This is a continuation of a discussion started in a diary yesterday. It is a discussion based on the ideas in a trilogy of novels: Ishmael, The Story of B and My Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.
First, thanks to all for your participation. I found it quite entertaining. And I’m glad a number of you did as well. You are a wonderful group of people.
Yesterday, we covered some of the first steps that Ishmael’s student covered in the first book. We examined our own “creation myth,” the story of the big-bang and evolution and everything. It was very well told by a number of commentators. I don’t want to play favorites. Can’t have a teacher’s pet. But there were some remarkably well written and thoughtful accounts for how we came to be here.
I’d start today by sharing one of my favorite passages of the first book. After the student proudly explains our creation myth, and declares that it ultimately resulted in mankind and all the wonders of modern civilization, Ishmael tells a story. It is the story of an anthropologist who lived on Earth 500 million years ago. The earth was basically a rock. And water. Vertebrates were still a long way off into the future. But the anthropologist was happy to come across a floating blob in the primordial soup. Someone to study.
He greeted the creature politely and was greeted in kind, and soon the two of them were good friends. The anthropologist explained as well as he could that he was a student of life-styles and customs, and begged his new friend for information of this sort which was readily forthcoming. “And now,” he said at last, “I’d like to get on tape in your own words some of the stories you tell among yourselves.”
“Stories?” the other asked.
“You know, like your creation myth, if you have one.”
“What is a creation myth?” the creature asked.
“Oh, you know,” the anthropologist replied, “the fanciful tale you tell your children about the origins of the world.”
Well, at this, the creature drew itself up indignantly — at least as well as a squishy blob can do — and replied that his people had no such fanciful tale.
“You have no account of creation then?”
“Certainly we have an account of creation,” the other snapped. “But it is definitely not a myth.”
“Oh, certainly not,” the anthropologist said, remembering his training at last. “I’ll be terribly grateful if you share it with me.”
“Very well,” the creature said. “But I want you to understand, that, like you, we are a strictly rational people, who accept nothing that is not based on observation, logic, and the scientific method.”
At which point, the blob creature launches into a story very similar to what we discussed yesterday. The universe. The stars. The solar system. The planets. And on to life appearing.
“But then, after a billion years or so, life appeared.”
“Excuse me,” the anthropologist said. “You say that life appeared. Where did that happen, according to your myth — I mean, according to your scientific account.”
The creature seemed baffled by the question and turned a pale lavender. “Do you mean in what precise spot?”
“No. I mean, did this happen on the land or in the sea?”
“Land?” the other asked. “What is land?”
“Oh, you know,” he said, waving toward the shore, “the expanse of dirt and rocks that begins over there.”
The creature turned a deeper shade of lavender and said, “I can’t imagine what you’re gibbering about. The dirt and rocks over there are simply the lip of the vast bowl that holds the sea.”
“Oh yes,” the anthropologist said, “I see what you mean. Quite. Go on.”
And the blob goes on. Explaining in detail the steps of evolution. Ending thus.
“But finally,” the creature said, turning quite pink with pride as he came to the climax of his story, “but finally jellyfish appeared!“
Neatly making a point that many of our perceptive commentators made yesterday. Humankind is not the climax of all creation. Not the end of evolution. We are a mere jellyfish to something yet to come, should our line continue to evolve. It is an important shift in perspective for many. To let go of the idea that Homo sapiens were created to rule the world. That we are the end of a process. We are a part of an ongoing process.
Two other points of interest I’d put out there for discussion today, should anyone have time to kill on a Friday.
The first is an interesting point that Quinn uses as a jumping off point for ideas to come. He looks back to the Agricultural Revolution in the fertile crescent, as it is explained in our cultural history — a revolution that also arose at other place, I understand. And he asks, simply this. Why do we call the time before this revolution, pre-history? Why are the millions of years of hominid existence, and the hundreds of thousands of years of Homo called pre-history? What is the dividing line? What made those bands of hunters and gatherers and herders and light-agriculturalists, who had settled most of the world, unworthy of the term “history?” I’d love to hear your answers on this point. I could tell you what Ishmael would say (I think), but I’d love to hear your untainted thoughts.
And the second point which I find very interesting in the book, is Ishmael’s explanation of a particular “creation myth” belonging to monotheists in our culture. Specifically, the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis. A very basic telling of the story (please understand that this is the best version that a high priest of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism can give on short notice):
Cain, a farmer, made a sacrifice of grain to God. And God was not pleased. But Abel, a shepherd, made a sacrifice of livestock to God. And God was pleased.
Cain, being very jealous, rose up and smote Abel, letting Abel’s blood run into the soil. And God marked Cain and sent him out into exile.
Ishmael’s question. Is there any rational explanation for this story? Did it ever make any sense to the people of the one god, who lived near the fertile crescent, near the time of the Agricultural Revolution?
That’s it for today. I’ll throw some of Ishmael’s thoughts on these topics, as best I might guess them, in the comments. Enjoy.
