{"id":3511223,"date":"2025-03-25T10:38:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T10:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/?p=3511223"},"modified":"2025-03-25T10:42:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T10:42:51","slug":"ishmael-overview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2025-03-25\/ishmael-overview\/","title":{"rendered":"Ishmael Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3511232 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ishmael-daniel-quinn-129x200.jpg\" alt=\"bookcover\" width=\"129\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ishmael-daniel-quinn-129x200.jpg 129w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ishmael-daniel-quinn.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 129px) 100vw, 129px\" \/>Have I\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2023\/08\/call-me-ishmael\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"3146\">mentioned<\/a>\u00a0how important I think Daniel Quinn\u2019s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ishmael.org\/books\/the-book\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ishmael<\/a><\/em>\u00a0is? I reread it recently for the first time in a while, and was again impressed with how many important modernity-challenging ideas are packed into one novel.<\/p>\n<p>I would dearly love everyone to read it. It\u2019s not that I hold it to be flawless\u2014to be treated as a divinely-inspired religious text. But it\u2019s hard to think of a more powerful place to start for seeding incredibly important conversations and shifting awareness. It often transforms its readers, whether teenagers or retirees.<\/p>\n<p>Options for reading the book include library access (also an audio version recently out), purchase (I recommend\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/ishmael-daniel-quinn\/11423360?ean=9780553375404&amp;next=t\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">bookshop.org<\/a>, which goes to an independent book shop of your choice), or a few sites (<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/daniel-quinn-ishmael\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">1<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blackbooksdotpub.wordpress.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ishmael-a-novel-by-daniel-quinn-z-lib.org_.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/carbonfarm.us\/555\/ishmael-1-5.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">3<\/a>) that somehow make the text available. Being trapped behind a commercial \u201cpaywall\u201d seems counter to the entire message of the book, which explicitly encourages sharing the message broadly.<\/p>\n<p>I also suggest that you visit the site\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ishmael.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ishmael.org<\/a>\u00a0for more related content and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ishmael.org\/about\/faq\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">FAQ answers<\/a>\u00a0from Daniel Quinn (who died in 2018). A recent podcast series called\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.libsyn.com\/505433\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Human Nature Odyssey<\/a>, by Alex Leff, does a fantastic job of presenting key ideas from the book.<\/p>\n<p>As a poor substitute for the entire book, what I\u2019ll do is create a series here on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/\">Do the Math<\/a>\u00a0that offers a relatively comprehensive version of the themes in the book. It won\u2019t be as masterfully crafted as the actual book\u2014but perhaps will be good enough to generate similar patterns of thought, and inspire greater readership of the original work.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Structure<\/h3>\n<p>As I recently read the book again, I took notes that I deliberately kept to \u201cone line\u201d per numbered chapter subsection (for all but two sections that contained too many important ideas for one line). This \u201cpreview\u201d post is built off of said notes, expanded beyond the initial one-liners to be full sentences. As such, it acts as a sort of expanded table of contents. The posts that follow this one will be broken into the thirteen chapters, released at an intended cadence of two per week.<\/p>\n<p>It may be a mistake to put this preview (spoiler) up front, before the individual chapter posts, but that\u2019s just how it\u2019s going to be. It may work best if you have already read\u00a0<em>Ishmael<\/em>\u00a0and would like a lightning-fast reminder (also might serve as a decent reference for finding and re-reading sections of particular interest). You may wish to wait for the start of the full content in a couple days. For that matter, perhaps reading the original book is the best first step, using this resource as a compact review in years to come.<\/p>\n<p>Some quick notes:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Page numbers in the chapter headings below refer to the original and 25th anniversary editions, separated by a slash.<\/li>\n<li>Each chapter is organized into numbered subsections, reflected in the numbered lists below.<\/li>\n<li>I frequently use the term \u201cmodernity\u201d as an easy label, but this word is not prominent (or even present?) in the book\u2014which tends to use \u201cMother Culture\u201d to represent the prevailing worldview.<\/li>\n<li>Being over 30 years old, the book still uses the convention of \u201cman,\u201d which I tend to replace with \u201chuman\u201d in my review.