by Daniel Quinn
“That’s too big a leap. In Taker mythology, the world needed a ruler because the gods had made a mess of it. What they’d created was a jungle, a howling chaos, an anarchy. But was it that in fact?”
“No, everything was in good order. It was the Takers who introduced disorder into the world.”
“The rule of that law was and is sufficient. Mankind was not needed to bring order to the world.”
10
“The 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, just the way Hitler’s mythology of Aryan superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness.”
“That’s true. But what are you getting at?”
Instead of answering my question, Ishmael said, “Among the Leavers, crime, mental illness, suicide, and drug addiction are great rarities. How does Mother Culture account for this?”
“I’d say it’s because … Mother Culture says it’s because the Leavers are just too primitive to have these things.”
“In other words, crime, mental illness, suicide, and drug addiction are features of an advanced culture.”
“That’s right. Nobody says it that way, of course, but that’s how it’s understood. These things are the price of advancement.”
“There’s an almost opposite opinion that has had wide currency in your culture for a century or so. An opposite opinion as to why these things are rare among the Leavers.”
I thought for a minute. “You mean the Noble Savage theory. I can’t say I know it in any detail.”
“But you have an impression of it. That’s what’s current in your culture—not the theory in detail but an impression of it.”
“True. It’s the idea that people living close to nature tend to be noble. It’s seeing all those sunsets that does it. You can’t watch a sunset and then go off and set fire to your neighbor’s tepee. Living close to nature is wonderful for your mental health.”
“You understand that I’m not saying anything like this.”
“Yes. But what are you saying?”
“We’ve had a look at the story the Takers have been enacting here for the past ten thousand years. The Leavers too are enacting a story. Not a story told but a story enacted.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“If you go among the various peoples of your culture—if you go to China and Japan and Russia and England and India—each people will give you a completely different account of themselves, but they are nonetheless all enacting a single basic story, which is the story of the Takers. The same is true of the Leavers. The Bushmen of Africa, the Alawa of Australia, the Kreen-Akrore of Brazil, and the Navajo of the United States would each give you a different account of themselves, but they too are all enacting one basic story, which is the story of the Leavers.”
“I see what you’re getting at. It isn’t the tale you tell that counts, it’s the way you actually live.”
“That’s correct. The story the Takers have been enacting here for the past ten thousand years is not only disastrous for mankind and for the world, it’s fundamentally unhealthy and unsatisfying. It’s a megalomaniac’s fantasy, and enacting it has given the Takers a culture riddled with greed, cruelty, mental illness, crime, and drug addiction.”
“Yes, that seems to be so.”
“The story the Leavers have been enacting here for the past three million years isn’t a story of conquest and rule. Enacting it doesn’t give them power. Enacting it gives them lives that are satisfying and meaningful to them. This is what you’ll find if you go among them. They’re not seething with discontent and rebellion, not incessantly wrangling over what should be allowed and what forbidden, not forever accusing each other of not living the right way, not living in terror of each other, not going crazy because their lives seem empty and pointless, not having to stupefy themselves with drugs to get through the days, not inventing a new religion every week to give them something to hold on to, not forever searching for something to do or something to believe in that will make their lives worth living. And—I repeat—this is not because they live close to nature or have no formal government or because they’re innately noble. This is simply because they’re enacting a story that works well for people—a story that worked well for three million years and that still works well where the Takers haven’t yet managed to stamp it out.”
“Okay. That sounds terrific. When do we get to that story?”
“Tomorrow. At least we’ll begin tomorrow.”
“Good,” I said. “But before we quit today, I have a question. Why Mother Culture? I personally have no difficulty with it, but I can imagine some women would, on the grounds that you seem to be singling out a figure of specifically female gender to serve as a cultural villain.”
Ishmael grunted. “I don’t consider her a villain in any sense whatever, but I understand what you’re getting at. Here is my answer: Culture is a mother everywhere and at every time, because culture is inherently a nurturer—the nurturer of human societies and life-styles. Among Leaver peoples, Mother Culture explains and preserves a life-style that is healthy and self-sustaining. Among Taker peoples she explains and preserves a lifestyle that has proven to be unhealthy and self-destructive.”
“Okay. So?”
“So what’s your question? If culture is a mother among the Alawa of Australia and the Bushmen of Africa and the Kayapo of Brazil, then why wouldn’t she be a mother among the Takers?”
NINE
1
When I arrived the next day, I found that a new plan was in effect: Ishmael was no longer on the other side of the glass, he was on my side of it, sprawled on some cushions a few feet from my chair. I hadn’t realized how important that sheet of glass had become to our relationship: to be honest, I felt a flutter of alarm in my stomach. His nearness and enormity disconcerted me, but without hesitating for more than a fraction of a second, I took my seat and gave him my usual nod of greeting. He nodded back, but I thought I glimpsed a look of wary speculation in his eyes, as if my proximity troubled him as much as his troubled me.
