I’ve just finished reading an interesting trilogy of books. Ishmael, The Story of B and My Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I’ve been looking forward to finishing the series, because I’ve wanted to share some of the thoughts from the book with the good people here at the frog pond.
I think the frog pond is a natural place for these thoughts. Whenever I’ve read something that is completely outside conventional thought (e.g., I’m reminded of Zinn and A People’s History), and felt the need to share thoughts on this topic, it seems to me that this place is the most open group of people I know for airing such things.
I suspect that a number of you have already read Quinn’s books. So some will already be familiar with the stories and ideas. For those who are not, the reason I say it is perhaps outside “conventional thought,” is because even for someone like me (an ardent adherent of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism), the basic ideas in the book seem a little bit like some kind of new-age mysticism. Perhaps beyond the pale. Too much to take seriously. A little too “Celestine Prophecy” for a rational atheist to latch on to (and I don’t mean to malign those adherents of the Celestine Prophecy — after all, I’m here writing this). And yet the ideas are very appealing. So I’ll try to share them. To the extent there is any interest from frog pond members.
Okay. Don’t laugh. But the first book is about a gorilla. A telepathic gorilla. A telepathic gorilla philosopher or anthropologist on a level of Socrates or Aristotle. Ishmael.
Okay. Stop laughing. The gorilla puts an advertisement in the paper which says:
Student wanted. Must have an earnest desire to save the world.
And low and behold. An ex-hippie shows up and starts training under Ishmael. And the first book is basically a chronicle of this student. Written from the student’s perspective.
The lessons are somewhat Socratic. Something I loved about law school. For someone with a mind like mine, I find it the best way to learn. It can be a bit intimidating. And it can seem a bit sadistic when wielded by a power-tripping asshole (think “Paper Chase”). But it can really cement ideas home. For me, it is far and away the best way to learn. I learned more in three years of law school than in seventeen elsewhere. So this may be a part of my attraction to the ideas in the book. For crying out loud, it is a bout a genius telepathic gorilla who can teach like Socrates.
It is hard to explain. I feel like writing, “You had to be there,” now. But I won’t. I’ll just say this. The first lesson is pretty simple. Just explain the story of the world. How you came to be where you are? Everything you’ve learned, for you to believe and understand why we are where we are? The myth or science or explanation that gives you the context to understand your own place in the world.
Try it. I answered the question. Along with the student character in the book. And I’ve asked a few people to answer it. And it is quite remarkable — how we all know the tale. To some degree or another.
So give me your answer. And maybe I’ll throw out a few more ideas. Should anyone have an earnest desire to save the world.
Simple eh?
I’ll have to get back to you on this one. And I will.
But it is easy. Just type, in a few words, the story of the world. Just the basics. As you have come to know them. (You know, a fundie might say — Well, in the beginning god created man, and it was good). But we all have a story. And many of them, believe it or not, are similar.
What’s yours. I could tell you mine, but I don’t want to spoil it. But I bet yours and mine are pretty close to start with, anyhow.
In the begining there was peace and love… but peace and love although are priceless… they aren’t profitable so man had to find ways to hate and murder each other to make themselves feel powerful or more closer to a g-d.
Then people in the peace movement said ENOUGH!!! And they were hated. They were called terrorists. Each day they went out they had to made daily, critical decisions about their lives as their thoughs and work towards Peace made them a target of hate and ridicule.
each day we face hate and threats… so that we may stand up and rise up for Peace.
Okay. Very good. A start. And a good start. But I want you to think larger. Or more generally. Not any one issue. Just the creation myth — or other explanation for how humankind came to be.
I wish I could. I’m gearing up for a protest tomorrow on a bridge. Meeting, speech with Medea Benjamin and meeitng with other peace groups in Portland on Saturday…
Plus getting ready for a hunger strink protest for July 4th.
I’ve read only one of the books – I want to be a Giver. We’re trying to live our lives in peace and be critical consumers… cripes trying to live like this is hurrd wurrrk. 😉
As to creation myth… I’m not as worried about as how we came to be – rather than just why can’t we live togther in peace and sharing NOW. 🙂 as that is what will cause our END.
…. Creation…. I think true, positive creation is always born from love.
What we have now is de-creation. Destruction. War and Killing is not creation.
Okay… I’m stupid to try to be a part of this thread LOL I give up. Gotta go get my pink on.
Oh and today – sadly…. we de-created 2,500. That doesn’t tell the figure of how many others who have died or been maimed.
You go girl. You are saving the world. This is just trivia.
Not stupid for coming and talking. I’m gald you did. Don’t hunger strike yourself to death. And best with the peace efforts out there in Oregon. I just like the sound of the place.
I’m thinking some of the angst that you and I and others share is something that is addressed in these books. Just a bit, at least. Many of us are feeling like the world is going to hell in a handbasket in so many ways: War. Environmental degradation. Wanton and meaningless consumption. Lack of purpose. You name it. The list of what makes us feel as we feel (like something is wrong, wrong, wrong) is long.
Go fight for peace. Kick butt.
Medea just spoke of that on air. People feel helpless and hopeless.
UNTILL they DO SOMETHING. Untill they get involved with others how are also trying to DO SOMETHING.
I realized not too long ago that I get stir crazy if I don’t hit the No War Drum Rally. I feel totally off center. I feel like I can’t breathe untill I can be in the arms of a CodePinker.
What do you tell someone who says it’s too much, it’s too consuming, there’s too many issues. Medea said you give them ONE thing they can do. Make a sign. Make a phone call. Help a person get registered to vote.
I get angry. I get scared, damnit. I really do – but FEAR is the WarPigs drug of choice… and I can’t afford it any longer.
I love you BostonJoe. Keep kicking ass yourself! 🙂
Yeah. Doing something. Anything. That is good. I think. You go.
Hell, “THINKING” is an act of dissent nowadays 🙂
It does frighten me a bit. But it is the place and time where we are. So we just have to put heads down and do the dirty work. You are certainly doing it. A real model for people, I think.
You persist on patting my back like this and I will have to give you a noogie! 🙂
All right. No more patting. I hate noogies.
They call that kind of story cosmology 🙂
The poet Charles Olson, who trafficked in much of the world’s cosmologies throughout his work tracking the american mythos, published his first work in 1947, shortly after giving up politics (he was a New Dealer in one of FDR’s propaganda offices), Call Me Ishmael.
He also resucitated Pound’s neologism, pejorocracy (think Pejorative).
Wonderful of you to share this to today’s/tonight’s conversation.
I must say I’m not all that much of a thinker. To quote Phil Hartman, “I’m just a caveman. I don’t understand your modern world…”
But I think I can sense high thought when I am around it, and bullshit when I smell it. In this case, I’m sensing it and not smelling it. Though you would have to explain it for me at a very basic level is you really wanted me to have a good grasp of what Mr. Olson was saying.
