Skip to main content

Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

One of the best books I've ever read...

The book opens with a deceptively ordinary personals ad: "Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world." Seeking a direction for his life, a young man answers the ad and is startled to find that the teacher is a lowland gorilla named Ishmael, a creature uniquely placed to vision anew the human story.

Ishmael's paradigm of history is startlingly different from the one wired into our cultural consciousness. For Ishmael, our agricultural revolution was not a technological event but a moral one, a rebellion against an ethical structure inherent in the community of life since its foundation four billion years ago. Having escaped the restraints of this ethical structure, humankind made itself a global tyrant, wielding deadly force over all other species while lacking the wisdom to make its tyranny a beneficial one or even a sustainable one...



That tyranny is now hurtling us toward a planetary disaster of pollution and overpopulation. If we want to avoid that catastrophe, we need to work our way back to some fundamental truths: that we weren't born a menace to the world and that no irresistible fate compels us to go on being a menace to the world.

Ishmael: http://www.amazon.com/Ishmael-Adventure-Spirit-Daniel-Quinn/dp/0553375407
Labels:

Comments

  1. Jamie11:51 PM

    Thank you for a succinct and accurate description of this startling work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1:10 PM

    Yep... very interesting. But wonder why he didn't talk about Jacob and Esau? Jacob, a farmer tricks his hunter/gather brother, Esau, out of his birthright. Jacob becomes Israel, the Matriarch of the Twelve Tribes including Judah, the tribe of Christianity. Esau disappears into Edom.....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Vatobot3:31 AM

    Is your argument from the standpoint that these things are historical facts, or are you discussing the ethics of the parable?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

School and Home School

  Oh my. I don't have time to write this. So it will be as follows:   1. What is school for? I think that Seth has a good grasp on this at the bottom, see [1] 2. There's an ongoing debate about homeschooling vs. public schooling. 3. I agree with most things about home schooling. Which is why I take the view that my kids are home schooled 5 days a week, from 3pm to 9pm, on the weekends, and all of their vacation time. 4. Home schooling should feel like art, it's enjoyable (largely), so don't worry about overloading the tone of "school" in it. 5. Everyone's situation is different: (a) Some of us have checks coming to us from the government that give us all day to do as we please. (b) Some of us have to work long hours every day to survive. (c) Some of us have a spouse that gives us all day to do with as we please. (d) Some of us are the spouse that gives the other all day to do as they please. etc. 6. Thus, our ideals aren't applicable to everyone. 7. Th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is Your Government A Narcissist?

  First of all, I apologize. Writing is a craft that takes ample time to do well, but I live in time and society that necessitates swift communication. The two don't go well together. I'm a single father who also looks after his elderly father, so there will be some grammatical mistakes, as well as composition related ones. Please endure with me through a semi edited writing. UNO There's a reporter who's controversial Tucker Carlson. I couldn't tell you why he's controversial, I just know that he is by how people talk about him. I also heard that Tucker Carlson is on the "far right". In our ZANY society, if you identify as the opposing party, in this case that would be "the left", it is almost socially mandatory that an individual express negativity for that person. Because if you don't someone might look at you suspiciously. DOS There's a personality disorder call "Narcissist" . They come in a couple of flavors. Tucker Car...
Post a Comment
Read more

Does Art Necessitate Mental Unrest?

Music alone is not enough And being a film director is too much It's usually the case that there's nothing that I want to say badly enough to put myself through the labor. There was a time when I really wanted to say something, and I did. But, mental well being, in a way, quells the desire to express myself through art. Something about art has been about me not being seen enough, good enough, or just enough period. Feeling like enough kills the drive to express yourself in what David Bowie once called "such rarefied terms". I still make music, I still record music, almost never finish it, and share it with others even less. There's more to me than being a musician. I do have a love for it, but I need more. I always hated math, I've grown curious about it, and have gotten substantially better. The pandemic compelled me to become a roof salesman and to get my insurance adjusters license. I still laugh at that, but nothing is wasted. Transferable knowledge is tak...
Post a Comment
Read more