To Take It or Leave It

#115, April 16, 2003

 

If you are looking for a ray of hope, for a roadmap to a future other than one where the human race rips ever deeper into the body of the earth, get a copy of “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn and read it very carefully (see www.ishmael.com/welcome.cfm).

 

Ishmael is the fictional account of a yearlong conversation between a man and a gorilla, told in first-person narrative by the unnamed man. The man is a middle-age ex-activist who can’t quite forget his youthful desire to save the world. Ishmael is a hyper-intelligent, world-wise gorilla whose years behind bars qualify him to teach the man about the cultural beliefs that imprison modern mankind. Through a challenging Socratic dialogue that never loses clarity or credibility, Ishmael probes the man to express the “creation myth” of the modern “Taker” culture. It’s this mythology, says Ishmael, upon which all the institutions of civilization rest – it’s laws, traditions, social mores.

 

We don’t have such a mythology, argues the man. He goes on to tell the story of evolution, ending with “Species followed species, and finally man appeared.” After some discussion, the man realizes a fundamental assumption of the Taker culture hidden in those words: that man is the final act of evolution. He goes on to discover the Taker premise: the world was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule it. For man to become fully human, he had to exempt himself from natural laws. “As the Takers see it, the gods gave man the same choice as they gave Achilles: a brief life of glory, or a long, uneventful life in obscurity.” The Takers chose dead-end glory.

 

The man argued that this doom was just the price for the comfort and security bought by modern technology. But Ishmael disagreed. The destruction of the earth “is not the price of becoming human,” or the price of health and happiness. “It’s the price of enacting a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world.”

 

Contrary to what our Vice President seems to believe, humans are not naturally inclined to war and plunder. For over three million years Homo Sapiens sapiens lived by natural laws, taking no more than they needed, eating whatever they killed. Indigenous, aboriginal cultures (referred to as “Leavers”) still live this way, though their way of life is being ended at alarming rates.

 

Is it healthy to “cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man?” Does this give us happiness? In the end, says Ishmael, “this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated.” Imprisoned by this mythology, they need something to take their minds off the boredom and futility of their lives. The result: they consume the world. And go to war.

 

The ray of hope is that there is another way to live, one that recognizes that there is an ongoing role for humans in the multi-billion year story of this planet. Evolution has been moving creation toward greater complexity, intelligence, and self-awareness. Humans seem to be the first to have self-consciousness, but were not destined to be the last. We have a choice. We can try to thwart the laws of the earth and perish in the attempt. Or we can live anew, and let all of creation fulfill its destiny. On some far distant future day, others may hail the memory of man: “It was within his grasp to destroy the entire world… but he pulled back… He showed us all how it *had to be done* if the world was to go on being a garden forever.”

 

The man’s will to save the earth is renewed, but practical questions remain. “Are you suggesting we go back to being hunter-gatherers?” Ishmael responds: “The Leaver life-style isn’t about hunting and gathering, it’s about letting the rest of the community live… Your task is not to reach back but to reach forward. You’re an inventive people… you pride yourself on that, don’t you?” “Yes”, answers the man.

 

“Then invent.”