“Before we go on,” Ishmael said after a few moments, “I want to clear up a misconception.” He held up a pad of drawing paper with a diagram on it.
“Not a particularly difficult visualization. It represents the story line of the Leavers,” he said.
“Yes, I see.”
He added something and held it up again.
“This offshoot, beginning at about 8000 B.C., represents the story line of the Takers.”
“Right.”
“And what event does this represent?” he asked, touching the point of his pencil to the dot labeled 8000 B.C.
“The agricultural revolution.”
“Did this event occur at a point in time or over a period of time?”
“I assume over a period of time.”
“Then this dot at 8000 B.C. represents what?”
“The beginning of the revolution.”
“Where shall I put the dot to show when it ended?”
“Ah,” I said witlessly. “I don’t really know. It must have lasted a couple thousand years.”
“What event marked the end of the revolution?”
“Again, I don’t know. I don’t know that any particular event would have marked it.”
“No popping champagne corks?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
I thought, and after a while said, “Okay. It’s strange that this isn’t taught. I remember being taught about the agricultural revolution, but I don’t remember this.”
“Go on.”
“
It didn’t end. It just spread. It’s been spreading ever since it began back there ten thousand years ago. It spread across this continent during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It’s still spreading across parts of New Zealand and Africa and South America today.”
“Of course. So you see that your agricultural revolution is not an event like the Trojan War, isolated in the distant past and without direct relevance to your lives today. The work begun by those neolithic farmers in the Near East has been carried forward from one generation to the next without a single break, right into the present moment. It’s the foundation of your vast civilization today in exactly the same way that it was the foundation of the very first farming village.”
“Yes, I see that.”
“This should help you understand why the story you tell your children about the meaning of the world, about divine intentions in the world, and about the destiny of man is of such profound importance to the people of your culture. It’s the manifesto of the revolution on which your culture is based. It’s the repository of all your revolutionary doctrine and the definitive expression of your revolutionary spirit. It explains why the revolution was necessary and why it must be carried forward at any cost whatever.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s quite a thought.”
2
“About two thousand years ago,” Ishmael went on, “an event of exquisite irony occurred within your culture. The Takers—or at least a very large segment of them—adopted as their own a story that seemed to them pregnant with meaning and mystery. It came to them from a Taker people of the Near East who had been telling it to their own children for countless generations—for so many generations that it had become a mystery even to them. Do you know why?”
“Why it had become a mystery? No.”
“It had become a mystery because those who first told the story—their ancient ancestors—were not Takers but Leavers.”
I sat there for a while blinking at him. Then I asked him if he’d mind running that past me again.
“About two thousand years ago, the Takers adopted as their own a story that had originated among Leavers many centuries before.”
“Okay. What’s the irony in that?”
“The irony is that it was a story that had once been told among Leavers about the origins of the Takers.”
“So?”
“The Takers adopted as their own a Leaver story about their origins.”
“I’m afraid I just don’t get it.”
“What sort of story would a Leaver people tell about the appearance of the Takers in the world?”
“God, I have no idea.”
Ishmael peered at me owlishly. “You seem to have forgotten to take your brainy pill this morning. Never mind, I’ll tell you a story of my own, and then you’ll see it.”
“Okay.”
Ishmael shifted his mountainous bulk into a new position on his pillows, and involuntarily I closed my eyes, thinking, If a stranger were to open the door and walk in at this moment, what on earth would he think?
3
“There is a very special knowledge you must have if you’re going to rule the world,” Ishmael said. “I’m sure you realize that.”
“Frankly, I’ve never thought about it.”
“The Takers possess this knowledge, of course—at least they imagine they do—and they’re very, very proud of it. This is the most fundamental knowledge of all, and it’s absolutely indispensable to those who would rule the world. And what do you suppose the Takers find when they go among the Leavers?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“They find that the Leavers do not have this knowledge. Isn’t that remarkable?”
“I don’t know.”
“Consider it. The Takers have a knowledge that enables them to rule the world, and the Leavers lack it. This is what the missionaries found wherever they went among the Leavers. They were quite astonished themselves, because they had the impression that this knowledge was virtually self-evident.”
“I don’t even know what knowledge you’re talking about.”
“It’s the knowledge that’s needed to rule the world.”
“Okay, but specifically what knowledge is that?”
“You’ll learn that from the story. What I’m looking at right now is who has this knowledge. I’ve told you that the Takers have it, and that makes sense, doesn’t it? The Takers are the rulers of the world, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And the Leavers don’t have it, and that too makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“Now tell me this: Who else would have this knowledge, besides the Takers?”
