hypothesis.

[Jake]

Thus far, food production has stayed in pace with the growth of population, or I should say technology has done so. I see no indication that this trend will not continue into the future.

[Inverted Things]

Thus far, food production has stayed in pace with the growth of population, or I should say technology has done so.

This is true.

I see no indication that this trend will not continue into the future.

I do. For instance, new arable land is increasingly difficult to find, melting ice caps will render some arable land unuseable for farming, by homogenizing the ecosystem we leave it open to nasty virus attacks, poisons in the soil and water are becoming a worse problem.

That's assuming that the population growth slows considerably. If it doesn't then regardless of how much technology advances the population growth will eclipse the production.

The relationship between food production and population can be analogized to the Cold War. During the Cold War, when a newer and more powerful WMD was developed, we called it a "win" for our side. Of course, the Soviets would answer with a similar "win" of their own. Similarly, a "win" in food production is answered by a "win" in population growth.

In short, it's a vicious cycle. The Cold War ended when one of the participants walked away... ending the "food race" would require the same thing.

[Jake]

You are forgetting that as technology continues to advance, we may not require arable land to produce food, or may find a way to produce it much more efficiently.

[The Duke]

Spaceship Earth idiocy.