<\/li>\n<li>Rare personal opinions\/contributions are placed in [square brackets].<\/li>\n<li>As individual chapters are featured in future posts, I will link them in the outline below for convenient access.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ONE (1\/1)<\/h3>\n<p>Chapter One introduces the protagonist\/narrator and the telepathic gorilla named Ishmael who is to be Alan\u2019s teacher. While the narrator\u2019s name is never revealed in this book, we learn it to be Alan Lomax in future works. For the purposes of this review, it is far easier to refer to him by name.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Alan sees an ad in the paper by a teacher seeking students with an honest desire to save the world. The ad makes Alan angry, calling to mind youthful, naive fantasies about a better world.<\/li>\n<li>Alan\u2019s curiosity drives him to learn what huckster\/scheme is behind the ad, startled to find a large gorilla (who we later learn is named Ishmael) behind a glass wall in the otherwise empty Room 105 in a shabby downtown building. He quickly discovers Ishmael\u2019s telepathic communication capacity and uneasily settles in for Ishmael\u2019s story.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael recounts his earliest memories in a zoo, having been captured in the wild as an infant. He and other animals constantly asked: \u201cWhy, why, why\u201d is life this way\u2014there\u2019s clearly something very wrong about it. He was transferred to a traveling menagerie, billed as the monster named Goliath. He slowly picked up language by close attention to the steady stream of visitors and children\u2014starting with his oft-repeated name. A mysterious man turned up and pronounced him \u201cnot Goliath!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael was \u201cthunderstruck\u201d by being stripped of a name: now\u00a0<em>nobody<\/em>! A few days later, he awakens in a secured gazebo on an estate lawn. The mysterious man appears again, this time pronouncing him to be Ishmael, to his great relief. The man is Walter Sokolow, who quickly learns of Ishmael\u2019s comprehension of language. Excruciating failures at vocalization lead to a frustrated telepathic outburst\/connection. Once Ishmael gets up to speed, the two begin researching together as colleagues. Sokolow marries a woman wholly displeased by Ishmael, and gives birth to a girl, Rachel.<\/li>\n<li>Rachel grows up tightly bonded to Ishmael. Sokolow dies, leaving Rachel as Ishmael\u2019s protector. Ishmael eventually finds his calling as a teacher.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael mentions four past pupils, labeling all as failed outcomes. He then reveals the subject in which he has particular insight as being\u00a0<strong>captivity<\/strong>. This is relevant because modernity traps us in a destructive system. So immersive is this trap that we can\u2019t find or even sense the bars of the cage.<\/li>\n<li>In explaining how he found his way to Ishmael, Alan recounts a school paper on a counterfactual Nazi future\u2014many generations down the line when Aryans (alone) lived in all corners of the globe and the ugly history of how it had come about thoroughly expunged from cultural memory. One of the two characters in his story, Kurt, expresses an intangible feeling of having been lied to about something big, but could not identify just what. Alan feels similarly about our world, but doesn\u2019t see what difference it could make to know the lie. Ishmael points out that if we could\u00a0<em>all<\/em>\u00a0sense the lie, we\u2019d change [what I call \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2024\/08\/mm-18-what-can-i-do\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"8914\">falling out of love with modernity<\/a>\u201c].<\/li>\n<li>The next morning, upon reflection, the entire encounter with a telepathic gorilla seemed like it may have been nothing more than a dream.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">TWO (31\/33)<\/h3>\n<p>The lessons begin. Note that the term \u201cgods\u201d is used in a figurative sense.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Ishmael points out that the Germans of the 1930s were captives of a story. The cultural tide was too powerful to resist, even if you had problems with it. We, also, are captives of a story.<\/li>\n<li>Skeptical Germans had the option to flee Germany for similar cultures that were less crazed. But modernity affords no such escape. Ishmael warns Alan that acquiring this perspective\/knowledge is isolating [like taking the red pill].<\/li>\n<li>Vocabulary: Takers and Leavers replace the more loaded terms \u201ccivilized\u201d and \u201cprimitive.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The aim is to discover our culture\u2019s common story of how things came to be the way they are. The process will build a mosaic. The exact route\/order is of secondary importance to the completed mosaic [turn off the left-brain and let the right brain absorb a holistic picture, over time].<\/li>\n<li>More vocabulary: \u201cA\u00a0<em>story<\/em>\u00a0is a scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods\u201d; \u201cTo\u00a0<em>enact<\/em>\u00a0a story is to live so as to make the story a reality\u201d; \u201cA\u00a0<em>culture<\/em>\u00a0is people enacting a story.\u201d Leavers and Takers are enacting completely different stories, the latter one leading toward catastrophe.<\/li>\n<li>It is\u00a0<strong>not<\/strong>\u00a0accurate to say that Leavers represent Chapter 1 of a story and Takers Chapter 2 of the same story. These are\u00a0<strong>different<\/strong>,\u00a0<em>parallel<\/em>\u00a0stories overlapping each other in time on the same planet.