Still it is nice to be around high thought. For a guy who grew up relatively poor, both in material and intellectual terms, it is kind of like looking in the window of a very fancy restaraunt. You can almost taste the wine. Almost feel the salad fork in your hand. And it is good enough.
Thanks again.
Well, he’s talking about a mythology that informs the western, & specifically, American psyche. One that experienced itself for centuries as a drive to expand in near boundless space. Francis Parkman is the great historian of the exploration & expansion into the American West. The Frontier.
Whitman embodies the noble, democratic (“I contain multitudes”) aspect of our dreams; Melville the dark realist’s violent underbelly.
We’re all Ismael’s led by mad Ahab’s in pursuit of a great white whales of our own creation.
The image of a people of Ismaels creating our Ahab, Bush, in pursuit of another creation, Moby-Terrorism-Dick, in a world beset by global warming, feels terrifyingly apt.
He was warning, back in ’47, that this primal urge isn’t sustainable, thus the line “We are the last ‘first’ people. We forget that. We act big, misuse our land, ourselves. We lose our own primary.”
the last ‘first’ people
Ouch. His was a cry to realize the sobriety of that fact. And to, in Arthur’s favorite phrase, WTF up!
polis is
eyes
Not really a cosmology. I’ll admit I don’t Quinn at all & just shot off this tangent. Thanks for listening! 🙂
By ear, he sd.
But that which matters, that which insists, that which will last,
that! o my people, where shall you find it, how, where shall you listen
when all is become billboards, when all, even silence, is spray-gunned?
–from “I, MAximus of Gloucester, to You,” The Maximus Poems
Thanks for breaking it down. It makes so much sense to me now. I hate to be obtuse and ask for fairly obvious answers. The only way I made it through anything I think, is because of course called “(Fill in subject title) for non-majors.” Basically the liberal arts version of the “Books for Dummies Series.” A bunch of classes where an expert patiently makes it understandable for a non-exper. I’m a pseudo-intellecutal at best. A mouth breather, according to some old colleagues. And I appreciate the spoon feeding. Thanks. Awesome contribution.
Hell, I’ve read Olson for over 30 years & there are still times I haven’t a clue as to what he’s up to. Glad my take was able to make a little sense. I’m sure a bigger intellectual gun than mine could explicate much more fully.
He was a big (6’7″) man who liked to think BIG. and he makes big leaps that are hard to follow.
“polis” is Greek for city, at the root of politic — eyes
If I can find some small hook, just a little way into someone’s work, it’s often enough to spur me on to make the effort, despite the lack of full comprehension. His appetites were enormous & he draws in all kinds of material from the world’s cultures, ancient to modern.
Fascinating discussion here, btw. My wife had to fill me in on Quinn last night 🙂
Glad you joined in.
So glad to see this diary. I just read Ishmael a few weeks ago. Having never been exposed to the Socratic method, it was necessary for me to boil big vats of words down to their elixir, (in some places) but it was more than well worth the effort.
In a nutshell, I fell in love with Ishmael. If he showed up at my door, I’d run away with him in an instant and happily pick nits out his fur till the end of my days.
That’s funny. He has quite a fan club for a primate.
As do you ;o)
I think I resemble Ishmael in a number of ways, mostly having to do with my build, general appearance and odor. 🙂
Ha! I now have an image of BostonJoe sitting in a room eating leaves…. with a pink lei around his neck 😉
**Tosses pink panties onto the BostonJoe Fan tour platform.
Too funny.
Oh, good, I’m not the only one.
I chose ‘My Ishmael,’ preferring to get the story from the perspective of a twelve-year-old girl. It was excellent, and I think pretty much covers the first book.
I think we all have a desire to save the world. The trouble is that we each have a totally different perspective. We like to think that other beings are somehow less legitimate than ourselves.
People are strange. Someday we’ll accept and celebrate that.
A really good point. There is something in the books about change being the product of changing many minds over time, and not the product of a program. Also, an idea about change being different for all. A central theme. Very good.
You are all in the advanced “Leaver” classes.
Interesting that you made that choice consciously. I take it that you have at least some idea what Quinn’s other books are about. As it happens, I read them in sequence. I more or less stumbled onto Ishmael first. I was inflamed by it. It called into question so many of my assumptions, and made me start thinking again about so many things that I had let slip off my radar. When I finished Ishmael I immediately went looking for anything else by Quinn. I read My Ishmael next and was blown away again. It tells almost the same story, but from a totally different perspective. And the contrast of the two perspectives was easily as mind-blowing as either of the two books was by itself. It was like a three for the price of two deal. I highly recommend Ishmael if you haven’t already read it, but then I doubt I have to tell you that.
In a nutshell : At the important points, the turning points, order prevails over chaos (in widely varying margins). You can apply that to the beginning of the world, the start of life, the start of my life, and what I’ve done with it so far.
Yeah. ejmw in the house.
A good place to start, this answer.
Order prevails over chaos. For the start of the world. For the origins of life. For the origins of an individual.
All right. Start at the start of the world. How did order prevail over chaos at the start of the world?
Well, I don’t consider it gospel (ha!) but I guess Big Bang theory (or its similar alternatives) is the best working theory we’ve got right now for the start of the universe, so I’ll go with that as a starting point for origin of the planet.
Gaseous matter, which has a high degree of entropy (or chaos) eventually combined with other gaseous matter to come to a more ordered, or stable state. These new blocks of matter (some of which are now solid, some gaseous) eventually would become stars and planets, one of which is our very own little space rock.
That was the first triumph of order over chaos that set the pages turning to what we see and are now (at least, the first triumph that is directly related to us and Earth).
Exactly the answer I would give, I think. The one I gave myself as I read along in the book with the student character.
Ishmael would say, yes. Listen to what Mother Culture has taught you. She tells you everything you know about your world, even without speaking. You know the story. So the big bang. The eventual development of a universe, galaxies, planets. Earth. And then life? What happened then?
(Very good start — ejmw — textbook).
As for the start of life, in the same manner as gases combining to form planets, so did other atoms and molecules combine to form ordered structures that would eventually make cells. Beginning with single celled organisms. Eventually larger organisms develop, which are really just larger ordered structures of the same simple types of cells.
Let’s skip ahead, I don’t think we need to go over how my answer applies to other scientific principles like evolution, etc. You can read that in any decent science text.
Instead, let’s go forward and see how it applies to the social aspects of mankind.
At first man (and I use that as a synonym for ‘humans’ not as a gender-specific descriptor) as other animals, mostly individualistic in nature. At some point, early man realized it would be beneficial to cooperate with some of his peers, hence the evolution of a somewhat ordered society.
