by Daniel Quinn
“Yeah. Because where a rule like that was followed, the tribe would fall apart. At least I think it would.”
“Of course it would, Julie. Tribes survive by sticking together at all costs, and when it’s every man for himself, the tribe ceases to be a tribe.”
“I began this part of the conversation by saying that the foremost wealth of tribal peoples is cradle-to-grave security for each and every member. This is precisely the wealth that tribes stick together to have. And as you can see, it’s impossible for one person to have more of this wealth than anyone else. There’s no way to accumulate it, no way to put it under lock and key.
“I don’t mean to say that this wealth is indestructible, of course. It remains intact only as long as the tribe remains intact, which is why so many Leaver tribes fought you to the death. As it looked to them, if the tribe was going to be destroyed, then they were dead anyway. I also don’t mean to say that people can’t be seduced away from this wealth. They certainly can be, and this is how it’s done when for one reason or another you can’t just send in the troops to kill them off. The young in particular are susceptible to the lure of Taker wealth, which obviously has much more glitter and flash than their own. If you can once get the young listening to you instead of to their own people, then you’re well on the way to destroying the tribe, since whatever the elders can’t pass on is lost forever when they die.
“To live and walk among your neighbors without fear is the second greatest wealth of tribal peoples. Again, this isn’t very glamorous wealth, though certainly a great many of you wish you had it. I haven’t made a study of this, but it seems to me a routine matter that every poll reveals fear of criminal attack to be either your greatest or second-greatest concern.
In Taker societies, only the rich live free of fear—or relatively free of fear. In tribal societies, everyone lives free of fear. But of course this doesn’t mean that nothing bad ever happens to anyone. What it does mean is that it’s sufficiently rare so that no one lives behind locked doors and no one carries weapons that they expect to have to use to defend themselves from their neighbors. Again, obviously, this isn’t wealth that can be concentrated in anyone’s hands. It can’t be accumulated or put under lock and key.
“Equal to any of these is a form of wealth you lack so profoundly that you’re truly pathetic. In a Leaver society, you’re never left to cope with a crushing problem all by yourself. You have an autistic child, a disabled child. This will be perceived as a tribal burden—but (as always) not for altruistic reasons. It simply makes no sense to say to the child’s mother or father, ‘This is entirely your problem. Don’t bother the rest of us with it.’ You have a parent who is becoming senile. The rest of the tribe won’t turn its back on you as you struggle with this problem. They know that a problem shared widely becomes almost no problem at all—and they know very well that each of them will someday need similar help with one problem or another. I find it truly heartrending to see the people of your world suffering without this wealth. One of a couple in late middle age contracts some horrible disease, their savings are wiped out in a matter of months, former friends shun them, there’s no more money for medication, and suddenly their situation is completely desperate. Again and again the only solution they can find is to die together—a mercy killing and a suicide. Stories like this are commonplace in your culture but are virtually unheard of in Leaver societies.
“In the Taker system, you use your carefully accumulated product wealth to buy support wealth that is free to all in the Leaver system. When a tribal people has to deal with a troublemaker in their midst, the able-bodied band together to do whatever is necessary, and this, in fact, is highly effective. You, on the other hand, in order to avoid performing such a service, turn the service into a product. You build police forces, then compete to have the best (the highest-paid, the best-equipped, and so on). This is notoriously ineffective, despite the fact that you spend more and more money on it every year, but it does result in a situation in which the rich are much better protected than the poor. In Leaver societies, all adults take part in the education of the young, which happens painlessly and without fail. You, on the other hand, in order to avoid performing such a service, turn it into a product, building schools, then competing to have the best (best-staffed, best-equipped, and so on). This too is notoriously ineffective, despite the fact that you spend more and more money on it every year, but it does result in a situation in which the children of the rich are educated less badly and usually more pleasurably. Care for the chronically ill, the aged, the disabled, the mentally ill—all these services are dispensed cooperatively in Leaver societies, and in yours all are turned into products to be competed for, the rich getting the best, the poor lucky to get any at all.”
There was one of those moments when neither one of us had anything to add. Then I said, “I need you to put this together for me, Ishmael. I’m not quite sure where we’ve been and where we are.”
He scratched the side of his jaw for a bit before answering. “If you want to survive on this planet, Julie, the people of your culture are going to have to start listening to your neighbors in the community of life. Incredible as it may seem, you don’t know it all. And, incredible as it may seem, you don’t have to invent it all. You don’t have to contrive things that work, you only have to visit the treasury around you. There’s no reason to be surprised that Leaver peoples should enjoy cradle-to-grave security. After all, among your neighbors in the community of life, the very same security is enjoyed in every species whose members form communities. Ducks, sea lions, deer, giraffes, wolves, wasps, monkeys, and gorillas (to name just a few species out of millions) enjoy such security. It has to be assumed that the members of Homo habilis enjoyed such security—or how would they have survived? Is there any reason to doubt that the members of Homo erectus enjoyed such security or that they conferred it upon their descendants, Homo sapiens? No, as a species, you came into being in communities in which cradle-to-grave security was the rule, and the same rule has been followed throughout the development of Homo sapiens right up to the present moment—in Leaver societies. It’s only in Taker societies that cradle-to-grave security has become a rarity, a special blessing of the privileged few.”
