I just finished reading the novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, and was wondering if anyone else has read it?
The book poses some very interesting questions about our culture, including the idea that our belief that we are in control of the world, and above the rules which govern the rest of the organisms on earth will lead to our self-distruction. Any thoughts? If you agree with his thesis, do you think it's possible for humanity to relenquish our soverignity?
Personally I think his ideas are sound, but that it's an utopian ideal to believe that somehow everyone on earth could be convinced of it, and that unless everyone dedicated themselves to it, humanity would destroy itself anyway. However, I'd like to think that it would be possible to stop the distruction.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
In order to relinquish something you have to actually have it in the first place. I don't think we do, not to the level we sometimes think we do, as evidenced my Katrina and the Tsunami earlier this year.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Haven't read it, but it sounds interesting. Thanks for the recommendation, Dragon.
Posted by Liaison (Member # 6873) on :
I read Ishmael about a year ago. I found it extremely thought-provoking. I read The Story of B right after it also, which I recommend if you enjoyed Ishmael. I happened to be taking a Cultural Anthropology class(first semester of college) at the same time, which almost freakishly paralleled what I was reading extracurricularly.
Wow...extracurricularly. Is that even a word? Heh. Sorry.
These books in companion with that class marked a rather major turning point in my life. My brother read them at the same time, he's 2 years older than me, and he agreed that they changed his life too. It might not have the same affect on every reader, but I highly recommend giving at least Ishmael a chance. I've looked at the world differently ever since.
I agree with your comments, Dragon. But I don't believe we can relinquish our sovereignty. I think humanity has changed our environment too drastically to revert to what we were before 'civilization', but I feel there has to be some kind of worldwide change to stop/slow us from destroying ourselves. How that could happen...I have no clue.
This just made me think of something Kurt Vonnegut said on The Daily Show the other day. Something along the lines that the Earth's immune system is trying really hard to get rid of us. It relates to a bit of what Quinn is expressing...
What a fragmented post. Sorry, Dragon. But I do really think everyone should read these books at some point. There's nothing to lose and possibly, like in my case, a lot to gain.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
I've read Ishmael, My Ishmael and The Story of B.
Ishmael is far and away the best of the books: the characters are the most plausible, which makes Quinn's ideas easier to swallow. It is thought provoking, especially for those (like me, at the time) who aren't nearly as caught up as they should be on the world situation.
If you liked Ishmael, I usually recommend staying away from The Story of B, and My Ishmael. They basically rehash the ideas presented in Ishmael, while contributing very little. Quinn is also something of a terrible, terrible writer, and he tries too hard to make plot the primary motivator in The Story of B (going so far as to excise the actual informational speeches from the book and include them at the end in an "appendix"), and he fails miserably at making it engaging, or believable, instead only coming off as a terrorist with an anti-religious agenda. My Ishmael is the story of a young girl, and Quinn fails to write her convincingly. Worse yet, he loses track of his characters and has them go to opposite extremes in personality (from "Good golly goshnicks, I'm only 13, I don't know ANYthing!" to "So the evolution of modern commerce is a biproduct of our overinvestment in the idea of superficiality?" and back in the span of two pages*).
Stick with Ishmael. There are tons of fansites and meeting groups that meet to discuss the book or try to implement the tribal ideas Quinn suggests.
*Not actual quotes, but you get the idea.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I haven't read Ishmael but I do agree that humankind's dominant belief that nature is here for us to use up seems inevitably to lead us to a disaster on the level of an asteroid strike or a decimating plague. Plus we rely on our own systems for our security, and they break down.
Posted by the_Somalian (Member # 6688) on :
When I was a junior in high school they were teaching the book to my freshmen younger sister. Curious, I randomly picked up her copy and read in two days.
In a month I read nearly all three Ishmael novels and a book of short essays by the author.
No books have affected me personally as have Quinn's, and really I was to ultimately regret picking up my sister's copy of Ishmael because I was severely depressed at the time and these books made that depression worse. Quinn highlights with startling insight what's wrong with our culture (a very broad term that encompasses nearly all of humanity as he uses it) and how it isn't sustainable.
And for those who had problems with The Story of B and My Ishmael--I don't think the characters were the point as much as the socratic dialogue. These books are really just a series of essays, and you'll be bitterly disspointed if you're looking for a story or plot to hook you in.
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
quote: I think humanity has changed our environment too drastically to revert to what we were before 'civilization', but I feel there has to be some kind of worldwide change to stop/slow us from destroying ourselves.
I haven't read the referenced material, but without technological advancements, humans as a species are doomed. It might take a few million years, but something would wipe us off the planet. Be it an asteroid, super-volcano, a competing species, or whatever.
The only hope for humanity is to advance to the point where all our eggs are not in such a fragile basket. Meaning we get a portion of our species off this rock.
We can't do that without civilization.
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
I read 'Ishmael' yesterday and wanted to start a thread about the law of limited competition, but since an Ishmael thread already exists (from long ago!), I'll just bump it....
The thing I found most fascinating about Ishmael is Quinn's attempt to identify the laws governing all life, and specifically what he calls the law of limited competition.