Over time this continued to grow, and become more and more ordered. This isn’t to say that there weren’t steps backwards at some points, of course they were. But the long term progress leans towards order.
Textbook answers ejmw. You could be the character in the book, for that matter. Except, I’m assuming you are not a fictional being.
So with respect to mankind, or humankind, let’s take a moment and consider the first steps toward order over chaos. Man started out acting as an individual, and gradually formed groups to increase his chance of survival? Does Mother Culture tell you the point at which man stopped being more on the chaotic side of his past, and where he started to be on the more orderly side of his past? Was there a significant moment in the history of man that demarks the evolution of our current society?
(You are a model person for the socratic method — truly excellent — were you trained in this way?)
I don’t think I’m fictional, but then I’m sure neither does anyone else. And if nobody is fictional then I don’t know why they have that section in bookstores.
Let me take a small step back because while I realize it is convenient to look at it in these terms, they aren’t completely accurate. That is, the evolution of man as a creature can’t be totally separated from the evolution of man as a social being. Many aspects of this primitive cooperative society surely came into being while man still bore closer physical resemblance to a primate than to ‘modern’ man. Just as modern day primates exhibit some of the behaviors that would be associated with an early society.
So in that sense, no, I don’t think that man started acting as individual then gradually formed groups. Some of those behaviors were already a part early man. But, I do think that early man developed a much more ordered society at a much faster pace as he moved closer to what we think of as our direct ancestors.
From a historical point of view, no I don’t think that there was a specific point in time at which this happened. As phrased, I’m not sure it ever really did. I think once man had advanced to the point at which we would call him ‘man’ he was probably pretty firmly oriented towards order.
There are a lot of answers to this. In fact I’m sure that there are books written on the subject. So I’ll just say the first thing that popped into my head, which is the inception of farming and birth of the agrarian society.
I’m not versed enough in archaeology or history to know this for a fact, but to me it seems like the first time that there were true demarcations in the roles of different people in a society (different jobs, if you will), and that it probably spurred some of the first meaningful trade.
Thanks 🙂 If by trained in this way you mean staying up until 4am drinking beer and eating pizza with your closest friends talking about this kind of stuff, then yes.
Trained by staying up to 4am drinking beer with friends and talking about all this. Ha! That is so true. Another reason I liked these books. Because they helped recapture that feeling of a very interesting conversation.
It seems to me you have a very detailed understanding of evolution, both biological and cultural. More so than my own. Entertaining to read your thoughts here. And they just ring true. That things are never as simple as they might appear. So I apologize to over-simplify things. But I’m going somewhere. I think. 🙂 But I defer to your understanding on these things. It sounds well-informed.
What popped into your head, as a demarcation point, is very significant. At least, I think that would be what Ishmael would say. It is how Mother Culture works, kind of. That was the answer I gave. The answer the character gave. The answer Ishmael was looking for. At one point in the development of humankind, there was a great advance. It was so great, it is labeled a revolution by many. The agricultural revolution. And it is here, that we are nearing the end of the first lesson of the books. Just a bit further today. If you want.
Tell us the story that Mother Culture has given us about the Agricultural Revolution. In brief. What was it? What were the implications (you’ve already started here — with specialization, etc.). You might even bring it home. Where did the AR start? And how did we get from there to here? (Remarkable how you have tracked the novel — very cool — though I’m sure I did my share of leading). I’ll answer somewhere out in the general comments — just to get the margins reset. 🙂
Another book you might enjoy
CodePink’s Stop the Next War Now.
Great ideas for us accidental activists.
Okay. You Pinko. I’ll read it. At some point. Code Pink is your tribe. Like the Booman Tribune is a tribe to many of us. Tribalism. Another Ishael concept. To be explored later.
I want to be in the ice cream tribe next time around. 😉
(sorry, the above was supposed to be it’s own new comment. Carry on)
Well, there really isn’t just one agricultural revolution. Specifically, what I was talking about was what might be considered the first agricultural revolution, which was man learning how to farm in the first place.
But that’s really just the beginning, the one little seed that would eventually spark what most people think of as the (capitalized!) Agricultural Revolution, which is a definite transitional point in the history of human society (hence the capitalization).
It can really all be traced back to the invention of the iron plow, I think. For the first time farmers could till large amounts of land and grow large amounts of food. Before this, hand tools were necessary so it limited the scope of what could be grown. Because of this, most of the societies of the time existed as small towns and villages.
Now that large amounts of food could be grown on large swaths of land, it allowed for people to form larger towns and cities. Urbanization. In fact it was nearly required that it be that way so that the requisite land was available on which to grow food.
So, out of the Agricultural Revolution came urbanization. And out of urbanization would come the Industrial Revolution.
That’s of course a very short and shallow description of how things came to pass. The implications? When you have people living in cities, you need specialized jobs to keep things running. Some people will be teachers. Some firemen. Some garbage collectors and janitors. Some farmers.
So out of it also came a more complex economic class system. There were no longer just nobles and peasants. Now there were any number of stratifications. Though the one dichotomous class system that still does more or less exist is rural / urban, I guess.
And that’s pretty much where we are now.
OK, that’s about all I can write for now. I’ll try to check back later tonight.
Outstanding. I think. You’ve laid out what Mother Culture tells many of us. In very clear, concise short-hand way.
I cannot remember how exactly Ishmael closed this lesson. He began by asking the questions to establish what it is was the student’s cultural belief system. And you’ve nailed that part. And it ended with something like this, if memory serves — something I’ll probably discuss in a diary tomorrow — or more later here — If I have a mind.
Ishmael basically guided his student to a series of assumptions that underlie this explanation of the world. Basically, that this was the natural order of things. The natural evolution and cultural evolution of the world. From chaos to order, as you might say. But then he posed a question. Or a problem. Or a bunch of them. But one of them was this: Assuming that the Agricultural Revolution took place about ten thousand years ago — give or take a few thousand. Assuming this, what were human beings doing for the for the other two-hundred thousand years that they existed prior to the Agricultural Revolution? Presumably they lived before the revolution. And your earlier answers suggest some of this. There was perhaps agriculture of a sort. Perhaps hunting and gathering, right? But what did the world look like for the 190,000 years or so between Homo sapiens appearance on the stage of life, and the advent of the Agricultural Revolution?
The (capitalized) Agricultural Revolution was actually much more recent than that, it was really only about 300 years ago.
But I understand the question that you’re asking and what you’re getting at, I think. Yes, I do subscribe to the hunter / gatherer / limited farmer school of thought with regards to earlier man.
Before the formation of man’s complex societies, when he was still relatively new on the world stage, he was clearly much closer to nature. You need only look at the civilizations of the Mayans, Aztecs, or other American natives to see how the gap was bridged. The advances of our technology has allowed mankind to increasingly insulate himself from the natural world.