“I have no idea.”
“Think mythologically.”
“Okay…. The gods would have it.”
“Of course. And that’s what my story is about: How the gods acquired the knowledge they needed to rule the world.”
4
One day (Ishmael began) the gods were considering the administration of the world in the ordinary way, and one them said, “Here’s a spot I’ve been thinking about for a while—a wide, pleasant savannah. Let’s send a great multitude of locusts into this land. Then the fire of life will grow prodigiously in them and in the birds and lizards that will feed on them, and that will be very fine.”
The others thought about this for a while, then one said, “It’s certainly true that, if we send the locusts into this land, the fire of life will blaze in them and in the creatures that feed on them—but at the expense of all the other creatures that live there.” The others asked him what his point was, and he went on. “Surely it would be a great crime to deprive all these other creatures of the fire of life so that the locusts and the birds and the lizards can flourish for a time. For the locusts will strip the land bare, and the deer and the gazelles and the goats and the rabbits will go hungry and die. And with the disappearance of the game, the lions and the wolves and the foxes will soon be dying too. Won’t they curse us then and call us criminals for favoring the locusts and the birds and the lizards over them?”
Now the gods had to scratch their heads over this, because they’d never looked at matters in this particular light before. But finally one of them said, “I don’t see that this presents any great problem. We simply won’t do it. We won’t raise a multitude of locusts to send into this land, then things will go on as before, and no one will have any reason to curse us.”
Most of the gods thought this made sense, but one of them disagreed. “Surely this would be as great a crime as the other,” he said. “For don’t the locusts and the birds and the lizards live in our hands as well as the rest? Is it never to be their time to flourish greatly, as others do?”
While the gods were debating this point, a fox came out to hunt, and they said, “Let’s send the fox a quail for its life.” But these words were hardly spoken when one of them said, “Surely it would be a crime to let the fox live at the quail’s expense. The quail has its life that we gave it and lives in our hands. It would be infamous to send it into the jaws of the fox!”
Then another said, “Look here! The quail is stalking a grasshopper! If we don’t give the quail to the fox, then the quail will eat the grasshopper. Doesn’t the grasshopper have its life that we gave it and doesn’t it live in our hands as truly as the quail? Surely it would be a crime not to give the quail to the fox, so that the grasshopper may live.”
Well, as you can imagine, the gods groaned heavily over this and didn’t know what to do. And while they were wrangling over it, spring came, and the snow waters of the mountains began to swell the streams, and one of them said, “Surely it would be a crime to let these waters flood the land, for countless creatures are bound to be carried off to their deaths.” But then another said, “Surely it would be a crime not to let these waters flood the land, for without them the ponds and marshes will dry up, and all the creatures that live in them will die.” And once more the gods were thrown into c
onfusion.
Finally one of them had what seemed to be a new thought. “It’s clear that any action we take will be good for some and evil for others, so let’s take no action at all. Then none of the creatures that live in our hands can call us criminals.”
“Nonsense,” another snapped. “If we take no action at all, this will also be good for some and evil for others, won’t it? The creatures that live in our hands will say, ‘Look, we suffer, and the gods do nothing!’”
And while the gods bickered among themselves, the locusts swarmed over the savannah, and the locusts and the birds and the lizards praised the gods while the game and the predators died cursing the gods. And because the gods had taken no action in the matter, the quail lived, and the fox went hungry to its hole cursing the gods. And because the quail lived, it ate the grasshopper, and the grasshopper died cursing the gods. And because in the end the gods decided to stem the flood of spring waters, the ponds and the marshes dried up, and all the thousands of creatures that lived in them died cursing the gods.
And hearing all these curses, the gods groaned. “We’ve made the garden a place of terror, and all that live in it hate us as tyrants and criminals. And they’re right to do this, because by action or inaction we send them good one day and evil the next without knowing what we should do. The savannah stripped by the locusts rings with curses, and we have no answer to make. The fox and the grasshopper curse us because we let the quail live, and we have no answer to make. Surely the whole world must curse the day we made it, for we are criminals who send good and evil by turns, knowing even as we do it that we don’t know what ought to be done.”
Well, the gods were sinking right into the slough of despond when one of them looked up and said, “Say, didn’t we make for the garden a certain tree whose fruit is the knowledge of good and evil?”
“Yes,” cried the others. “Let’s find that tree and eat of it and see what this knowledge is.” And when the gods had found this tree and had tasted its fruit, their eyes were opened, and they said, “Now indeed we have the knowledge we need to tend the garden without becoming criminals and without earning the curses of all who live in our hands.”