This is part of a series of posts representing ideas from the book, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I view the ideas explored in Ishmael to be so important to the world that it seems everyone should have a chance to be exposed. I hope this treatment inspires you to read the original.
Chapter FOUR is where Alan presents the middle part of Taker mythology about why things are the way they are. This short chapter is presented in five numbered subsections, beginning on page 65 of the original printing and page 69 of the 25th anniversary printing. The sections below mirror this arrangement in the book. See the launch post for notes on conventions I have adopted for this series.
1. Escaping Worthlessness
Announcing that he has the middle and end of the Taker story worked out, Alan starts the tape recorder. How would the Nova show (a PBS television series) build off the premise that Earth was made for humans, and therefore belongs to humans? Well, it took humans forever to clue in. For millions of years, humans lived as “a lion or a wombat” does—not as if the world were made for them.
Prodded to explain what it means to live like other animals, Alan explains that it means not having control: living at the mercy of “the gods,” as it were.
This earlier way of life was a huge waste. It did not allow humans to blossom into their true, fabulous selves. During this whole time, humans accomplished nothing, effectively.
In order to “get anywhere,” humans first had to settle down so they could roll up their sleeves—not forced to wander from place to place to find food. And food is the key: in order to settle down, they had to start growing food in one place. If a hunter-gatherer group tried to settle into one place prior to achieving this capability, they would wipe out the sparse offerings in their immediate vicinity and would no longer have the option of staying. Humans had to learn to manipulate their environment to produce a much higher concentration of human-supporting sustenance than it does on its [imperfect, disappointing] own. Thus, agriculture.
Acquiring agricultural capability was like a homeless man—unaware that he was heir to a fortune—being handed the keys to a fixer-upper palace [my metaphor]. Finally, he was free of a life of limitations: a watershed moment.
The ride was swift from there [as sketched out in my River post]. Settlements, cities, property rights, legal and political structures, money, organized religion, hierarchy, patriarchy, “real” technology, “real” art, “real” history…all flowed from here. That’s the middle of the story.
2. Our Destiny
An impressed Ishmael (a first) recaps that yesterday’s piece—the beginning of the story—cast Earth as a mere substrate for humans. Today’s middle part indicates that it was not human destiny to live like a lion or a wombat. But what, then, is human destiny?
Alan stumbles, only suggesting that it is “to accomplish great things.” Ishmael is looking for a statement of human destiny possessing a mythological flavor, but Alan needs more prompting.
3. Taming the Chaos
Having established that in Taker mythology, the world was made for humans—rather than for jellyfish—the question becomes: what was the world like before humans appeared? What transpired in the absence of the star actors?
Alan tried to imagine the world before humans, at first in a very detached way—from space. When Ishmael encouraged him to join the scene on the ground, Alan realized that he didn’t want to: wasn’t comfortable; felt he didn’t belong. It was a dangerous place, “red in tooth and claw” and all that. He’d be torn apart. [This misconception is torn apart in Chapter 11.]
In Taker mythology, then, the world without man was a place of chaos and terror. If the gods made Earth for humans, they therefore must have meant for it to be tamed by humans. The world needed a ruler. Thus, the premise can be extended, and not for the last time:
The world was made for man, and man was made to rule it.
By this time, Alan is better at spotting a mythology when he sees it. One cannot consider it to be factual, in any way, that humans were made to rule the Earth. That’s a complete fabrication. When Alan failed to demonstrate amazement at how laced our culture is with mythology—a notion he vociferously denied before—Ishmael only felt sorry for his walled-off emotional state.
4. Nature Fights Back
As a recap, humans squandered millions of years writhing like animals in a chaotic and dangerous world before belatedly getting with the program 10,000 years ago in the form of an agricultural revolution. Finally, humans could shake off their dreadful past and set the Earth to rights. [This is how our culture understands it, correct?]
One small problem: did the Earth “meekly submit to human rule?” Not at all. It thwarted our efforts at every possible turn. Storms destroyed human “improvements.” The forest constantly encroached on cleared lands. Floods washed away crops. Seeds were pilfered by birds and vermin. Microbial and fungal “rot” spoiled stores. Bugs destroyed plants that belonged to humans and not to them, as if they had never received official notice of the rightful ruler of the land. The age-old terrain would not yield to newfangled human plans. It was one thing after another, on all fronts at once.
So, what does a king do when his subjects will not submit to subjugation? He must crush them, of course. Humans were therefore meant to conquer and rule the Earth, according to Taker mythology.
Alan gasped at the prevalence of this message in everyday life: conquering disease, cancer, hunger, the oceans, the landscape, biological processes, the nucleus, space, and even death. We’re soaking in it, busily enacting a toxic story—as we are “meant” to do—yet do not recognize it as mythology. It’s subtle background noise.
5. The Cost of Business
Asked by Ishmael to pull these pieces together, Alan has the usual trouble. But they work through the logic. If the gods made Earth for humans to conquer and rule, then this was our destiny (as set by the gods), and it couldn’t be helped. Thus, any damages from our war on the planet are simply the cost of fulfilling our assigned destiny. It’s what had to happen to have personal vehicles, smart phones, tropical vacations, food on demand, and all the other perks.
Ishmael offers a correction. This is not the inevitable cost of being human, as humans need not enact this particular toxic mythology. This is the cost of enacting a foul premise: of being at war with the world.
Next Time
In the next installment, Chapter 5 looks at how the Taker story ends—or at least possible future endings.
I thank Alex Leff for looking over a draft of this post and offering valuable comments and suggestions.
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