"Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn - Tilted Forum Project - TFP - Sexuality, Philosophy and Political Discussion

pai mei · 06-17-2008, 06:24 PM

I have just read this book, my way of thinking was similar to what I have read here, but Daniel Quinn knows how to explain it better, so now I can formulate myself better

The book says that we are all enacting a story, and that we would stop if we would be given a different one to enact. German people under Hitler were "enacting" their story.
It also separates people into "leavers" and "takers". The "takers" are us, and the "leavers" are all the other cultures on earth, which we destroy everywhere we find them. "Culture" does not mean some nice dances and costumes. It means everything, and our culture is that of the "rulers and owners of Everything" and this has engulfed the entire world with some small exceptions

Their story always starts with the beginning of the universe, ours starts only 10000 years ago, and "We we born to be farmers and rule the Earth !". What was before that ? We call it "prehistory" , not important

We have our cultural myth that says this world was made for us to conquer and rule, and that is the story we are enacting. Belief in God or not, we do agree that we rule the world and it does not matter if all other species die, our survival is what matters.

Some say : "we were smarter than all the others,it was natural selection !". It is not so, nature promotes diversity, a system with a million species can survive almost anything, a system with only a few is very fragile. And we with all our technology are no immune to this
But it takes an entire book to explain properly

Some quotes :

Quote:

Ah,” said the other, “but possessed of this arrogant foolishness, would Adam survive into maturity ?

Believing himself our equal, he would be capable of anything. In his arrogance, he might look around the garden and say to himself, ‘This is all wrong. Why should I have to share the fire of life with all these creatures? Look here, the lions and the wolves and the foxes take the game I would have for myself. This is evil. I will kill all these creatures, and this will be good. And look here, the rabbits and the grasshoppers and the sparrows take the fruits of the land that I would have for myself. This is evil. I will kill all these creatures, and this will be good. And look here, the gods have set a limit on my growth just as they’ve set a limit on the growth of all others. This is evil. I will grow without limit, taking all the fire of life that flows through this garden into myself, and that will be good.’

Tell me—if this should happen, how long would Adam live before he had devoured the entire world?”

“If this should happen,” the others said, “Adam would devour the world in a single day, and at the end of that day he would devour himself.”

“Just so,” the other said, “unless he managed to escape from this world. Then he would devour the entire universe as he had devoured the world. But even so he would inevitably end by devouring himself, as anything must that grows without limit.”

“This would indeed be a terrible end for Adam,” another said. “But might he not come to the same end even without having eaten at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Might he not be tempted by his yearning for growth to take the fire of life into his own hands even without deluding himself that this was good?”

“He might,” the others agreed.
“But what would be the result? He would become a criminal, an outlaw, a thief of life, and a murderer of the creatures around him. Without the delusion that what he was doing was good—and therefore to be done at any cost—he would soon weary of the outlaw’s life. Indeed this is bound to happen during his quest for the Tree of Life. But if he should eat of the tree of our knowledge, then he will shrug off his weariness. He will say, ‘What does it matter that I’m weary of living as a murderer of all the life around me? I know good and evil, and this way of living is good. Therefore I must live this way even though I’m weary unto death, even though I destroy the world and even myself. The gods wrote in the world a law for all to follow, but it cannot apply to me because I’m their equal. Therefore I will live outside this law and grow without limit. To be limited is evil. I will steal the fire of life from the hands of the gods and heap it up for my growth, and that will be good. I will destroy those kinds that do not serve my growth, and that will be good. I will wrest the garden from the hands of the gods and order it anew so that it serves only my growth, and that will be good. And because these things are good, they must be done at any cost. It may be that I’ll destroy the garden and make a ruin of it. It may be that my progeny will teem over the earth like locusts, stripping it bare, until they drown in their own filth and hate the very sight of one another and go mad. Still they must go on, because to grow without limit is good and to accept the limits of the law is evil. And if any say, “Let’s put off the burdens of the criminal life and live in the hands of the gods once again,” I will kill them, for what they say is evil. And if any say, “Let’s turn aside from our misery and search for that other tree,” I will kill them, for what they say is evil. And when at last all the garden has been subjugated to my use and all kinds that do not serve my growth have been cast aside and all the fire of life in the world flows through my progeny, still I must grow. And to the people of this land I will say, “Grow, for this is good,” and they will grow. And to the people of the next land I will say, “Grow, for this is good,” and they will grow. And when they can grow no more, the people of this land will fall upon the people of the next to murder them, so that they may grow still more. And if the groans of my progeny fill the air throughout the world, I will say to them, “Your sufferings must be borne, for you suffer in the cause of good. See how great we have become! Wielding the knowledge of good and evil, we have made ourselves the masters of the world, and the gods have no power over us. Though your groans fill the air, isn’t it sweeter to live in our own hands than in the hands of the gods?” ’ ”