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael\u2019s assignment to Alan: find modernity\u2019s story\u2014the one that \u201cMother Culture\u201d incessantly whispers in our ears. What is the mythology shared by our culture? Alan is incredulous\u2014rejecting the notion that we are primitive enough to subscribe to a\u00a0<em>mythology<\/em>\u00a0of\u00a0<em>any<\/em>\u00a0sort. The idea is laughably ridiculous.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">THREE (47\/51)<\/h3>\n<p>Ishmael extracts the story\u2019s beginning out of Alan, as if pulling reluctant teeth.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Ishmael provides a tape recorder to capture Alan\u2019s story. To make the task more tractable, Ishmael recommends starting just with the story\u2019s beginning (saving the middle and end for later). Alan swears there will be no mythology in it.<\/li>\n<li>Alan recounts the standard (approximate; broad-brush) tale of cosmology, geology, and evolution, ending up at humans. Ishmael asks Alan to identify the mythological aspect, but Alan simply can\u2019t spot anything mythological about it: purely factual and science-based.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael offers a parable: a similar account from a jellyfish 500 Myr ago. The jellyfish account ends with the triumphant arrival of jellyfish on Earth.<\/li>\n<li>Alan offers heavy and sustained resistance in accepting the mythological nature of his story\u2019s culminating in the arrival of humans, but admits it in the end, through bared teeth.<\/li>\n<li>Our standard story, though baked with factual ingredients, spins Earth as being made (by the \u201cgods\u201d)\u00a0<em>just for humans<\/em>, and this unspoken assumption is of great importance in our culture.<\/li>\n<li>Our story\u2019s premise:\u00a0<strong>the world was made for us, and therefore\u00a0<em>belongs<\/em>\u00a0to us<\/strong>. We can do with it whatever we wish. We speak of\u00a0<em>our<\/em>\u00a0planet,\u00a0<em>our<\/em>\u00a0environment, and even\u00a0<em>our<\/em>\u00a0wildlife. That\u2019s mythology.<\/li>\n<li>So, if the planet belongs to humans, why are things messed up? Alan suggests it\u2019s because the gods made a mistake in designing Earth for humans (rather than, say, for jellyfish).<\/li>\n<li>Alan\u2019s assignment: come up with the middle part of the story. Alan predicts it will mimic the style of a\u00a0<em>Nova<\/em>\u00a0show.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">FOUR (65\/69)<\/h3>\n<p>The middle of the story comes out. Keep in mind, these are not Ishmael\u2019s teachings, but an account of the story we tell ourselves in the culture of modernity.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Humans wasted millions of years living like animals. But that\u2019s not how humans were\u00a0<em>meant<\/em>\u00a0to be. Humans could only realize their greatness if they formed settlements and got to work building civilization. To do this, they first needed to grow food: no more living at the whims of what the gods provide.<\/li>\n<li>Our destiny was not to live like the lion or the wombat. Ishmael presses: what\u00a0<em>is<\/em>\u00a0human destiny\u2014in the mythological sense?<\/li>\n<li>Alan\u2019s story goes that without man, the world was a dangerous, chaotic place: a wild, untamed jungle. It needed a ruler to set things straight. By this time, Alan is much quicker to recognize a mythology when he hears one coming out of his mouth: it is in no way a\u00a0<em>fact<\/em>\u00a0that Earth required a ruling species.<\/li>\n<li>The trouble is: the world did not meekly succumb to human ambitions to rule. Nature resisted our attempts at control, constantly thwarting our efforts and schemes in every possible way. Therefore, the ruler must\u00a0<strong>conquer<\/strong>\u00a0the wild. This attitude is pervasive in our society: we hear it daily, in myriad, inexplicit undertones.<\/li>\n<li>The damages accrued are just the price of fulfilling our unquestioned destiny. There\u2019s no real choice: enacting a story where humans are\u00a0<strong>at war with the world<\/strong>\u00a0(as if an enemy) is\u00a0<em>going<\/em>\u00a0to be damaging.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">FIVE (77\/81)<\/h3>\n<p>Alan finishes out the end of the story\u2014via substantial prompting, as usual.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What does the future hold? Well, admittedly, it\u2019s going sideways. We\u2019re at great risk of failure\/collapse. Thus, we need to re-double our efforts and achieve\u00a0<em>perfect<\/em>\u00a0mastery of the planet to realize the paradise that Earth was meant to be in our competent hands.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael notes that the sense of peril is relatively new: mere decades ago the prevailing assumption was that \u201cthings were just going to go on getting better and better and better.\u201d So, sure, humans were destined to rule this eventual paradise, but there\u2019s a fly in the ointment: humans are\u00a0<em>intrinsically flawed<\/em>, and thus always screw up the grand plans.<\/li>\n<li>This perspective that humans are intrinsically flawed is part of our cultural history spanning millennia, but is largely limited to Taker mythology (i.e., the premise of modernity). Humans need not be that way.<\/li>\n<li>Takers have a habit of relying on prophets to tell us how to live. Ishmael points out that these notions come from \u201cthe insides of your heads\u201d [<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2024\/12\/shortcut-brains\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"9898\">meat-brains<\/a>]. Takers are convinced that it is impossible to find guidance from the \u201cexternal\u201d universe relevant as to how humans should live.