The problem with this (that we here are all well aware of) is that the world, or the natural environment, is not insulated from the effects of this technology.
I think this realization is a relatively new one in the human consciousness, though. I don’t think it was until very recently that we became aware of the consequences of our actions.
To our credit, we are using further advances in technology to more quickly detect and measure these effects so (in theory) they can be mitigated or prevented.
However, those of us that do still feel a sense of responsibility to our natural world, a sense that it wasn’t just put here to be mankind’s all-you-can-plunder-buffet, are rightfully distraught that we are not doing enough, fast enough, to put things right.
Outstanding you old engineer you. Outstanding. A star.
Before the formation of man’s complex societies, when he was still relatively new on the world stage, he was clearly much closer to nature. You need only look at the civilizations of the Mayans, Aztecs, or other American natives
The was a vast array of different cultures in native peoples. The Mayans/Aztecs/Incas were fully “complex” civilizations. I’m wary of the ‘evolutionary’ model of civilization. The western Shoshone of the the Great Basin, accurately described as a hunter/gatherer society, were also found to have diverted streams & dug irrigation ditches in places along the eastern Sierra. They often burned the landscape to encourage new growth.
The western agricultural revolution took place in Sumer.
I’m reminded of a Franz Boas saying from the turn of the century, revived by poet/ethnographer Jerome Rothernberg:
Primitive means complex
I’m not arguing with your main point, that NA cultures have a healthier relation to the natural world that we desperately need to recover. Just quibbling/expanding on some details.
I do not know enough about ancient cultures, but Quinn suggests that some of the Central/South American civilizations, that experimented with what he calls the “Taker” way of life (totalitarian agriculture at odds with sustainability) had the good sense to abandon their experiments when they proved to be unsustainable. Walked away. Went back to more sustaniable systems. There is no one way. Which explains why we find these ruins of gigantic, advanced cultures with seemingly mysterious ends.
ejmw, I must congratulate you on your excellent comments. Very impressive.
Thank you b2. I have a nearly obsessive need to understand how things work or came to be. It isn’t because I’m an engineer, but it is certainly why I am 🙂
Alright, I’ll give it a go.
First of all, there is one fundamental problem I have with the creation of the universe and all within it, including me. If the big bang theory is true, and I believe it to be, and the universe, like a blast wave from an explosion, is expanding, then what I really, really, REALLY want to know is, what is it expanding into, and what is just outside the leading edge of this expanding universe? Another universe expanding outward toward our universe? Hundreds of universes? Or BILLIONS as one of my heros, Carl Sagan, used to say? Please, this stargazer needs to know.
As far as our tiny corner of the universe is concerned, I believe that we are so far less important and unique, than we give ourselves credit for. We are just a higher (some might say lower) form of biological entities that presently infests the planet. That we have the ability to feel hate, and jealosy, I believe are the greatest source of our inability to coexist in harmony with all creatures, including ourselves, and within our environment. For all of our greatness, and some things about us are great, like art, music, being able to feel love, and give it, we aren’t able to take the next step. But then I think that this era in Earths life is a necesarry part of that stepping process, and we who are present on the planet at this time, are just a small part of the ongoing evolution of all species and are laying the groundwork for the next incarnation of human primate. Let’s not forget that were it not for an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs and leaving the place open for mammals to rise up, then none of might not be here.
My place in all of this is no more important than that of one grain of sand on a stretch of beach. I am a part of it, and no doubt without me the beach would be smaller, but I doubt I’d be missed. The best that I can do is to make an effort to keep the evolutionary process going in the right direction. I don’t know if it is though. It’s going in some direction. And maybe that natural direction will not result in the saving of the world. Maybe it’s destiny is destruction. Who am I to say? I haven’t a clue.
Supersoling, that tiny speck of sand isn’t insignificant…
it can wear down the great pyramids…
😀
Outstanding start super. Can’t believe you haven’t read the books, if you haven’t. Because what you are saying already embodies so many of the ideas that the books ultimately touch on. But you’ve jumped straight in. And that is cool.
I see three things in your answer that Ishmael might seize upon. At least the fictional Ishmael I’ve come to know. (I think the ideas one could take away are many and not necessarily the same).
For one, you’ve hit upon the basic start of the story that many of us probably share. The universe. It started with the “big bang.” Or so those of us believing in science are taught. I really have no answer for you on this issue. I’m no physicist. Though I like to read about popular physics. But I can tell you I am about where you are. That in the beginning, I’ve learned that there was a “big bang.” And I’ve often thought, what was there before that (or as you say, what did the big bang explode into). But you are there at the start of the explanation. You and I are there together. There was (at least as far as our wisemen of today can tell us) a big bang and the universe unfolded. Galaxies. Stars. Eventually planets. Eventually earth. And life here. Right? That is where I was in answering this question. Take it from there. What is next? We have an earth. And what. — By the way, Ishael would probably say something like — listen to everything you’ve been taught by the world — by “Mother culture.” You’ve been exposed to her teachings for a lifetime, whether conscious or unconsious. So listen and tell the next bit of the story that explains how we get to here.
Second, you mention that their is some source that gives humankind an inability to coexist in harmony on this planet. You’ve skipped ahead a few lessons to be sure. But I feel that too. Something is wrong. I knew it when I was just a boy. I always wanted to run away. I wanted to go to Alaska. Wanted to live in the wilderness. I dream that still lives in me. Because I sensed that something was wrong. It is an angst. I think many, many of us feel it. If not all of us. But I know you and I for certain feel it. And that is an important concept. Perhaps we’ll talk about it more later. Because it is important. But let’s go slow for now. 🙂
Third, and maybe fourth, you discuss the idea that mankind is not the end all and be all. That there is something to follow us. Another primate perhaps. That evolution did not end with us. I’d say this is an example of you understanding something outside of what Mother Culture has taught most people. Because it seems to me many, many of us have difficulty with this notion. Ishmeal would say that a general tenant taught by mother culture, which you or others would probably uncover in telling the full explanation of how we came to be in the world, is this rule: Mother Culture would say, “The world is made for mankind, and mankind is made to rule the world.” Not a tenant I now subscribe to. But something that many hold so essentially, almos without knowing. Something you have somehow come to learn in your time on the planet already — that man is not the center of all things. Good. (And fourth, you touch on animism — I think — a belief that you are a small part of the whole — but we’ll definitely get there later — should this discussion continue — seems like some people enjoy it — and I can tell you that I do.)
You the man super. You were way ahead of the Ishael curve, I think. So, tell the story. Life on earth. 😉
Well no, I haven’t read the books, so….um, thanks ;o)
Life on Earth…shit. Okay.
