Ishmael
A novel by Daniel Quinn
(inspired by his epiphanic vision)
Book Outline | Chapter Summaries | Book Summary | Main Points | Miscellaneous
Chapter 1 (8 sections) first day, at office building.
Ad: "Teacher seeks pupil. Must have earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person."
Subject is captivity. System of civilization compels destruction. Bars to cage not found. The lie. Humanity is not just one culture. We are culture-bound. Koan: "With Man Gone, Will There Be Hope for Gorilla?"
Chapter 2 (7 sections) second day, at office building.
Captives of a story like the Third Reich. Either take your place in the story or not get fed. Story of Mother Culture. First, vocabulary: takers and leavers, civilized and primitive. Second, the map. "You don't have to memorize the route. In other words, don't worry if, at the end of any day, you suddenly realize that you can't remember a word I've said. That doesn't matter. It's the journey itself that's going to change you. Do you see what I mean?" Mother Culture story explains how things came to be this way. "The explanation ... is ambient in your culture. Everyone one knows it and everyone accepts it without question." Third, definitions: a story is a scenario interrelating man, the world, and the gods; to enact a story is to live so as to make the story a reality; a culture is a people enacting a story. Two different stories: Leavers and Takers. The story pacifies and stupefies to discourage thinking. The story is a living mythology recorded in the minds of the people. The story is a creation myth.
Chapter 3 (8 sections) third day, at office building.
Myth and facts. Mother Culture croons to sleep to turn minds off to prevent thinking. Creation myth and pinnacle of creation. Blame the gods. A story has three parts: about the meaning of the world, about divine intentions in the world, and about human destiny. Beginning of the story is about the meaning of the world. Every story is based on a premise. The Taker premise is that the world was made for man.
Chapter 4 (5 sections) fourth day, at office building.
Middle of the story is about the destiny of man. Settlement and agriculture. Ten thousand years ago in the Fertile Crescent, division of labor, technology, trade and commerce. Birth of Taker Culture. Story: the world was made for man and man was made to rule it. Frozen numb. The price paid of enacting a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world.
Chapter 5 (7 sections) fifth day, at office building.
End of the story is that man is born flawed. Taker Culture is a small sample of all human cultures and thus over-generalization. Taker prophets needed to show the right way to live (page 93, hardback). The flaw in humanity is that he does not know how he ought to live. Thus, drugs, alcohol or television. Another story to be in. The world of thought is not identical to Taker Culture as assumed.
Chapter 6 (6 sections) sixth day, at office building.
Second Murderer? The Taker monument or wall is its axiom that certain knowledge about how people should live is unobtainable. The gods played three tricks on man: world not geocentric, nature not anthropocentric, and humans are is not exempt from the peace-keeping law. Analogy with flight and laws of aerodynamics. Abandoned craft of Maya and others. Laws or theory versus trial and error experience. Natural laws not subject to change by vote. Analogy with law of gravity. Source of data about life is the community of life. Man is not exempt. Man can become extinct. Achievement is not merely to observe the operation of a law but to formulate a law about living in the community of life.
Chapter 7 (4 sections) sixth day still, at office building.
Robert Wallace and Thomas Malthus were early observers of population problem. Farb on food production and population growth. Takers in free fall rather than flight. A eats B eats C in food chain. Observation needed to discover laws at work. Three guides for observing laws: what makes their society work well, what they never do, and what an anti-social law-breaking person did that they never do. The peace-keeping law. Takers flout the law in their fundamental policies.
Chapter 8 (10 sections) eleventh day, at office building.