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael draws a connection between the Taker-assumed fundamental flaw in humans and the observation that Takers don\u2019t know how to live. Maybe, in fact, that\u00a0<em>is<\/em>\u00a0the flaw.<\/li>\n<li>It amounts to a sad, desperate story: humans are fundamentally flawed, will never know the one right way to live, and are thus doomed to screw up. Yuck. Is there another story to be in?<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael notes that he has been exposing connections hidden in plain sight\u2014like tourist attractions that locals don\u2019t even notice anymore. The next step is to find information on how humans ought to live, which Alan insists is not available.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">SIX (93\/97)<\/h3>\n<p>In search of the Law of Life\u2026<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>We don\u2019t need prophets [and their meat-brains] to tell us how to live: we can consult\u00a0<em>what\u2019s actually there<\/em>. An analogy is constructed to the role of aerodynamic laws in understanding how one might fly: discoverable by observing interactions of air and objects. Alan is still certain that one cannot discover (non-existent) laws on how to live.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael points out that humans are not exempt from the law of gravity. Where ought one look to find the Law of Life? Try the community of life! An aspiring aeronaut who wants to stay aloft would benefit from acquaintance with the laws of gravity and aerodynamics, thus: \u201cwhen you\u2019re on the brink of extinction and want to live for a while longer, the laws governing life might conceivably become relevant.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Just as gravity keeps the Earth, solar system, and galaxy together\/organized, so too does the Law of Life keep the community of life together. Yes, biologists know all about the relevant\u00a0<em>phenomena<\/em>, but culture prevents scientists\u2014like everyone else\u2014from identifying a universal\u00a0<em>law<\/em>, since the conviction is that any such law would not apply to humans, and thus not be a law.<\/li>\n<li>The Law of Life\u00a0<em>will indeed<\/em>\u00a0apply to humans. Yet, our culture insists that humans are exempt; unique; transcendent; apart from nature.<\/li>\n<li>The gods have played three dirty tricks on the Takers that are tough pills to swallow: 1) the Copernican Revolution revoked Earth\u2019s status as the center of the cosmos (begrudgingly accepted not that long ago); 2) Darwinian evolution indicated that we emerged from the ignominious slime rather than being delivered by divine means (still new, barely accepted); and 3) humans are not exempt from the Law of Life (not yet accepted or even discussed). The only way to live long-term is to comply with the Law; else we go extinct.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael offers a story of a flying contraption that is not built on principles of sustainable aerodynamic flight. Ignorance of the law offers no protection from it. Just as the plummeting pilot sees wrecks of other failed attempts below, we see ruins of fallen civilizations that failed to comply with the Law of Life. We now see the ground rushing toward us. Our cultural \u201cflying\u201d contraption\u2014called the Taker Thunderbolt\u2014is a death trap.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">SEVEN (111\/117)<\/h3>\n<p>The Law of Life continues to elude Alan.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Ishmael tells of a culture of C people who eat B people, who eat A people, who eat C people. No one ever violates the law, but how would you discover the law in operation without observing violations? Where would you look?<\/li>\n<li>Nature is not at war. The Law of Life is a peace-keeping law. Humans lived by this law for millions of years. The Takers\u2019 violation is a recent phenomenon, demonstrably\u00a0<em>not<\/em>\u00a0a fundamental human flaw baked into our DNA.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael to Alan: Go away and come back when you can tell me the Law that has been at work from the very beginning in the community of life.<\/li>\n<li>Alan felt depressed, rejected, and realized his time with Ishmael would someday come to an end. He wanted a teacher for life.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">EIGHT (123\/129)<\/h3>\n<p>Alan works out the Law of Life. Finally. But could I have done it?<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Takers eliminate their competitors, their competitors\u2019 food, the competitors to the food of their prey, etc. If all life behaved this way, few species would survive the all-out War on Life.<\/li>\n<li>The Law may be stated: \u201cYou 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\u00a0<strong>you may not wage war<\/strong>.\u201d Diversity is a core strength of the community of life. It\u2019s an essential emergent feature, providing resilience as conditions inevitably change. Takers are essentially at war with the world and with biodiversity.<\/li>\n<li>If hyenas\u2014just to pick another species\u2014were to eliminate their predators, their competition, their competitor\u2019s food, and the competition of their prey\u2019s food, the community of life would be thrown far out of balance and biodiversity would plummet. When Takers do the same (eliminating bears and wolves, erecting fences, applying pesticides and herbicides), it\u2019s deemed \u201choly work.