Ishmael studied the look on my face for a few seconds and apparently realized that he still wasn’t there.
“You daydreamed, Julie, of touring the universe to learn the secrets of how to live. I’m showing you where those secrets are to be found right here on your own planet, among your own neighbors in the community of life.”
“I see.… I guess. There was a girl in my class last year who had a newsletter from some organization or other. I don’t remember the name of the organization, but I remember its motto, at least approximately. It was ‘Healing ourselves, healing the world.’ Would you say that’s what you’re talking about?”
Ishmael gave that some thought and said, “I’m afraid I don’t have much sympathy for the ‘healing’ approach to your problems, Julie. You’re not ill. Six billion of you wake up every morning and start devouring the world. This isn’t a sickness that you contracted one night while sitting in a draft. Healing is always a hit-or-miss proposition, I’m sure you know that. Sometimes aspirin fixes the headache and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes chemotherapy kills the cancer and sometimes it doesn’t. You can’t afford to fool around with ‘healing’ yourselves. You’ve got to start living a different way, and you’ve got to do it very soon.”
Less Is Not Always More
You know,” I said, “there’s something you could do that would help me a lot. I don’t know if I have any business asking, but there it is.”
Ishmael frowned. “Have I given you the impression that my program here is not subject to change? Do I really seem to you so rigid that I’m unwilling to accommodate you?”
Oops, I said to myself, but after thinking about it for a bit, I decided not to be apologetic. I said to him, “It’s probably been a long time since yo
u were a twelve-year-old girl talking to a thousand-pound gorilla.”
“I don’t see what my weight has to do with it,” he snapped.
“Well, all right, a hundred-year-old gorilla.”
“I’m not a hundred years old, and I weigh less than six hundred pounds.”
“Good Lord,” I said. “This is beginning to sound like something from Alice in Wonderland.”
Ishmael chuckled and asked me what he could do that would be helpful.
“Tell me what you think the world would be like if we actually did manage to ‘start living a different way.’ ”
“This is a very legitimate request, Julie, and I can’t imagine why you hesitated to make it. I know from experience that, at this point, many people imagine that I’m thinking of a future in which technology has disappeared. It’s all too easy for you to blame all your problems on technology. But humans were born technologists as they were born linguists, and no Leaver people has ever been discovered that is devoid of it. Like so many other facets of Leaver life, however, their technology tends to be almost invisible to eyes used to technology as furiously powerful and extravagant as yours. In any case, I’m certainly not envisioning a future for you devoid of technology.
“Very often people who are used to thinking in the Taker way will say to me, ‘Well, if the Taker way isn’t the right way, what is the right way?’ But of course there is no one right way for people to live, any more than there is one right way for birds to build nests or for spiders to spin webs. So I’m certainly not envisioning a future in which the Taker empire has been overthrown and replaced by another. That’s complete nonsense. What does Mother Culture say you have to do?”
“Oh my,” I said. “I guess she’d say we don’t have to do anything at all.”
He shook his head. “Listen to her, don’t try to second-guess her. You mentioned one of her teachings on this subject a minute ago. Here it is: ‘You have some vague and probably incurable illness; you’ll never figure out exactly what it is, but here are some cures you can try. Try this one, and if that doesn’t work, try that one. And if that doesn’t work, try this one.’ Ad infinitum.”
“Okay, I see what you mean. Let me think.” I closed my eyes and after about five minutes began to get a glimmer. “This may be totally wrong,” I told him. “This may just be the simple truth, but this is what I hear: ‘Sure, you can save the world, but you’re really going to hate it. It’s really going to be painful.’ ”
“Why is it going to be painful?”
“Because of all the stuff we have to give up. But as I say, this may just be the simple truth.”
“No, it’s not the simple truth, Julie. It’s Mother Culture’s simple lie. Although Mother Culture is a metaphor, she really does behave uncannily like a real person sometimes. Why do you think she would tell this particular lie?”
“She wants to discourage us from changing, I guess.”
“Of course. Her whole function is to preserve the status quo. This is not a peculiarity of your Mother Culture. In every culture, it’s the function of Mother Culture to preserve the status quo. I don’t mean at all to suggest that this is a wicked activity.”
“I understand.”
“Mother Culture wants to forestall you right at the outset by persuading you that, for you, any change must be a change for the worse. Why is it the case that for you any change must be a change for the worse, Julie?”
“I don’t understand why you stress ‘for you.’ ”
“Well, think about the Bushmen of Africa instead of about you. Would any change be a change for the worse for them?”