And when the gods heard all this, they saw that, of all the trees in the garden, only the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could destroy Adam. And so they said to him, “You may eat of every tree in the garden save the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day you eat of that tree you will certainly die.”

Quote:

What’s going on here is something wholly new. These aren’t raiding parties. These aren’t people drawing a line and baring their teeth at us to make sure we know they’re there. These guys are saying . . . Our brothers from the north are saying that we’ve got to die. They’re saying Abel has to be wiped out. They’re saying we’re not to be allowed to live. Now that’s something new, and we don’t get it. Why can’t they live up there and be farmers and let us live down here and be herders? Why do they have to murder us?’

‘Something really weird must have happened up there to turn these people into murderers. What could it have been? Wait, a second . . . Look at the way these people live. Nobody has ever lived this way before. They’re not just saying that we have to die. They’re saying that everything has to die. They’re not just killing us, they’re killing everything. They’re saying, “Okay, lions, you’re dead. We’ve had it with you. You’re out of here.” They’re saying, “Okay, wolves, we’ve had it with you too. You’re out of here.” They’re saying . . . “Nobody eats but us. All this food belongs to us and no one else can have any without our permission.” They’re saying, “What we want to live lives and what we want to die dies.”

“ ‘That’s it! They’re acting as if they were the gods themselves. They’re acting as if they eat at the gods’ own tree of wisdom, as though they were as wise as the gods and could send life and death wherever they please. Yes, that’s it. That’s what must have happened up there. These people found the gods’ own tree of wisdom and stole some of its fruit.

“ ‘Aha! Right! These are an accursed people! You can see that right off the bat. When the gods found out what they’d done, they said, “Okay, you wretched people, that’s it for you! We’re not taking care of you anymore. You’re out. We banish you from the garden. From now on, instead of living on our bounty, you can wrest your food from the ground by the sweat of your brows.” And that’s how these accursed tillers of the soil came to be hunting us down and watering their fields with our blood.’ ”

onesnowyowl · 06-17-2008, 08:35 PM

I read the first five pages. I couldn't get into it. I still haven't finished it. I'm not sure I ever will. Perhaps this thread will convince me otherwise.

pai mei · 06-18-2008, 12:19 AM

The book is written as a discussion between a teacher and a student, just read until the character finds the teacher and there the book starts

About what we are doing to the planet Daniel Quinn makes a comparison in the movie "Life at the end of an empire" : it's like we live in a very tall building, and each day we take bricks from the lower floors and add them to the top, to raise the building. Not only we destroy our home, but we destroy human nature itself.