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Increased food production\/availability leads to a population explosion, but we tell ourselves that humans are exempt from such math, despite a towering mountain of evidence to the contrary.<\/li>\n<li>Agriculture and settlement are not necessarily in\u00a0<em>violation<\/em>\u00a0of the law of life (limits to competition), but certainly are\u00a0<em>subject<\/em>\u00a0to it, ultimately.<\/li>\n<li>Food begets babies. Famine becomes a chronic condition by always increasing the number of mouths to feed. We say we won\u2019t \u201clet\u201d people starve, but the word \u201clet\u201d betrays our perceived role as gods\u2014deciding who lives or dies.<\/li>\n<li>Tribal maps of the pre-European Americas show a patchwork of different cultures. It\u2019s both evidence and a\u00a0<em>mechanism<\/em>\u00a0for self limiting, because it wasn\u2019t an\u00a0<em>option<\/em>\u00a0to expand beyond the land to which you belonged. It was also not possible for a Hopi to become a Navajo the way it is for a New Yorker to become a Texan.<\/li>\n<li>Just as for a contraption not built with respect to aerodynamic laws, a way of life not built to obey the Law of Life will fail to remain \u201cin flight.\u201d Modernity\u2014being such a violating construct; an enactment of the Taker premise\u2014will die. Whether or not we accept this fact is irrelevant: it is guaranteed. Similarly, a person stepping off a cliff need not\u00a0<em>accept<\/em>\u00a0the role of gravity to experience its indifferent, fatal pull.<\/li>\n<li>The world was not made for any one species. Life was fine before Taker culture emerged. It wasn\u2019t a world of chaos desperate to be tamed by humans.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThe people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world\u2026\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2024\/08\/mm-12-human-supremacy\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"8529\">Human supremacy<\/a>, baby. Ishmael addresses misconceptions of the Noble Savage. Leaver culture tends to work well for people, lacking common afflictions of modernity such as crime, mental illness, drug addiction, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">NINE (149\/159)<\/h3>\n<p>This marathon chapter presents an intriguing take on the biblical story in Genesis: the story of Adam and Eve, and their sons Cain and Abel. After the seventeen sections is an addendum Quinn suggested in the Foreword of the 25th anniversary edition. [It\u2019s one of two places where a sub-chapter got more than one line in my notes.]<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Takers branched off from the (continuing) Leaver story at the Agricultural Revolution. When did the revolution end? It never did; only spreading. It\u2019s a defining feature of our culture. We perceive ourselves as revolutionaries against the natural order.<\/li>\n<li>Takers unwittingly adopted a Leaver story about Taker origins, in which Takers were the bad guys\u2014cursed by the gods.<\/li>\n<li>Takers imagine they possess special knowledge to rule the world\u2014a knowledge wholly absent in dumb Leavers (who, Takers would say, live like animals).<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael tells a story of gods debating the thorny question of who should be favored in a fox\/quail encounter. What is good for one is evil for the other\u2014true of virtually every decision the gods make. In this story, a magical tree has fruit that bestows upon the gods the wisdom of who shall live and who shall die. Possessing this wisdom, gods can see that a creature\u2019s luck may be good one day and bad the next: parceled fairly.<\/li>\n<li>Fascinating! [Really, this is a tiny section.]<\/li>\n<li>The gods discuss this curious creature named Adam. What if he\u2014wrongly\u2014<em>gets it in his head<\/em>\u00a0that this fruit would also make\u00a0<em>him<\/em>\u00a0as wise as the gods, possessing the Knowledge of Good and Evil? He might develop a maniacal hubris, and begin to see all limits on man as evil, deciding who lives and dies as if a god, and always ruling in his own favor. Some don\u2019t believe this kindly creature would become so monstrous, but\u2014erring on the side of safety\u2014sternly forbid his eating of the fruit upon punishment of death [an empty threat, in the end].<\/li>\n<li>This story is eternally confusing to Takers. After all, isn\u2019t knowledge highly prized in our culture, and absolutely necessary if we are to successfully fulfill our destiny to rule the world that belongs to us? [In fact, lacking Knowledge of Good and Evil constitutes \u201cinsanity\u201d in courts.] Why would the story portray such knowledge as being dangerous? Well, perhaps it\u2019s an early recognition that by thinking ourselves as wise as the gods, we might fast-track a sixth mass extinction in a few short millennia. Nothing like this happened before Takers became self-styled gods.<\/li>\n<li>If Takers had written the origin story, it would not describe eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as\u00a0<em>The Fall<\/em>. The event would have been praised as a crowning moment marking the beginning of a great\u00a0<em>Ascent<\/em>. Unlike Leavers, Takers became righteous proselytizers, insisting everyone should live the way they do: the\u00a0<em>right<\/em>\u00a0way. Various Leaver cultures that tinkered with agriculture walked away from it, but doing so would be dreadfully difficult for Takers because it would amount to admission of colossal defeat.