Three Taker policies: exterminate competitors, destroy competitors’ food, and deny competitors access to food. But not storage of food which all species do. All plants and animals are food. There are limits to competition and not total war in the community of life. The peace-keeping law promotes biodiversity. Takers kill off competitors for the game, competitors for the game's food (for grasses; once removed), and competitors of the games' foods' food (for other plants; twice removed). Holy work of Takers is to pursue their policies at all costs. One exception to the peace-keeping law has the same effect as mass exceptions. Farb in Humankind presents paradox about food production and population growth. A biological community is an economy: the gain of one is the loss of others. Totalitarian agriculture supports unlimited growth. Settlement not uniquely human. Settlement not against the laws of competition but is subject to those laws. Population explosion – global population control. Famine – more food production. Humans are not exempt from these laws. Cultures limit growth of each other at their common boundaries. Law of limited competition is absolute and not changed by a vote. "Mother Culture must be finished off if you're going to survive, and that's something the people of your culture can do. She has no existence outside your minds. Once you stop listening to her, she ceases to exist." Three laws are branches of one trunk: the world was not made for any one species. Takers are not special or superior but are lonely because at war with rest of life. Taker story is power-based. Leavers story works well for them. Leaver story is 3 million years long and continuing to survive, but the Taker story is only 10,000 years long and heading to extinction by destroying the world. "Enacting [the Leaver story] gives them lives that are satisfying and meaningful to them. ... And--I repeat--this is not because they live close to nature or have no formal government or because they're innately noble."
Chapter 9 (17 sections) twelfth day, at office building.
The totalitarian agriculture revolution (both technological and cultural) is still ongoing and is the foundation of Taker culture. The Taker story is its manifesto. Two thousand years ago, a Leaver creation story was adopted by the Takers. Exquisite irony because it was a Leaver story about the origins of the Takers (page 156, hardback). Knowledge of who shall live and who shall die. Adam. Unlimited growth ends in devouring self. Thus, do not eat of tree of knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge needed to rule. The Fall. Takers believe what they are doing is right and righteous and thus to be done at any cost (page 169, hardback). Takers self-righteously had "the one right way" for all to live as opposed to merely their preferred way. Leavers abandon a civilization if not working for them and their preferences change. Takers won’t change because it would mean they are wrong. Early Taker expansion to the south was blocked by Leaver herders. Cain and Abel. Stories are Semitic war propaganda. Two stories of the First Family (Adam and Eve and trees; and Cain and Abel) are metaphorical. Adam is Man, and Eve is Life. Maintain stable sex ratios versus live without limits to growth. Race or species versus culture. Not identical concepts.
Chapter 10 (9 sections) seventeenth day, at the carnival.
A culture is the accumulated learning or knowledge passed from one generation of species to the next. Taker culture is a discontinuity or break from the Leaver culture. Culture amnesiacs. Humanity is not same as only one culture such as the Taker. Taker culture accumulated information about production of things for the sake of production, not about what works well for people. Leaver cultures evolve as unbroken traditions versus certain knowledge of the one right way to live (page 206, hardback). Leaver culture is not invented from scratch. Wisdom is what works well for people based on time-tested experience.
Chapter 11 (7 sections) eighteenth day, at the carnival.
Use your brain and think. Taker story is insane, about power. Leaver story is sane, about people, the community of life, and wisdom – another story to be in (see Chapter 5). Leaver story also has three parts. Takers totalitarian agricultural revolution still continuing. Plains Indians in North America abandoned agriculture with advent of horses with the Spanish. Comparison of the choice between the Taker and Leaver stories. Mother Culture has done a good job on you. Role-play a hunter-gatherer and a cultural missionary: save food so as not to be dependent on the gods. But Takers took control over all life, not just Taker lives. Root of the agricultural revolution was to have their lives in their own hands, not to live in the hands of the gods. Mother Culture is conditioning.
Chapter 12 (12 sections) eighteenth day still, a Friday, at the carnival.
Live in the hands of the gods leads to live and let live. By taking over life and death decisions, Takers ceased to be subject to the conditions under which evolution takes place. Man became Man by evolving, by competing with other species. Opposite premises: premise of the Taker story is that the world belongs to Man, but premise of Leaver story is that Man belongs to the world. People need something positive to work for, a vision of the world and themselves that inspires them. The Taker story is in no way chapter two of the Leaver story. Civilization is not relevant. Following the peace-keeping law is what matters. What do do? Program: Cain must stop murdering Abel. Takers must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that they know who should live and who should die on this planet. Teach one hundred and inspire them to teach a hundred and so on. You must change people’s minds, not laws. The culture of the Takers is one vast prison, and the prison industry that distracts and preoccupies the prisoners, at all levels of the Taker hierarchy, is designed to consume the world. What is crucial to man’s survival as a race is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison but rather the destruction of the prison itself.