I used to think that life here, in it’s most basic form, was an accident. Just a random mixing of the proper chemicals and temperatures and so on. Enter bacteria! But that view has sort of changed over the years since some of the discoveries of our deep space probes and planetary exploration has found much the same building blocks on Mars, on Titan, embedded within comets, and others. Especially on Mars where they now believe that at least at one time, the elements required for life did exist. So this kind of puts me back to the beginning and the big bang and what was there before it. That’s where I’m stumped. And that’s where my atheistic beliefs are vulnerable. Was there something orderly in place before the big bang? And was it by design? Hmmmm Questions too big for this little clump of cells to answer.
I do believe though that as ordered as evolution appears to be, it is in the end, all random. There may be an inevitable end to the journey, but I don’t think it can be predicted at all. In a way life on Earth is a series of little big bangs to me. Each one a new beginning, going off in a different direction. This is complex shit BJ. You have a lot of nerve saying it’s simple ;o)
Humans, to me, are just a higher order of animal. Period. And I highly doubt, or at least I seriously question whether we are the most intelligent species at present. Who’s to say that elephants and dolphins haven’t figured out the meaning of life and how to live it? And how do they know what they know? How have they been taught by what they see or feel? Jeebus! Ya got me!!
Me? All I know is that I am a part of the fabric of the Earth. I am a component. And I know this because I can walk in the woods, or remember exploring a coral reef when I was a diver, and understand what I’m experiencing and knowing that I fit. That I belong. The same way an ant knows by instinct that it belongs in it’s colony, or how a Mother whale knows instictively to push her calf to the surface when it’s born. Or how sea turtles can navigate thousands of miles of open ocean and always end up back at the place they began. We just know, if, if we are willing to know, to feel, and to fully exist within the fold of all that is.
That’s it. I need an aspirin now ;o) Thanks!
Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you strain a brain cell.
Your notions about life, though, could have been the basis for the books. In many ways. Not somewhere I started before I began the books. And still not somewheer I want to go (because, I’m so anti-spiritual — but there is definitely a hint in the books of a connectedness of life and the world. And an attempt to pry human beings away from the notion that they are the central reason for the world’s existence. A message sorely needed by some of the less enlightened like myself. More tomorrow, I’m sure. Some more Ishmael stuff.
Thanks for chipping in.
My notion of connectedness or fitting in isn’t necessarily spiritual in origin. It’s more along the lines of hardwired biology and instinct. Now I can feel spiritual when I’m immersed in nature because everything has a more harmonic feel. It’s difficult to explain. It’s a certainty of belonging where I am, and I provide one note to the harmonies. Starting to sound like Shirlstars now. Could be a good thing! :o)
On sustainability, I am very pessimistic about that. It may be that the natural order of evolution will demand a thinning of the herd, so to speak, in order for balance to be restored. That could happen in lots of different ways, and it could come at our own hand. Like a nuclear war. It could come from natural disasters, like a comet impact. But it may be that as resources continue to dwindle, and more and more people fight over what’s left, inevitably many will not be able to survive. And then the whole process starts all over again. Or we colonize other planets and moons. That could be a logical progression. But in the end, those resources will be used up too. So then what? I still think we are a small part of the overall process of evolution, and we might continue to evolve as human, or not. Whatever happens, it’ll as it should be.
Yeah. I have a feeling shirlstars would like this topic/these books.
Well. You have hit on a lot of the points made in the book just from your own personal philosophy. I think Ismael would definitely say something like, “Humankind is not outside of nature, no matter what Mother Culture might try to tell you.” Meaning that certainly we are subject to the laws of life — the environment, etc. And certainly that there will be a correction for our living outside these laws (unsustainably/overpopluation/etc.)
More tomorrow perhaps. Thanks much super. Your commentary was, well, super.
Thank you for bringing this up. I was fascinated by Quinn’s books and I’ve thought about trying to write something about them.
I’m at work and can’t pursue this right now, but I’ll be back later.
Thanks for commenting. Glad to see you here. Sorry you are at work. Something Ishmael would certainly want to talk about. 🙂
We’ll look for more comments later.
Just for fun, how would Mother Culture answer this — Why are you at work?
Why am I at work? Why indeed. I think you know the answer, you’re just being polite. I’m caught in the monkey trap. My arm is deep in the jar and I have a fistful of dates in my grasp. I discovered the nature of my predicament some time ago. I’ve thought long and hard about it. I’ve resigned myself to the inescapable conclusion that I must let go of at least some of the dates. But which ones? And how many? Surely I can escape the trap without giving up everything. Can’t I?
I’m sorry. That was a thoughtless question to pose to a prisoner. 🙂
I’m holding onto the same dates. But these books certainly make a powerful case that we are all, to some extent, laboring under a masterful illusion.
an extraterrestial named “Galiel” came down from a doomed planet and b*inked a female gorilla?
Now there is a theory that explains much. 🙂
But seriously, it is a creation theory for some. And what does it explain? What happened once the aliens came and impregnated lower primates?
Lower primates naturally being a term that Ishmael would want to stomp your teeth out for — but he seemed to be rather peaceful.
Hopefully he doesn’t know of the Chimpeach materials 🙂
Back in the late 1960’s I attended a lecture by Ram Dass that changed my whole perspective on the creation. At that time he was the disgraced Harvard professor Richard Alpert. I didn’t know what to expect, but we certainly shared some of the same interests.
He talked about his travels to India and taught me to think of God the creator wanting to learn everything there is to know of life and so dividing (him)self into separate pieces so as to experience everything possible.
I have never forgotten that perspective and would like to share this link from his web page about the Hindu story of God. Something new and totally different!
You know, I’ve heard this concept explained. And do find it a nice one. But I have little training or education of the Hindu perspective. I know Ishmael was fond of saying that the west and the east are two sources of the same. To him, the term Mother Culture speaks to all humankind on the planet today — equally to those of the east and west.
So how would a hindu explain how we all came to be here? Briefly. I’m suspecting there will be many commanalities with how a North American would explain it, though they might seem very different.
Hinduism has a thousand stories for everything. Take your pick – that’s what I like about it. Divine energy is everywhere, we’ve all got our own version.
Wait a minute – don’t the Scientologists have an answer to every religious question? I’ve been too cult-scared to investigate their viewpoint. It’s an expensive one. Best to not expect a single explanation – too risky.
Just give one. The one you most identify with. What story of creation do you actually believe?
I thought I did, Joe. But here’s one I like:
The mother of the Aztec creation story was called “Coatlique”, the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes. She was created in the image of the unknown, decorated with skulls, snakes, and lacerated hands. There are no cracks in her body and she is a perfect monolith (a totality of intensity and self-containment, yet her features were square and decapitated).