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael shares a map of Eurasia soon after agriculture took hold around the Fertile Crescent. The main lesson is that the pre-agricultural world beyond this region was not devoid of humans. Of particular interest, Semite pastoralists had front-row seats to the expansion of these new Takers. Now read the story of Cain and Abel in this context.<\/li>\n<li>The story of Cain and Abel screams out as a story told by pastoralists (Abel; Semites) about an evil agricultural people (Cain; Takers)\u2014cursed by the gods (or god)\u2014hell-bent on domination. This interpretation clarifies the \u201cFall\u201d story as a piece of \u201cwar propaganda\u201d told by the Semites. Alan speculates some about the original Takers being identified as Caucasians, now synonymous with \u201cwhiteness,\u201d but Ishmael shows little interest and does not run with this.<\/li>\n<li>The Genesis stories survived because Semites were long holdouts, so the tales had time to take root. By the time the Hebrews descended from Semites, they had become Takers, and kept the inherited story without necessarily understanding its anti-Taker origin and message.<\/li>\n<li>To Leavers, Takers act as if gods: doling out life and death as they see fit. In their telling, this angered their\u00a0<em>actual<\/em>\u00a0god, who banished them from their original paradise, casting them out to break the land by the sweat of their brows.<\/li>\n<li>The Leavers saw toilsome agriculture as a curse, and sought some rationale: what terrible deed could have resulted in such punishment\u2014to be deprived of Earth\u2019s bounty that we enjoy without the intense labor?<\/li>\n<li>In Hebrew, the name Adam means \u201cman,\u201d and might be associated with the human race. Cain and Abel represent the Taker\/Leaver split.<\/li>\n<li>Likewise, the name Eve means \u201clife.\u201d The expansion-oriented Takers needed babies, and women were the key to bringing more life into the world (yes; it takes both, but a clan of 80 women and 20 men can grow much faster than one with 20 women and 80 men). The fact that Eve was cast as the temptress relates to greater life-potential enabling more land to be subdued.<\/li>\n<li>Granted, agriculture developed independently in other parts of the world, but the Semites were cut off by geography so at the time of the story\u2019s emergence, they only knew of themselves and these hostile expansionists to their north.<\/li>\n<li>The original meaning of the story is usually lost on Takers. Their clumsy attempt to explain it usually ascribes to the forbidden fruit the role of a somewhat arbitrary test of obedience\u2014dismissing the (empty) perils of believing themselves to be as wise as gods. The part about acquiring wisdom is not an emphasized feature of the story. Also, note that Takers easily identify Adam as one of their own: not innocent\/ignorant like those Leavers, but as a flawed agriculturalist like themselves.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">New Proposed Addition<\/h4>\n<p>In the 25th Anniversary printing of Ishmael, Daniel Quinn responds in the Foreword to the question: \u201cWhat would you do differently if you were writing\u00a0<em>Ishmael<\/em>\u00a0today?\u201d He offers a new dialog between Alan and Ishmael that he suggests would go at the end of Chapter 9. Here is a recap of this addition.<\/p>\n<p>A graph of human population shows a spectacular explosion that we hardly think remarkable. If a graph of the global population of badgers showed a similar trend, you\u2019d find it alarming. The result of this explosion is the initiation of a sixth mass extinction [the original version of the book predates a growing awareness of the phenomenon bearing this name]. All this from a toxic habit of thought! Quinn takes another pass at the \u201cfood equals births\u201d formulation, and mentions Malthus as an early influential thinker along these lines. The inevitable\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2024\/06\/peak-population-projections\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"6549\">downslope of population<\/a>\u00a0will be tough, and it isn\u2019t clear if we\u2019ll handle it gracefully or disgracefully. It\u2019s a chance to earn the moniker Homo sapiens: will we be wise about it? Clearly, many in our culture will have a tendency to portray any program of decline\/retreat in hyperbolic terms laced with every sort of atrocity.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">TEN (185\/199)<\/h3>\n<p>The book becomes more of a novel for a bit, before lessons resume in a new setting.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Alan\u2019s life suffers a number of unexpected, annoying, and painful interruptions. By the time he returns to Room 105 to resume lessons with Ishmael, the place is cleared out. The janitor indicates the previous tenant has been evicted, but is generally unhelpful.<\/li>\n<li>The receptionist for the building management is an accomplished stonewaller, and masterfully fails to help Alan track down the former tenant. She is indignant at the absurd suggestion that a gorilla occupied the room.<\/li>\n<li>Alan tracks down the Sokolow home to learn more about Ishmael\u2019s disappearance. The butler, Partridge is top-shelf cagey, but does reveal that Rachel\u2014Ishmael\u2019s protector\u2014died a few months back. Otherwise, he offers Alan no help.<\/li>\n<li>Alan places an ad in the paper trying to make contact with other friends of Ishmael, which bears no fruit. He finally tracked down a traveling carnival, finding within one of its cages a very grumpy Ishmael, who told him to go away\u2014after refusing Alan\u2019s patronizing offer to rescue him.