Chapter 13 (4 sections) nineteenth day, at the carnival.
Koan reversed: With Gorilla Gone, Will There be Hope for Man?
The book is in the form of a novel. The book, by weight, is 90 percent manual for self-deprogramming the Taker Mother Culture story and its cult of unlimited growth and consumerism, 9 percent manifesto for a new story to be in and an escape from the Taker prison, and 1 percent story. Thus, it is 90 percent unlearning, 9 percent learning, and 1 percent entertainment. It is appropriately subversive of the dominant Taker culture and a paragon of practical pedagogy and applied psychology.
Note: Robert Wallace (1697-1771) wrote "A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind". Appendix in the 1809 edition was 150 page analysis of Hume’s essay on the populousness of ancient nations. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) wrote "Essay on Population", the "First Essay" in 1798 and the "Second Essay" in 1803.
Chapter 1
Koan: With humans gone, will there be hope for other species? Captives of a cultural myth.
Chapter 2
There are two human stories: Takers and Leavers.
Chapter 3
Beginning of Taker story. Taker premise is that the world was made for man.
Chapter 4
Middle of Taker story. Totalitarian agricultural revolution. Man was made to rule the world.
Chapter 5
End of Taker story. But man was born flawed in that he does not know how he ought to live and thus needs prophets and religions. Man has not mastered but rather has devastated the world. The Taker story is a story of futility.
Chapter 6
Taker culture monument or wall is its axiom that certain knowledge about how people should live is unobtainable. But the world of thought is not coterminous with Taker culture.
Chapter 7
Observe the effects of absolute the peace-keeping law of limited competition in the community of life and articulate or formulate it.
Chapter 8
Taker fundamental policies of total unlimited war flout the peace-keeping law.
Chapter 9
Exquisite irony: The Genesis stories of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel are about the origins of the Takers written from the perspective of the Leavers. They are war propaganda stories. The Takers enact their story as the one right way for all to live. Diversity not allowed.
Chapter 10
Taker culture is not the same as all humanity. Thousands of other human cultures exist. Takers esteem productivity for the sake of productivity versus Leavers esteem wisdom of what works well for each people.
Chapter 11
Compare Leaver and Taker cultures. Mother Culture distorts the facts about both cultures in order to seem superior. Taker culture is about conquest, rule, and power over others, but Leaver culture is about the health of all life.
Chapter 12
Taker premise is world made for man, but Leaver premise is man made for world. Taker culture is a prison that exists only in the mind. Program to save the world is not to redistribute power and wealth within the prison but rather to permanently escape from the prison of the mind by destroying it instead of temporarily escaping through alcohol, drugs and television. What to do? Teach 100 people and inspire them to teach 100 others, and continue forever to spread the word.
Chapter 13
Koan reversed: With non-human species gone, is there hope for humans?
Chapters 1-2
The captives of a cultural myth enact its story. There are two cultures: Takers ("civilized" and non-indigenous) and Leavers ("primitive" and indigenous).
Chapters 3-6
The Taker story is that the world was made for man, man was made to conquer and rule the world, and man is born flawed in that he does not know how he ought to live. A Taker axiom is that certain knowledge about how people should live is unobtainable.
Chapters 7-9
Observe and formulate the absolute peace-keeping law of limited competition in the community of life. Taker culture flouts the peace-keeping law at peril of its extinction. Leaver culture obeys the peace-keeping law for its survival. Exception of one species or culture to the law is effectively the same as exception of all species and cultures. The Genesis stories of Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel about the origins of the Takers make sense only from the Leavers’ viewpoint.
Chapters 10-11
Taker culture is not identical with all of humanity. It is only one of many cultures. Taker culture emphasizes production (and reproduction) for the sake of production with unlimited growth and consumption. Leaver culture emphasizes what works well for each people. The choice between the Taker and Leaver cultures is uninformed and misinformed due to Taker Mother Culture’s conditioning. Taker culture is about power and taking control over the community of life. Leaver culture is about wisdom and leaving the community of life in the hands of the gods.