Coatlique was first impregnated by an obsidian knife and gave birth to Coyolxanuhqui, goddess of the moon, and to a group of male offspring, who became the stars. Then one day Coatlique found a ball of feathers, which she tucked into her bosom. When she looked for it later, it was gone, at which time she realized that she was again pregnant. Her children, the moon and stars did not believe her story. Ashamed of their mother, they resolved to kill her. A goddess could only give birth once, to the original litter of divinity and no more. During the time that they were plotting her demise, Coatlicue gave birth to the fiery god of war, Huitzilopochtli. With the help of a fire serpent, he destroyed his brothers and sister, murdering them in a rage. He beheaded Coyolxauhqui and threw her body into a deep gorge in a mountain, where it lies dismembered forever.
The natural cosmos of the Indians was born of catastrophe. The heavens literally crumbled to pieces. The earth mother fell and was fertilized, while her children were torn apart by fratricide and them scattered and disjointed throughout the universe.
I’ve forgotten Ishmael’s version. What’s your favorite?
Sorry. I did not read carefully enough before last question.
I do not recall Ishmael’s version of this story either. It took me weeks to read the three books. So I may have just forgotten. There is a fourth book I haven’t gotten to yet.
My favorite: I like the one I tell my daughter. The standard creation myth of a post-modern American, I guess. We go to the natural history museum. And walk through the hall of evolution. Tracing the story laid out by ejmw and KMc in these comments. And we come to a replica of Lucy. Australopithecus afarensis. A little woman. Hair covered. Looking somewhat like a mix between a chimpanzee, a gorilla and a human. Only smaller. Standing there in a painted savannah, looking out around at the various creatures which inhabit the hall of evolution in the time around her. And I tell my daughter that this is our ancestor. And we sit and look at her. Then look at the world she grew up in.
I love it. Here I was busily fascinated by the stories we tell each other, when it dawned on me (what I really believe.) Oh yeah – evolution!
Thanks for a fun diary, Joe.
No problem. The pay here at the BooMan Tribune is paltry. So you have to love your work.
I like the first part of the question. I’m less fond of the second. The Taoist part of me says that the question of why we are here is sophistry and that what we are going to do, and how are much more important issues because they have concrete answers. The atheist is pretty much in agreement on that one, but my internal Taoist and atheist are usually in agreement, since neither philosophy invalidates the other.
Hey Kelly. Cool to see you. Can’t wait for the book. Hoping you will give everyone a reminder when it debuts.
The “why” thing was mostly an imprecise phrasing on my part. I wanted to ask the question without suggesting an answer. I could have been very precise about what I was looking for in diary, but I didn’t want to direct it too much. But now that a few have had a chance to answer. I think the most precise phrasing of the initial question would be: Explain to me your own creation myth. Or if you are uncomfortable with the idea that your understanding of how the world and you came to exist, explain your own basis of the creation of the universe, the earth, society and everything. Just the basic story that you tell yourself. Or more properly that our culture has led you to understand as the most accurate version of this tale.
My creation myth starts straight out of a modern cosmology text, with refs to big bang, super-inflation etc. It gets a little more interesting when you get into the evolution of life from simple form to proto-hominids then follows Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel along the path to how we got to the current allocation of resources and geo-political power structures.
Glad to hear you’re looking forward to the book. Yours is still in my to read pile, about three ahead of Kansas’ latest. RL has been very hard on me this past couple of months or it would be done and I could be saying the wonderful things about it that your writing on Booman has led me to expect.
Your world view is much like mine. Right down to Jared Diamond. Don’t sweat the book stuff. I’ve read so little since I started writing two or three years ago. It takes a lot of energy/time to continue reading. I appreciate the fact that it is on your list.
So I’ll put this question out there. Given your general world view. How would you rate our present culture’s (total world culture — not any specific national culture) fitness for sustainability within the Earth’s environment?
I couldn’t figure out what was going on with that last comment. I kept trying to type, but my machine was slow and reacting weird. Cursor all over.
I had been working on my second novel manuscript just before the comment, and left its heft resting on my space bar for a long time before I started typing to you. Those spaces must represent a lot of consecutive spaces in that last comment.
I was pessimistic about the whole thing before I read Collapse and that really hasn’t improved my view at all. But hey, I’ll keep right on fighting for the changes that need to be made until they come haul me away or we go the way of the Easter Islanders.
That was a great book (Collapse), I thought. I really liked it. And it is mentioned somewhere by the author/commentators of these books I write about. I can’t remember where. In something I’ve read.
Anyway. To be very simple — because I’m almost burnt out for today’s blogging session. A major premise of these Ishmael books is that the dominant culture — what Ishmael would lable the “taker” culture, or for a nickname, the tribe of “Tak,” — is wholly unsustainable. To use an analogy that is used by Ishmael, and others, we are very much like a pilot who believes he has made a flying machine, but in reality, we are a pilot who has made a flying maching and pushed it off a very high cliff. We’ve been falling for thousands of years now. Since the cultural changes associated with the agricultural revolution. But some of us can certainly look over the edge of the plane now, and see the land approaching. It is clear we are not “flying.” That this cultural system is not going to fly.
More tomorrow. Perhaps. Thanks for comments.
Increasingly over the last five or so years I’ve felt like I was looking out the window of a falling machine and saying, “uh…ground? Anybody else here notice the ground there? Hellooo! Ground! Wake up! Ground. Ground! GROUND!”
The answer (I’ll be brief): one step forward, two steps back. One step forward, two steps back. One step forward, two steps back. Rinse and repeat, over and over again. (soon to be a major motion picture in a theatre near you.)
Progress and regress. One day we’ll get it right. (hopefully)
Very optimistic view. I’ll ask the same question I asked of KMc. How do you rate our present culture’s (talking about the culture of all humanity, not any one specific nation or people) fitness within the environment of the planet Earth? How sustainable a culture are we? How fit to live within the confines of this environment?
We are using precious resources in an inappropriate fashion. The outlook over the long term is not good. Short term thinking is finally giving way to thoughts of the future. We need to consider news ways of taking care of our needs and perhaps doing with less. Hopefully it is not too late.
Gotta run, but I’ll check in later.
That is certainly the way I see it. A part of what makes me feel like running away from everything. But there is no escaping it. Our culture is large.
Let me repeat (via cut and paste) what I said to KMc above:
To be very simple — because I’m almost burnt out for today’s blogging session. A major premise of these Ishmael books is that the dominant culture — what Ishmael would lable the “taker” culture, or for a nickname, the tribe of “Tak,” — is wholly unsustainable. To use an analogy that is used by Ishmael, and others, we are very much like a pilot who believes he has made a flying machine, but in reality, we are a pilot who has made a flying maching and pushed it off a very high cliff. We’ve been falling for thousands of years now. Since the cultural changes associated with the agricultural revolution. But some of us can certainly look over the edge of the plane now, and see the land approaching. It is clear we are not “flying.” That this cultural system is not going to fly.