We are not "flawed" as humans, the way religions want us to believe. Is a tiger or a fish, or any other creature flawed ? But they don't get to chose their story. The story that we are enacting is flawed. Nothing is wrong with us. German people under Hitler were "enacting" their story of the "Aryan master race"

noahfor · 06-20-2008, 11:35 PM

I'm currently reading it, and my Dad read it to me when I was younger. It probably had some effect on the way I think, but I can't remember anything about it from when he read it to me. I don't really have anything to say about it at the moment. I do recommend it, and if you've only read the first five pages then you haven't really started it, as was already mentioned.

pai mei · 07-29-2008, 11:21 AM

Quote:

People are fascinated to learn why a pride of lions works, why a troop of baboons works, or why a
flock of geese works, but they often resist learning why a tribe of humans works. Tribal humans were
successful on this planet for three million years before our agricultural revolution, and they’re no less
successful today wherever they manage to survive untouched, but many people of our culture don’t want
to hear about it. In fact, they’ll vigorously deny it. If you explain to them why a herd of elephants works
or why a hive of bees works, they have no problem. But if you try to explain why a tribe of humans
works, they accuse you of “idealizing” them. From the point of view of ethology or evolutionary biology,
however, the success of humans in tribes is no more an idealization than the success of bison in herds or
whales in pods.
Our cultural excuse for failure is that humans are just “naturally” flawed—greedy, selfish, short-sighted,
violent, and so on, which means anything you do with them will fail. In order to validate that excuse,
people want tribalism to be a failure. For this reason, to people who want to uphold our cultural
mythology, any suggestion that tribalism was successful is perceived as a threat.

Quote:

Tribal life is not in fact perfect, idyllic, noble, or wonderful, but wherever it’s found intact, it’s found to
be working well—as well as the life of lizards, racoons, geese, or beetles—with the result that the
members of the tribe are not generally enraged, rebellious, desperate, stressed-out borderline psychotics
being torn apart by crime, hatred, and violence. What anthropologists find is that tribal peoples, far from
being nobler, sweeter, or wiser than us, are as capable as we are of being mean, unkind, short-sighted,
selfish, insensitive, stubborn, and short-tempered. The tribal life doesn’t turn people into saints; it enables
ordinary people to make a living together with a minimum of stress year after year, generation after
generation.

Quote:

People who dislike what I’m saying will challenge me this way: “If you’re so crazy about the tribal life,
why don’t you get a spear and go live in a cave?”
The tribal life isn’t about spears and caves or about hunting and gathering. Hunting and gathering is a
lifestyle, an occupation, a way of making a living. A tribe isn’t a particular occupation; it’s a social
organization that facilitates making a living.
Where they’re still allowed to, gypsies live in tribes, but they’re obviously not hunter-gatherers.
Similarly, circus people live in tribes—but again, obviously, they’re not hunter-gatherers. Until recent
decades there were many forms of traveling shows that were tribal in organization—theatrical troupes,
carnivals, and so on.

Daniel Quinn in "Beyond Civilization"

levite · 07-29-2008, 02:27 PM

Can I just say that, while I think Quinn sometimes has interesting ways of translating non-Western thought to Western idiom, I find his books extremely problematic.

IMO, his notion of "givers" and "takers" being rooted in an original divide between herders and agrarians is fallacious. There seems little support for such a notion. He misses some key exceptions to his descriptions of the evolving city life in the Ancient Near East, and will inevitably gloss over the social issues of non-Western cultures in order to favor critiques of Western culture.

Quinn is a Romantic in the classical sense of the term: he romanticizes and idealizes the distant past, and presumes a pristine, pastoral existence for early humans. He seems to favor a social devolution away from industry and commerce as a solution to the problems presented by industrial society, rather than a forward movement of seeking solutions in the evolution of what we are. He, who criticizes Western history for taking the short view, and beginning only 10,000 years ago or so, himself takes the short view by assuming that creatures that took hundreds of thousands of years to evolve complex reasoning skills and the innovative abilities to develop beyond mere subsistence, ought to have somehow been able to master territorialism, power dynamics, technology, and philosophy within an increasingly complex understanding of the universe much better in 10,000 years than we have been able to do. That seems unreasonable to me. It also seems unreasonable to me to decide that 10,000 years of social and technical evolution just haven't worked out, and we'd be better off without them.