Chapters 12-13
The Taker premise is that the world was made for humans. The Leaver premise is that humans were made for the world. Taker Mother Culture story is a prison of the mind. The mission to save the world is not to equalize power and wealth among the prisoners but rather to escape the story by changing minds, not by numbing minds with alcohol, drugs and television. Therefore, spread the word as much as possible.
Taker story, Leaver story, Peace-Keeping Law, Taker Law-breakers versus Leaver Law-abiders, and Choice for Future
Civilized peoples (Takers who take control of life and power over others) for about ten thousand years have been living based on the story that the world was created for humans and humans were made to conquer and control the world, and this cultural myth conditions their behavior to enslave them and devastate the world; a story of hopelessness and futility, a story in which there is literally nothing to be done.
Indigenous peoples (Leavers who leave life in the hands of the gods) for millions of years have been living based on the story that humans were created for the world, that they are just one part of the community of life on this planet, and this cultural myth conditions voluntarily guides their behavior without enslaving them and permitting abandonment of whatever does not work well for them; a story of hopefulness in which there is something to be done.
There is an absolute peace-keeping law of limited competition in the community of life that organizes all cultures and species, and breaking this law eventually will result in the extinction of the wayward culture or species;
The totalitarian agricultural revolution enabled the Takers to take control, self-righteously killing or converting the Leavers to their one right way to live, transforming more and more of the biosphere into humans and products for humans to consume, but unlimited growth by the Takers will lead them to ultimately devour themselves and destroy the world;
There is another story to be in. We can choose to escape from the Taker cultural prison and enact a Leaver story that retains the life-enhancing aspects of our culture to find an ecologically-sustainable, socially-equitable way to live harmoniously in the community of life.
"It is in the space of mastery over paradigms that people throw off addictions, live in constant joy, bring down empires, get locked up or burned at the stake or crucified or shot, and have impacts that last for millennia." Donella Meadows.
Sleeping Sickness
Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain.
Encephalitis lethargica is a form of encephalitis epidemic in the period from 1915 to 1926; sleeping sickness; the infected person suffers from paralysis and is immobilized at the moment of infection. Some infected persons have recovered partial physical mobility.
Taker encephalitis lethargica is a meme or word virus in the period from the beginning of the agriculture revolution to the present day; the infected person suffers from mental paralysis and is immobilized at the moment of infection, usually at birth due to a discontinuity in evolutionary expectations. Infected persons behave like enslaved prisoners of unquestioned beliefs. It is possible to recover mental mobility and independent, critical thinking through reestablishment of continuity by unlearning (deprogramming) and learning anew.
Genesis Memes
The apostolic succession of papal inerrancy has been hoist by its own petard, the Word. In the beginning (of written history) was the (written) Word, a tautology. In the beginning of Taker culture was an appropriated creation story in Genesis from a Leaver culture that was either righteously massacred or converted by force to the Takers’ one right way to live. How many battles, how many campaigns, how many crusades, how many soldiers, how many civilians, how many cities, how many fortresses, how much wealth, have been expended over how many centuries to bring us this subversive story in the name of God?
Yet embedded in this story is a cunning and prodigious Taker meme, Genesis 1:28: "And God blessed them, and God said to them, BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY, AND FILL THE EARTH and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." The New Oxford Annotated Bible.
One Right Way
There appears to be a fundamental self-contradiction in the Takers' story.
page 91: "Perhaps the flaw in man is exactly this: that he doesn't know how he ought to live."
page 93: "one of your most impressive monuments--an axiom stating that there is no way to obtain any certain knowledge about how people ought to live."
page 169: "They got to be this way because they've always believed that what they were doing was right--and therefore to be done at any cost whatever. They've always believed that, like the gods, they know what is right to do and what is wrong to do, and what they are doing is right. Do you see how they've demonstrated what I'm saying? ... They've demonstrated it by forcing everyone in the world to do what they do, to live the way they live. Everyone had to be forced to live like the Takers, because the Takers had the one right way. ... Many peoples among the Leavers practiced agriculture, but they were never obsessed by the delusion that what they were doing was right ... "
page 206: "Back at the beginning, when I said that there was no such thing as certain knowledge about how people ought to live, what I meant was this: Certain knowledge is knowledge of the one right way. That's what we want. That's what Takers want. We don't want to know a way to live that works well. We want to know the one right way. And that's what our prophets give us. And that's what our lawgivers give us. ... After five or eight thousand years of amnesia, the Takers really didn't know how to live. They really must have turned their backs on the past ..."