<\/li>\n<li>Alan returns later that night, and Ishmael resigns himself to continuing Alan\u2019s lessons\u2014first establishing where they left off.<\/li>\n<li>They work to define culture as the accumulation of information, techniques, beliefs, stories, assumptions, theories, customs, legends, etc. passed down to younger generations (which happens among many species). Human culture was present from Homo habilis all the way up through our species as an uninterrupted, evolving, successful set of accumulated learning. Leavers treasure this heritage and deliberately strive to maintain ancient wisdom. Takers flee the past, considering old tales to be obsolete dreck.<\/li>\n<li>Takers preserve techniques for the production of\u00a0<em>things<\/em>. Leavers preserve customs that\u00a0<em>work well for their people<\/em>. The focus of Takers is on what\u2019s good for things vs. people.<\/li>\n<li>Leaver ways have been tested and refined over deep time. Leavers don\u2019t need prophets to reveal the one right way to live. In fact, there is no\u00a0<em>one right way<\/em>: Leaver cultures are tailored for specific localities: proven to work in that place. Every time Takers stamp out a Leaver people, they extinguish an ancient flame of immense value. It\u2019s ugly.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael to Alan: I\u2019m cold and tired: off with you!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ELEVEN (209\/225)<\/h3>\n<p>Alan continues to annoy Ishmael with his neediness, pressing Ishmael for the story that Leavers live by. But at least he brings a few blankets. The fourth section\/bullet is so loaded with great material that I allowed\u00a0<em>four<\/em>\u00a0lines instead of one in my \u201cone-line\u201d notes.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A grouchy Ishmael can find no compelling incentive to teach Alan the Leaver story, and Alan keeps offering insufficient motivation. It\u2019s on the edge of being finished until Alan says that Takers can\u2019t abandon their story without having another story to be in.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael asks: How did humans become human? What story were they enacting?<\/li>\n<li>They establish the Taker bias: pre-agricultural life was devoid of meaning\u2014it was stupid, ugly, detestable, and miserable. Ishmael raises the question: what was the agricultural revolution a revolution\u00a0<em>against<\/em>?<\/li>\n<li>Alan suggests that we needed to \u201cget somewhere,\u201d to have comforts and conveniences, and that even the destitute believe the post-revolution world is a big improvement over a \u201cmiserable\u201d existence that \u201cleads nowhere\u201d\u2014as Takers assert was practiced by the Leavers. This is where Alan shares a vivid and powerful impression [also described\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2023\/08\/desperate-odds\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"3173\">here<\/a>] of a pre-revolution man in twilight living on a knife edge of survival, locked in a struggle between hunger (chasing elusive prey) and ravenous teeth (pursued by predators). Ishmael calls this utter nonsense! Like all animals evolved into this world, humans were well-adapted to life\u2014generally having loads of leisure time. At this point, Ishmael role-plays a hunter-gatherer Leaver, challenged by Alan (as a Taker), whom Ishmael calls Bwana (boss). [It\u2019s truly brilliant: probably my favorite part of the book\u2014contrasting the easy, flowing attitude of the hunter-gatherer\/Leaver against the anxious, high-strung Alan\/Taker.] The net effect is to disabuse Alan of the sense that life is miserable without planting and controlling food. The final point from the Taker perspective is that the gods only provide the bare minimum of what one\u00a0<em>needs<\/em>. Wresting control from the gods allows us to get\u00a0<em>more<\/em>\u00a0than we need. And having accomplished this, the gods lose power over us. We can thumb our noses at them.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael asks: Okay, if you\u2019re now living in\u00a0<em>your<\/em>\u00a0hands now rather than the hands of the gods, what\u2019s the problem? Why aren\u2019t things just great\u2014as they are meant to be? Alan admits that we\u2019re not quite there yet. Complete freedom from the power of the gods awaits, once we control\u00a0<em>everything<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Takers imagine that living in the hands of the gods is \u201ca state of utter and unending anxiety over what tomorrow\u2019s going to bring.\u201d The revolution is meant to put us beyond the hands of the gods. The Takers are therefore \u201cthose who [believe they] know good and evil,\u201d while Leavers are \u201cthose who live in the hands of the gods.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">TWELVE (231\/249)<\/h3>\n<p>We\u2019ve come a long way, and have just a bit more to lock in.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Alan haggles with Art Owens, the carnival owner, about buying Ishmael. A canny-seeming Art shows no genuine interest and seems to haggle as a pro-forma gesture.<\/li>\n<li>Alan rouses Ishmael, receiving in return a look of loathing. But, Ishmael overcomes his foul mood and sees the sense in carrying on, asking \u201cwhere did we leave off?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael gets Alan to connect that humans became human by\u00a0<em>evolving<\/em>\u2014by living in the hands of the gods. Takers, whose story is that humans are the end of the evolutionary line have structured things so that it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy\u2014by living in such a way as to bring an end to creation!