Societies differ; they decide on different rules, different priorities, and they make different trade-offs. None are fixed: rather, all evolve. But all lasting move forward or they stultify and ossify, at which point they die. For Western society to evolve, it must learn to combine its strengths-- innovation, technology, communication, curiosity-- with the needed strengths of various other cultures-- respect for nature, care for the clan, spiritual awareness. But it must be an evolving combination, not an attempted retrogression into something that may never have been.

In terms of spiritual philosophy, Quinn does seem to be attempting to import the Buddhist and Jainist notions of releasing attachment to things of the world around us; a problematic philosophy, in that it can easily lead to radical asceticism, which I don't believe is healthy; also, I don't believe Quinn is transferring the concepts well. I think he is taking the notion of releasing attachments to an extreme: it's good not to be a materialist, no question. But why should we not embrace our love of disseminating information, for example? Printing technology, computer and net technology all seem difficult to argue against unless you just don't like non-agrarian/pastoral societies. And that's an aesthetic choice.

This is all in addition to the fact that in his critiques of Western religion and philosophy, he does not always appear to have done enough reading. He presents nearly his entire critique of Western religion and philosophy based on Christianity and Christian philosophers. Little thought, if any, is paid to Judaism and Jewish philosophers (and what seems to be mentioned, obliquely and circumlocuitously, is often misquoted or misunderstood), and as far as I could tell, none to Islam and Muslim philosophers. That is a major, major flaw, not only because Western society is not monolithic-- some Western societies have very different ideas and rules than others-- but because much Christian thought is adapted from Jewish and Muslim thought, and if one has paid no heed to the latter, it is hard to believe one has understood the former well enough to critique it so thoroughly. The other problem with this is that his understanding of Western history and society is that of a Christian whose "mind has been opened" by exposure to Asian philosophy. But who is to say that all the problems of Western society come from not embracing enough Asian concepts? Perhaps Quinn's Christian problems could be solved by Jewish or Muslim concepts.

Finally, Quinn suffers from universalizing. Not just universalizing certain perspectives, but from assuming that the problems of the world all have an identical, common root, and thus can be solved by more or less identical, common solutions. Despite the depth and breadth and length of his works, he is, ultimately not complex enough in his thinking to permit multiple causes to many problems, each of which might be solved, ameliorated, or reconciled by perhaps several different approaches.

IMO, one is better off disregarding Quinn and simply educating oneself thoroughly in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

06-17-2008, 08:35 PM	#2 (permalink)
onesnowyowl feeling evil Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Corvallis, Oregon	I read the first five pages. I couldn't get into it. I still haven't finished it. I'm not sure I ever will. Perhaps this thread will convince me otherwise. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

06-18-2008, 12:19 AM	#3 (permalink)
pai mei Crazy Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Romania	The book is written as a discussion between a teacher and a student, just read until the character finds the teacher and there the book starts About what we are doing to the planet Daniel Quinn makes a comparison in the movie "Life at the end of an empire" : it's like we live in a very tall building, and each day we take bricks from the lower floors and add them to the top, to raise the building. Not only we destroy our home, but we destroy human nature itself. We are not "flawed" as humans, the way religions want us to believe. Is a tiger or a fish, or any other creature flawed ? But they don't get to chose their story. The story that we are enacting is flawed. Nothing is wrong with us. German people under Hitler were "enacting" their story of the "Aryan master race" __________________ "When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money." ~ Cree Indian proverb Last edited by pai mei; 06-18-2008 at 01:05 AM.