Pedagogical techniques:
- using dialogue, not lecture;
- serving as a guide, but refusing to be a guru;
- repeating key ideas;
- stating the obvious;
- anticipating and closing off digressions in advance;
- using concrete analogies, not abstract metaphors and ambiguous symbolism;
- offering hopeful resolution and provide inspiring encouragement.
Reactions of Taker Mother Culture true believers to the book Ishmael:
ATTACK the author; kill the messenger bringing an unwelcome message. Ad hominem arguments not only are illogical but say more about the person making such an argument than about the person who is the target of the argument.
CRITICIZE the form or style of the story instead of the content or message. The book Ishmael, by weight, is 90 percent deprogramming manual, 9 percent manifesto for another story to be in, and 1 percent literary fiction. As a self-instruction manual, it is a paragon of practical pedagogy and applied psychology.
DENY what it says. Freely choose a solely literal interpretation. It says on the dust-jacket that Ishmael is "a novel" by Daniel Quinn. It is a story about a gorilla that communicates with humans. Any intelligent person knows that a novel is fiction and not fact, thanks to the truth-in-advertising laws. Right?
MISINTERPRET the argument. Propose that the book says something that is only inferred by a reader and neither implied nor stated by the author. Such misinterpretations, whether intentional or not, are beside the point and irrelevant. Moral rightness is often wrongly inferred from amoral efficacy.
RELY on hearsay and don’t read the book, or read it superficially without understanding, and thus not get it.
Often, two or more of these fallacies are part of the same response. Here is an example of an ad hominem attack and misinterpretation. The author in his books identifies himself as a member of the Taker culture. Yet some people who are literal, superficial, confused, or miss the point of "tribalism" accuse him of hypocrisy for consuming trees to produce his books, living in a nice house, and using so-called capitalist tools such as a computer and the Internet. The mind is the only place where the Taker Mother Culture exists for any of us. The author's state of mind and living arrangements are irrelevant to his arguments.
What is at stake is nothing less than survival of the world. The death of the Taker Mother Culture meme will be resisted in every way possible. Taker Mother Culture is subtle, treacherous and vicious. The battleground is the mind, and the battle is intra-personal.
www.concordance.com
Concordance to Bible (KJV)
HTML Listing of phrases for chosen word: Ishmael (47 occurrences), not to be confused with Ismailis, [pronounced: ismäēl'ēz], a Muslim Shiite sect that holds Ismail, the son of Jafar as-Sadiq, as its imam.