Basically what he's getting at is that where we have gone wrong, from the very beginning, back at the very foundations of our society, is that the agricultural revolution which spurred us forward, as human beings, is flawed because it is a violation of the law of limited competition. Ultimately this is proving to have disastrous consequences for all life on earth and may lead to the destruction of humanity, if not the planet. If any other animal on earth were to begin to violate the same law, the consequences would eventually be the same.
The law of limited competition basically says: all creatures (including humans) are obligated to use only what we need, and further we are obligated not to prevent or interfere with other forms of life using what they need.
I'm sure there's a better explanation of it somewhere, I'm definitely paraphrasing based on my understanding of the book.
The reason we feel free to violate this law is that our culture, and all "civilized" human cultures (what Quinn calls Taker cultures) share a common creation myth. The myth is that we are the special end-form of life, and that the purpose of the earth is to serve our needs.
I found it pretty convincing.
Quinn offers no easy solutions, though -- since I'm sure he knows there are no easy solutions. The solution is: Invent! Get creative! Come up with something!
I wonder what it would take for anyone to begin to think about changing things in a serious way. I have to think it's possible, in that pipe-dream way that I like to think anything is possible...
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I disagree that we all feel this way, and have since we began growing crops because of some sort of belief in our superiority. I think we do because we can, plain and simple. Not because we thought we had the right to do so, but because we found out how to.
Dogs will eat themselves to death, so please don't feed me any sort of "nature had it right, but we think we are better than her" line of thought. Nature is harsh, cruel even, and compitition is the natural order of things.
It doesn't mean it is the best, most moral way, but it is natural.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by TL: The law of limited competition basically says: all creatures (including humans) are obligated to use only what we need, and further we are obligated not to prevent or interfere with other forms of life using what they need.
Is there any proposed mechanism that could create a situation where organisms use only what they need rather what all that they have access to? Also, is there any evidence that this actually exists?
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
If I were a zoologist, I'm sure I could come up with a bunch of examples of animals that deny access to food to competitors in a limited way. The only one that jumps to mind is a squirrel hoarding nuts and such for winter. The squirrel would protect his hoard from a chipmunk who found it. How is that different from a farmer protecting his crops? We just happen to be better at it.
In a larger sense though, the only reason Quinn is in a position to rail against all these aspects of our culture is because of that culture itself. What I mean is, it took 10 thousand years or so for technological and moral advancement to get us to the place where we can even seriously discuss this. I don't think anyone is really going to argue that, as agricultural tribes were out-competing hunter-gatherers, the "leavers" were all just nobly bemoaning how the "takers" had broken the sacred law of limited competition.
We can't "fix" this problem. If at any point we abstain from competition, we will be beaten by someone who doesn't. History has repeatedly shown that.
Finally, this idea of the noble savage gets taken way out of proportion. Here's a lecture by Steven Pinker. Anyone who wants to wax poetic over how much wiser Native People X were than us should see this.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:The law of limited competition basically says: all creatures (including humans) are obligated to use only what we need, and further we are obligated not to prevent or interfere with other forms of life using what they need.
What Mucus said. There are obvious counterexamples to this.
Moreover, there's no useful definition of "need" in this scenario.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
I would counter that our current state of being may be the only thing which could ultimately save humans, and all the rest of life on earth, in the long run.
We're obviously far from perfect, but the same traits which encourage us to over-use and pollute are the ones which allow us to actively conserve and repair.
Lots of other plants and animals will destroy their environment and actively kill out competitors and neighbors if given the chance, while I can't think of any that go out of their way to rescue other species or clean up their messes.
In the further long term, our ability to one day populate other planets may be the only thing which saves all life on earth from its inevitable end due to a global extinction event.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
Read Guns, Germs, and Steel. There, I said it.
*goes off to finish said book himself*
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
Have any of you read Ishmael?
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Yep. And My Ishmael to boot.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I haven't, but I have plenty of friends who read it in high school and in college. Most of them went on and on about how amazing it was, and I've always wanted to read it myself, but somehow have never gotten around to it.
I think that humanity will never kill itself off. I think a minority of people are always working to make us better, healthier, to prolong our lives and such, and it's these people that allow the screw ups of the grand majority to survive. Seriously, we pump toxins into the air, the water and the earth, all of which find a way back into our bodies, but we don't really realize it, and even when we do, no one really does much about it. I think we'll slowly poison ourselves to death because we're too stupid and too lazy to do anything about it, and it's a race to see if that minority of people can save the majority from themselves.
But really, that's more an analysis of American than it is the world of humanity at large, though from the looks of things in other countries, they really aren't far behind us.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
quote:Personally I think his ideas are sound, but that it's an utopian ideal to believe that somehow everyone on earth could be convinced of it, and that unless everyone dedicated themselves to it, humanity would destroy itself anyway.
So is the idea here that if it's going to happen anyway, why stress myself out about it?
As I'll looking this over again, I think the main trouble is that we have such means of travel and communication. Even if no other disaster "corrects" our course, I really do think the technology born of our greed and will to power will eventually turn on us.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Has anyone read the book and seen the movie "Instinct"? How faithful (in the non-specific sense) would you say that is?
Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
quote:Yep. And My Ishmael to boot.
That surprises me, as almost everything you've said is addressed directly in the book.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
It's been a couple years.
The one thing I know Quinn doesn't address is homicide rates among leaver peoples, vs. rates among the takers. Quinn thinks leavers know something we don't. I think we've just learned how to live without killing each other as much of the time.