07-29-2008, 02:27 PM	#6 (permalink)
levite Psycho Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Hollywood	Can I just say that, while I think Quinn sometimes has interesting ways of translating non-Western thought to Western idiom, I find his books extremely problematic. IMO, his notion of "givers" and "takers" being rooted in an original divide between herders and agrarians is fallacious. There seems little support for such a notion. He misses some key exceptions to his descriptions of the evolving city life in the Ancient Near East, and will inevitably gloss over the social issues of non-Western cultures in order to favor critiques of Western culture. Quinn is a Romantic in the classical sense of the term: he romanticizes and idealizes the distant past, and presumes a pristine, pastoral existence for early humans. He seems to favor a social devolution away from industry and commerce as a solution to the problems presented by industrial society, rather than a forward movement of seeking solutions in the evolution of what we are. He, who criticizes Western history for taking the short view, and beginning only 10,000 years ago or so, himself takes the short view by assuming that creatures that took hundreds of thousands of years to evolve complex reasoning skills and the innovative abilities to develop beyond mere subsistence, ought to have somehow been able to master territorialism, power dynamics, technology, and philosophy within an increasingly complex understanding of the universe much better in 10,000 years than we have been able to do. That seems unreasonable to me. It also seems unreasonable to me to decide that 10,000 years of social and technical evolution just haven't worked out, and we'd be better off without them. Societies differ; they decide on different rules, different priorities, and they make different trade-offs. None are fixed: rather, all evolve. But all lasting move forward or they stultify and ossify, at which point they die. For Western society to evolve, it must learn to combine its strengths-- innovation, technology, communication, curiosity-- with the needed strengths of various other cultures-- respect for nature, care for the clan, spiritual awareness. But it must be an evolving combination, not an attempted retrogression into something that may never have been. In terms of spiritual philosophy, Quinn does seem to be attempting to import the Buddhist and Jainist notions of releasing attachment to things of the world around us; a problematic philosophy, in that it can easily lead to radical asceticism, which I don't believe is healthy; also, I don't believe Quinn is transferring the concepts well. I think he is taking the notion of releasing attachments to an extreme: it's good not to be a materialist, no question. But why should we not embrace our love of disseminating information, for example? Printing technology, computer and net technology all seem difficult to argue against unless you just don't like non-agrarian/pastoral societies. And that's an aesthetic choice. This is all in addition to the fact that in his critiques of Western religion and philosophy, he does not always appear to have done enough reading. He presents nearly his entire critique of Western religion and philosophy based on Christianity and Christian philosophers. Little thought, if any, is paid to Judaism and Jewish philosophers (and what seems to be mentioned, obliquely and circumlocuitously, is often misquoted or misunderstood), and as far as I could tell, none to Islam and Muslim philosophers. That is a major, major flaw, not only because Western society is not monolithic-- some Western societies have very different ideas and rules than others-- but because much Christian thought is adapted from Jewish and Muslim thought, and if one has paid no heed to the latter, it is hard to believe one has understood the former well enough to critique it so thoroughly. The other problem with this is that his understanding of Western history and society is that of a Christian whose "mind has been opened" by exposure to Asian philosophy. But who is to say that all the problems of Western society come from not embracing enough Asian concepts? Perhaps Quinn's Christian problems could be solved by Jewish or Muslim concepts. Finally, Quinn suffers from universalizing. Not just universalizing certain perspectives, but from assuming that the problems of the world all have an identical, common root, and thus can be solved by more or less identical, common solutions. Despite the depth and breadth and length of his works, he is, ultimately not complex enough in his thinking to permit multiple causes to many problems, each of which might be solved, ameliorated, or reconciled by perhaps several different approaches. IMO, one is better off disregarding Quinn and simply educating oneself thoroughly in the Humanities and Social Sciences. __________________ "How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not the thing with feathers. The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich." Woody Allen

06-20-2008, 11:35 PM	#4 (permalink)
noahfor Addict Join Date: May 2003	I'm currently reading it, and my Dad read it to me when I was younger. It probably had some effect on the way I think, but I can't remember anything about it from when he read it to me. I don't really have anything to say about it at the moment. I do recommend it, and if you've only read the first five pages then you haven't really started it, as was already mentioned.