1 [GENES 16 ] son, and ~ because the LORD hath heard
shalt call his name < Ishmael > ; which Hagar bare, < Ishmael > . ~
2 [GENES 16 ] s name, ~ (GENES 16:16) And Abram w 3 [GENES 16 ] ears old, when Hagar bare ~ < Ishmael > to Abram. ~ (GENES 17:1) And 4 [GENES 17 ] Abraham said unto God, O that < Ishmael > might live before ~ thee! ~ 5 [GENES 17 ] ~ (GENES 17:20) And as for < Ishmael > , I have heard thee: Behold, I ha 6 [GENES 17 ] ENES 17:23) And Abraham took < Ishmael > his son, and all that were born 7 [GENES 17 ] skin. ~ (GENES 17:25) And < Ishmael > his son was thirteen years old, 8 [GENES 17 ] was Abraham circumcised, and < Ishmael > his ~ son. ~ (GENES 17:27) 9 [GENES 25 ] 25:9) And his sons Isaac and < Ishmael > buried him in the cave of ~ Ma 10 [GENES 25 ] these are the generations of < Ishmael > , Abraham's son, whom ~ Hagar t 11 [GENES 25 ] are the names of the sons of < Ishmael > , by their ~ names, according t 12 [GENES 25 ] rations: the firstborn of ~ < Ishmael > , Nebajoth; and Kedar, and Adbeel 13 [GENES 25 ] 25:16) These are the sons of < Ishmael > , and these are their names, by 14 [GENES 25 ] are the years of the life of < Ishmael > , an hundred and ~ thirty and s 15 [GENES 28 ] ES 28:9) Then went Esau unto < Ishmael > , and took unto the wives which h 16 [GENES 28 ] had Mahalath the daughter of < Ishmael > Abraham's son, the sister ~ of 17 [2 KIN 25 ] e to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even < Ishmael > the son of ~ Nethaniah, and Jo 18 [2 KIN 25 ] ss in the seventh month, that < Ishmael > the son ~ of Nethaniah, the so 19 [1 CHR 1 ] e sons of Abraham; Isaac, and < Ishmael > . ~ (1 CHR 1:29) These are th 20 [1 CHR 1 ] generations: The firstborn of < Ishmael > , ~ Nebaioth; then Kedar, and A 21 [1 CHR 1 ] edemah. These are the sons of < Ishmael > . ~ (1 CHR 1:32) Now the sons 22 [1 CHR 8 ] se, Azrikam, ~ Bocheru, and < Ishmael > , and Sheariah, and Obadiah, and 23 [1 CHR 9 ] se, Azrikam, ~ Bocheru, and < Ishmael > , and Sheariah, and Obadiah, and 24 [2 CHR 19 ] LORD; and Zebadiah the son of < Ishmael > , the ~ ruler of the house of J 25 [2 CHR 23 ] h the son of Jeroham, and ~ < Ishmael > the son of Jehohanan, and Azaria 26 [EZRA 10 ] f Pashur; Elioenai, Maaseiah, < Ishmael > , ~ Nethaneel, Jozabad, and Ela 27 [JEREM 40 ] e to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even < Ishmael > the son of ~ Nethaniah, and Jo 28 [JEREM 40 ] ng of the Ammonites hath sent < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah ~ to slay 29 [JEREM 40 ] ray thee, and I will slay ~ < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah, and no man 30 [JEREM 40 ] thou speakest ~ falsely of < Ishmael > . ~ (JEREM 41:1) Now it came 31 [JEREM 41 ] ss in the seventh month, that < Ishmael > the son ~ of Nethaniah the son 32 [JEREM 41 ] ~ (JEREM 41:2) Then arose < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah, and the te 33 [JEREM 41 ] the land. ~ (JEREM 41:3) < Ishmael > also slew all the Jews that were 34 [JEREM 41 ] LORD. ~ (JEREM 41:6) And < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah went forth 35 [JEREM 41 ] e midst of the city, that ~ < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah slew them, 36 [JEREM 41 ] und among them that said unto < Ishmael > , Slay ~ us not: for we have tr 37 [JEREM 41 ] EM 41:9) Now the pit wherein < Ishmael > had cast all the dead bodies of 38 [JEREM 41 ] aasha king of Israel: and ~ < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah filled it w 39 [JEREM 41 ] ain. ~ (JEREM 41:10) Then < Ishmael > carried away captive all the res 40 [JEREM 41 ] ah the son of ~ Ahikam: and < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah carried the 41 [JEREM 41 ] eard of all the evil that ~ < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah had done, 42 [JEREM 41 ] e men, and went to fight with < Ishmael > the ~ son of Nethaniah, and fo 43 [JEREM 41 ] he people which were with ~ < Ishmael > saw Johanan the son of Kareah, a 44 [JEREM 41 ] 1:14) So all the people that < Ishmael > had carried away captive from ~ 45 [JEREM 41 ] reah. ~ (JEREM 41:15) But < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah escaped fro 46 [JEREM 41 ] ~ whom he had recovered from < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah, from ~ M 47 [JEREM 41 ] e afraid of them, ~ because < Ishmael > the son of Nethaniah had slain G
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