<\/li>\n<li>Alan is finally in a place to work out the premise to the Leaver story. It\u2019s startlingly simple, making Alan laugh:\u00a0<strong>humans belong to the world<\/strong>, as has every living being since the beginning. Only by belonging to the world and living in the hands of the gods did we get to be humans. [This process might even be called\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/dothemath.ucsd.edu\/2024\/01\/a-religion-of-life\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"4993\">sacred<\/a><\/em>.]<\/li>\n<li>The Taker premise leads to disaster and the end of \u201ccreation.\u201d According to the Leaver premise, \u201ccreation goes on forever\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Alan rolls out wishful speculation on a possible human destiny as trailblazers of consciousness, showing other species how to do it and not make the mistakes we recognized just in time to correct. People need something inspiring to aim for, rather than a list of things that make them bad.<\/li>\n<li>Can civilization belong to the world, or is the hunter-gatherer lifestyle the only way? Ishmael suggests that civilization\u00a0<em>per se<\/em>\u00a0is not fundamentally incompatible, but that it is\u00a0<em>subject to<\/em>\u00a0the Law of Life, and will ultimately fail if out of reckoning. Mindset is important.<\/li>\n<li>Rapid transformation of the Soviet bloc (unthinkable even five years prior) indicates that major, quick change is feasible.<\/li>\n<li>We desperately need to stop wiping out Leavers, who more than any others can help show us ways to live in accordance with the Law of Life. Nothing says we must revert to Stone-Age lifestyles, but neither can we continue acting as if we own the world. Ishmael suggests that a species priding itself on being inventors should get busy inventing compatible ways to live.<\/li>\n<li>Some prisoners live quite comfortably, concentrating power within their domain. It\u2019s the same in the prison of modernity (mentioning Donald Trump, in fact). Many prisons have an industry to keep inmates occupied. What is modernity\u2019s \u201cprison industry?\u201d Consuming the world.<\/li>\n<li>Recognizing that inmate inequality is unjust, some expend great effort trying to redistribute equity (within the modernity prison). The real aim should be\u00a0<em>destroying<\/em>\u00a0the prison, not redistributing wealth and power within this abominable institution.<\/li>\n<li>Ishmael announces \u201cI\u2019m finished with you\u201d and issues a huge sneeze. Alan vows to be back tomorrow, eliciting a dark stare from Ishmael and a final grunt.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">THIRTEEN (255\/275)<\/h3>\n<p>The lessons are over.<\/p>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Alan sets out to rescue Ishmael, scraping together all his meager savings. His car has trouble and goes to the shop. He has no real plan of what to do if he succeeds in rescuing Ishmael, or for that matter how to get an unwilling gorilla into his car.<\/li>\n<li>The car is hopeless, so Alan rents a van. He finds the carnival lot empty, but spots a few of Ishmael\u2019s belongings. He learns from the guy doing clean-up that Ishmael died of pneumonia [as did Daniel Quinn, ultimately], the disposition of the body unknown to him.<\/li>\n<li>Alan returns home, and calls the butler, Partridge, to let him know that Ishmael has died.<\/li>\n<li>Alan notices that the poster of Ishmael\u2019s he retrieved has a reverse side. On the front it asks: With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla? On the reverse: With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Anything Confusing?<\/h3>\n<p>I intend this to be a \u201cliving\u201d document (at least the Do the Math appearance) that I may modify to improve clarity, accuracy, or completeness. To this end, if you find anything confusing or missing, please use the comment section below to let me know. It may help to include your level of familiarity with the book (never read; read in 1998; read recently; have read multiple times) so that I might best contextualize the comment (<em>all<\/em>\u00a0levels of familiarity are valuable in different ways). Refer to sections as 5.3, etc.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Acknowledgments<\/h4>\n<p>I thank Alex Leff for looking over this summary and offering valuable comments and suggestions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have I\u00a0mentioned\u00a0how important I think Daniel Quinn\u2019s\u00a0Ishmael\u00a0is? I reread it recently for the first time in a while, and was again impressed with how many important modernity-challenging ideas are packed into one novel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128238,"featured_media":3511235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79720,213535],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3511223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-society-featured"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3511223"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3511237,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511223\/revisions\/3511237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3511235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3511223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3511223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3511223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}