More tomorrow. Perhaps. Thanks for comments.
This is delightful. I haven’t taken part in a conversation like this since college days, nearly thirty years ago. Others have already covered some of the ground I have in mind, so I’ll piggy back somewhat. Great minds and all that.
Modern astronomy and physics tell us of an ever expanding universe. They extrapolate backward to a big bang and forward to an as yet uncertain future. As I understand it, there is still some debate as to the ultimate fate of the universe. Will it expand forever, eventually dissipating in a dark, cold void? Will it eventually reach some kind of steady state where the energy of the original bang is balanced by gravity? Or is there enough mass to eventually stop the expansion and begin a contraction? As far as I know, that is still an open question.
Well I have decided the answer must lie with eventual contraction, because that neatly explains the other unanswered question: what was before the bang? I have decided the universe is an oscillator. Of course my credentials for making such a sweeping statement are suspect, to say the least. Let’s just say I have faith that it is so. Let me stipulate that everything I’ve written so far is original to my fevered little brain. I came to those conclusions based on my own understanding of cosmology as described by Carl Sagan and other popularizers of science. It’s not a great leap from the common wisdom of Nova or the Science Channel.
Not long ago I was watching a feature about all this on the Science Channel with my fifteen year old son. Big bang, expanding universe, ultimate fate, etc. During one of the breaks I described my theory to my son. When I got about so far along, he started nodding his head. “Yeah, it’s called Crunch-Bang,” he said. He didn’t seem overly impressed, so apparently my startlingly brilliant original theory is not all that original.
All of which is a verbose way of saying I don’t believe in a creation myth per se. I don’t think the universe has a beginning or an end, it Just Is. Matter and energy cycle endlessly between more and less complex forms, but neither come into being nor cease to be. I think if we take what we know or think we know about conservation of energy and all the rest, that is a reasonable conclusion.
Where does life come into the discussion? I think life is just one manifestation of the “more complex” end of that spectrum. Matter seems to have a tendency to assume more complex forms when energy is applied, and some of those forms tend to be stable. I think at some level chemistry, and by extension biochemistry, can be described as a very specialized branch of physics. Given what we know or think we know already, I don’t think any sort of supernatural force is required to get from the big bang to stars and galaxies and planets and oceans, or from there to microbes and plants and animals, or from there to curious primates who wonder why we’re here.
Thank you for joining in. I’m right with you on a lot of things. Like belieiving, mostly on the faith of popular science, in the big bang as an explanation of the beginning. Also with you on the bang-crunch. (I heard that in popular science writing, not from my own thoughts — and I have since heard some very interesting things about string theory and multi-verses and phase shifts at a quantum level, that make me believe that much of what we currently truly believe may be swept away, not unlike the myths of the Norse (my people) now seem like child’s stories).
Right with you in the joy of a fun conversation, too.
Am thinking of where to pick up tomorrow. If I’ve got time to blog. There is so much good in the books. I’m happy to share it with those who haven’t read them, and to talk with those who have read them, and obviously love the work so much.
That’s why I keep saying “what we know or think we know”. We used to know the world was flat and the center of the universe. In some ways what we don’t know is much more interesting.
Where to go next? There are so many possibilities. Personally, I think the biggest lesson we still need to learn is that we’re just another squid in a pool, but that’s just me. It’s your seminar — which way are we going, sensei?
I’m just talking about the ideas for a few days. As long as there is interest. Because I really like them.
I really like the concept in the books, that talks about the avoidance of “programs” in favor of people with changed world views. At once it is maddening to think that there is no simple 12 step plan to save the world (a program), but also empowering (if you buy into the idea) to think that simply by trying to lift one another up to a new understanding, we might at least begin to try and avoid the fate of our current cultural path.
Here is where we go. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll talk some more. 🙂
There are unknown but knowable unknowns. There are unknowable unknowns. There are knowns. There known unknowns.
The ultimate beginning is unknown, probably unknowable, this we know. The Prime Causation of the universe is not available for inspection. At the first point of inspection, we have several theories, the most prominent of which is the ‘big bang’ + ‘inflation’ + ‘expansion’ model. Recent developments in the field of cosmology include the ‘big oscillation’, the ‘brane slam’ and the ‘anthropocentric string theory’ alternate but untested (untestable?) models.
After some sort of cataclysmic blindingly brilliant conception, our universe has expanded and cooled down. First, large clouds of barely inconsistently distributed hydrogen atoms expanded and cooled. The small inconsistencies in these hydrogen gas clouds succumbed to gravitational forces and began to congeal into the first stars. These first stars created heavier elements by the process of nuclear fusion, combining simple atoms into more complex ones. The first stars died relatively quickly and some of them blew up in supernova explosions, which created even heavier elements like iron and gold and uranium and dispersed them back into clouds of dust and gas, which in turn gave rise to new ‘metal rich’ stars. After many generations of exploding stars and vaporized heavier elements and continued expansion of the universe, some of the stars accumulated the remnants of their birth-clouds into vast swaths of ‘metal rich’ rings of gas and dust, which over time formed planets through the same forces of gravity that formed the stars themselves. The rich and complex cooling dust and gas allowed the formation of precursor chemicals of life, the first complex molecules, which are assemblages of atoms held together primarily through electromagnetic forces.
Some planets formed in regions around stars with conditions that allowed them to accumulate water and methane and simple hydrocarbons, which are the precursors of life. Repeated cycles of heating and cooling and electrification and geologic and hydrologic cycling on some of these planets fostered the creation of more complex molecules, some of which had the interesting chemical property of being self-replicating in certain environments. (Complex clay molecules are known to be self-replicating in certain Earth environments.) Masses of molecules that could assemble new likenesses of themselves began to do just that. Self-replicating molecules sometimes made mistakes during the replication process and did not create exact replicas of themselves. Rarely, but often enough in the vastness of time, these self-replication mistakes incorporated some imperfections which did not disable the self-replicating properties, but instead amplified the ability to self-replicate, usually with slightly more complex arrangements of molecules and in larger and large assemblages.
As these self-replicating assemblages became more and more complex, they began to assemble in ways that started to look more and more like life as we know it. Relatively simple processes of self-replicating molecular assemblage provided the platform for the ’emergent’ properties of ‘life’ and ‘darwinian survival of the fittest’ and ‘natural selection’. From the first bacteria and virii the process of self-replication rarely, but often enough in the vastness of time, produced new mistakes in self-replication, called mutations. Most mutations were ill-suited for survival. Rarely but often enough in the vastness of time, new mistakes strengthened the self-replication abilities of some ‘organisms’ and the explosion of life on Earth into every niche and environment happened relatively quickly after RNA and then DNA were first produced.