“Oh. I see what you mean. The answer is no, of course. For the Bushmen of Africa, any change would be a change for the better, according to Mother Culture.”
“Why is that?”
“Because what they have is worthless. So any change would be an improvement.”
“Exactly. And why must any change for you be a change for the worse?”
“Because what we have is perfection. It just can’t get any better than this, so any change is ipso facto going to be a change for the worse. Is that right—ipso facto?”
“It’s quite right, Julie. I’ve been surprised by how many of you actually seem to believe that what you have is perfection. It took me a while to realize that this results from the strange understanding you have of human history and of evolution. A great many of you consciously or unconsciously think of evolution as a process of inexorable improvement. You imagine that humans began as a completely miserable lot but under the influence of evolution very gradually got better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better and better until one day they became you, complete with frost-free refrigerators, microwave ovens, air-conditioning, minivans, and satellite television with six hundred channels. Because of this, giving up anything would necessarily represent a step backward in human development. So Mother Culture formulates the problem this way: ‘Saving the world means giving up things and giving up things means reverting to misery. Therefore …’ ”
“Therefore forget about giving up things.”
“And, more importantly, forget about saving the world.”
“And what are you saying?”
“I too say ‘forget about giving up things.’ You shouldn’t think of yourselves as wealthy people who must give up some of your riches. You should think of yourselves as people in desperate need. Do you understand the root meaning of the word wealth, Julie?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What root word is the word warmth based on?”
“Warm, obviously.”
“So take a guess. What root word is the word wealth based on?”
“Well?”
“Of course. In its root sense, wealth isn’t a synonym for money, it’s a synonym for wellness. In terms of products, you are of course fabulously wealthy, but in terms of human wealth, you are pathetically poor. In terms of human wealth, you’re the wretched of the earth. And this is why you shouldn’t focus on giving up things. How can you expect the wretched of the earth to give up anything? That’s impossible. On the contrary, you must absolutely concentrate on getting things—but not more toasters, Julie. Not more radios. Not more television sets. Not more telephones. Not more CD players. Not more playthings. You must concentrate on getting the things you desperately need as human beings. At the moment you’ve given up on all those things, you’ve decided they can’t be had. But my task, Julie, is to show you that this isn’t the case. You don’t have to give up on the things you desperately need as human beings. They’re within your reach—if you know where to look for them. If you know how to look for them. And this is what you came to me to learn.”
“But how do we do that, Ishmael?”
“You’ve got to be more demanding for yourselves, Julie—not less. This is where I part company with your religionists, who tend to encourage you to be brave and long-suffering and to expect little from life—and to expect better only in a next life. You need to demand foryourselves the wealth that aboriginal people all over the world are willing to die to defend. You need to demand for yourselves the wealth that humans had from the beginning, that they took for granted for hundreds of thousands of years. You need to demand for yourselves the wealth you threw away in order to make yourselves the rulers of the world. But you can’t demand this from your leaders. Your leaders aren’t withholding it. They don’t have it to give to you. This is how you must differ from revolutionaries of the past, who simply wanted different people to be running things. You can’t solve your problem by putting someone new in charge.”
“Yeah, but who do we demand it of if we don’t demand it from our leaders?”
“Demand it of yourselves, Julie. Tribal wealth is the energy that tribal members give each other in order to keep the tribe going. This energy is inexhaustible, a completely renewable resource.”
I groaned. “You’re still not telling me how to do that.�
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“Julie, the things you want as humans are available. This is my message to you over and over and over again. You can have these things. People you despise as ignorant savages have them, so why can’t you have them?”
“But how? How do we go about having them?”
“First you have to realize that it’s possible to have them. Look, Julie, before you could go to the moon, you first had to realize that it was possible to go to the moon. Before you could build an artificial heart, you first had to realize that it was possible to build an artificial heart. Do you see that?”
“Yes.”
“At the moment, Julie, how many of you realize that your ancestors had a way of living that worked very well for people? People who lived this way weren’t perpetually struggling with crime, madness, depression, injustice, poverty, and rage. Wealth wasn’t concentrated in the hands of a lucky few. People didn’t live in terror of their neighbors or of the future. People felt secure, and they were secure—in a way that’s almost unimaginable to you. This way of living is still extant, and it still works as well as it ever did, for people—unlike your way, which works very well for business but very badly for people. How many of you realize all this?”
“None,” I said. “Or very few.”
“Then how can they begin? To go to the moon, you first had to realize that it was possible to go to the moon.”
“So what are you saying? That it’s impossible?”
Ishmael sighed. “Do you remember what I advertised for?”
“Of course. A pupil with an earnest desire to save the world.”
“Then presumably you came here because you have that desire. Did you think I was going to hand you a magic wand? Or an automatic weapon with which you could gun down all the evildoers of the world?”
“No.”
“Did you think there was nothing to be done? Did you think that you would come here, listen for a while, and then go home and do nothing? Did you think that doing nothing was my idea for saving the world?”