Out of the melee of organisms and millions and millions of generations of mutations algae, plants, shellfish, fish, airbreathing amphibians, insects, dinosaurs, mammals, primates, and hominids emerged….
We are a result of a local increase in order at the expense of increased disorder in the larger universe, sort of like an airconditioner makes it hotter on the outside of your house by cooling the inside of your house. But in this case, the thing that provides the energy pump for life is our star, the Sun. It pumps out energy that drives the increasing complexification in our local environment, the planet Earth. We have consumed quantities of energy vastly greater than all of the oil ever pumped in order to get here – to the point of typing into a device that converts our thoughts into photons at a distant location, available for other complex organisms to consume.
It does seem to me that modern human consciousness is an emergent property of the universe. We are the universe looking back at itself. I can only say that I think this is something that the universe “wants” to do, or that it is the ‘natural order’ of things for the universe to examine itself.
As for the specifics of the rise of humans from simpler animals, I would have to say that the most momentous event in the complexification of life forms was when the first tool-user recognized the value of directly manipulating its own environment. This would be the first true moment of separation of consciousness from that which produced it, in my opinion, and the first instance of the universe beginning to consciously manipulate itself locally. After that, human tool-making and the agricultural revolution and the urban revolution, with increasing tribal sizes and specialization were also momentous developments. These developments seem to go hand in hand with the development of more complex conscious searches for causation through universe-gazing, such as religion and philosophy and then science.
This is my ‘creation myth’. I have glossed over some steps and simplified some of them, but this is basically it for me, pretty much the standard scientists’ view with universal omphaloskepsis thrown in.
Wonderfully put forward. I share this creation myth. Though I could have never explained it in such wonderful detail.
Tomorrow. More tomorrow.
First question: Who is the “Earnest Desire” guy?
Second question: Why would he want to “Save the World”?
Third question: How can any one person “Save the World”?
Fourth question: What is this “Earnest Desire” guy going to “Save the World” from?
Fifth question: Has anyone bothered to ask the “World” if it wants to be saved?
Good questions all. (I’m from that old school — there’s no such thing as a bad question.) I’ll try to answer them quickly and as best I can.
#1 The Earnest Desire guy. The ad was taken out by the gorilla, because he wants to pass on his knowledge. The earnest desire guy in the first book was a disillusioned hippie who wanted to save the world, but was more than a bit cynical. Subsequent books take differing perspectives. There are many earnest desire guys and gals wrestling with Ishmael’s philosophy.
#2 Most of the “earnest desire” types seem to have an innate sense that there is something seriously wrong with the world as it is. They can’t always articulate it. But they just know. A feeling that things are fucked up.
#3 This is a great question, I think. Ishmael would say, I believe, “One person cannot save the world, so go tell one hundred other people what you have learned from me.” Ultimately, that is my biggest criticism of the books (that they don’t really lay out a plan) — but I’ll save that for later.
#4 I think Ishmael would explain it like this. “Your world — you people of the tribe of Tak [something I’ll get into in today’s diary, I hope] — is living outside the laws of sustainable life on this planet — and you are killing yourself and other species. And you can know the laws of life, and try to get back in step. There are ways proven ways for humans to live which you haven’t fully explored, or which you have forgotten.
#5 I’m guessing, but I think Ishmael would answer this question like this. “The question isn’t really about saving the world. It is about saving your own species and the other species inhabiting the world. The world will be fine. It will shrug you off, because you cannot live outside the laws of life, anymore than you could live outside the laws of physics. But if you would like to survive, the knowledge of how hominids survived within the community of life in a sustainable way, is available to you.
Hope that gives you some idea of what this is about. If interested at all, pick up the first book. A fun read.
What I intended with this post and how you replied point outs the very real problem of what occurs when Earnest Desire sets out to Save the World.
You took the questions “seriously” and I have to say that each answer was excellent “but” you missed the whole point of this exercise in thought.
It wasn’t the questions I asked that were important. It was the fact that I had to ask those questions in the first place to show that the unstated question was more important than the subject matter.
No one lives in “my world” or can live in “your world”. We can only find common elements that are shared by both “worlds” though the very faulty process of communication.
Animals on this planet with the exception of human beings accept without question “the world”. Only human beings seek to deceive themselves by believing what must be accepted without question can be something other than it “IS”. Hence humans change the environment of the world to survive. Humans it seems can never accept that the world (read: planet) is already perfect.
Humanity never adapted to living on this planet instead humanity denies it’s function as an animal to come to terms with reality and constantly changes the environment to reflect “what it feels the world should look like or be”.
This is how we end up with guys like “Earnest Desire and the never ending quest to Save the World”. It’s all very big joke that requires a very big sense of humor to appreciate. Most humans in their entire lifetimes never “get the joke”. The ones who do “get it” either learn to laugh or cry.
The joke in case you never figured it out always starts with the same two words which are, “I Thought…” and it always ends the same way when later on you say “I Never Thought…”
I’ll check out the book some time when I’m in a more morbid mood. Right now I’m having way to much fun laughing with Imp of the Perverse and the latest set of curveballs that have been tossed into “my world”.
Never a dull moment you know.
Sorry I took such a while to respond. After diaries go down, I don’t always go back to continue thoughts. But in this case, I saw you comment.
I think you might like the book. Your perspective, as summed up by this thought —
— seems to be a central tenant of the work. The author’s premise is that humanity did indeed once live as something like “an animal.” At least it lived in a sustainable way. He posits that this lasted for 3 million years (that includes all types of hominids which ultimately led to Homo sapiens sapiens). And then even tens of thousands as Homo sapiens sapiens, in harmony with nature. Before the culture which has led us here.
Good points, you make.
Don’t be sorry about the late reply. I’m on a one to three day reply to comment rate lately myself.
One of the best features of Booman’s site is that the pace isn’t like Dkos and this allows for a more in depth discussion after a diary is posted.
It’s also nice that the diaries here are well thought out instead of just kneejerk outrage diaries that seem to be all the vogue with Dkos.
I’m going to make a point to read this series of books if I ever get the time. Summer is my busy season and I don’t have as much time for reading as much as I would like to have.
I have really enjoyed this diary, and sincerely hope real life allows you time, BJ, to go on with this. You’re a wonderful discussion leader.
It is always good, I thinkto questions one’s examine and question exsiting beliefs: the only possible outcome is expansion. “Mother Cultures” voice is very subtle and very powerful, and it imbedded itself very deeply in me before I ever became wise enough to question anything it. Life has gotten better every single day since then, until now, when I think I actually have a hint of genuine freedom feels like.
Yes. Very fun. I loved the books. And immediately thought that the people here would similarly enjoy them. Or at least the ideas in them. And thought this format would be conducive.
Glad to see you here.