How Things Came To Be This Way

Despite the system of categorization developed by people, we are all very alike. Someone untouched by cultural conditioning, observing our political boundary lines, language differences, and gender distinction would become muddled ascertaining why the various skin tones and physical features play such a role in our divisions. Though many of us try to overcome these categorical differences, it is the mind's natural cognitive operation that needs these categories to determine a lime from a lemon, a knife from a letter opener. The distinctions in themselves are not the problem, but their assumed hierarchy as culture defines them; furthermore, our actions based on this hierarchy. We must examine the definitions that seem inherent to the words in order to redraw the lines as our sense of justice demands. Yet, the lines are not just racial or sexual, there is an even more dominate culture that pervades the lines of distinction as we recognize them.

Captivity, it's a word that usually refers to a state lower species are subject to routinely by people. Yet, some people are captives of other people and others captives of their own minds. I am a captive, you are a captive, your mother, and most likely everyone you know is a captive, according to Ishmael, or more exactly Ishmael's creator, Daniel Quinn. The quote given on the cover, “From now on I will divide the books I have read into two categories- the ones I read before Ishmael and those I read after,” aptly describes the shifting mindset that accompanies each crisp page turn undergone by the reader of this prolific work.

Photo Courtesy: crepuscule.sourceforge.net

A most unlikely teacher places an advertisement in the paper for a student who has an earnest desire to save the world (Quinn 4). In answering the ad, the narrator discovers a gorilla behind glass in a city building, what follows is the story of how things came to be this way (Quinn 8). The story has no ethnic, political, or sexual boundaries; it is the story of the human race's ascent to power and the implicit self-destruction that came with that assumed power. Most of us with an ethical base have some notion of this desire exemplified by our recycling bins, organic groceries, or simply our guilt for lack of them. Around the time of adolescence and young adulthood many of us begin to question why our world operates in a way that is detrimental to our survival, investigating the government for flaws or perhaps our religion. What we fail to see is the mindset in which we investigate and the constant hum of what Quinn calls “Mother Culture” buzzing in the background of each thought. This buzzing is something so acclimated to our consciousness that teaching ourselves to hear it requires an extreme paradigm shift.
          
After arriving, the narrator's inner monologue wonders, “Would it be best to sit down and be still? And if so, why?” (Quinn 9) The reply readily comes, “Because if you are still, you will be better able to hear,” not a spoken reply, but a reply thought by the other entity in the room, a gorilla (Quinn 9). With this, Quinn guides the reader to a high degree of suspension of disbelief; one high enough to digest the theory to come.
            
Lies come to each person on a constant basis, and oftentimes it is hard to know what is true. You have to compare it to your concept of reality and confirm its verity. To understand that you're being lied to in this case has to be prefaced by this suspension because the lie is rooted in the realm of belief, not simple empirical data or personal experience.
           
Once a person discovers a lie, it does not always necessitate a shift in action; oftentimes, it just makes living more painful. Normal life continues and one comes to a deep understanding of the expression that ignorance is bliss. Our narrator here has ceased wondering what he's being lied to about because he's come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter; a conclusion that I've found myself at before and I presume to say that you have as well. Even though you may not enjoy your job, something has to pay the bills.  Also, being a productive member of society, one foundation of self-esteem, includes work. Nonprofit jobs or volunteering after a full work week still leaves us wanting. Why isn't that enough to be a member of a free society? Its due to the fact that though this work is intended for good, it is still part of a self-destructive paradigm. That recycling plant is an answer to our wasteful use of resources.  That community group aiding the lower economic levels still doesn't eradicate the system creating poverty. 

Our learned teacher Ishmael urges us to learn the truth, even though its discovery will be a journey insulting the latent arrogance taught in almost every school of thought. But it is easy to think, “If I learn the truth, it won't cause a change in the world, the change will simply be in my world and no one, including me, will be better for it.” “Unless, of course, you all began to suspect you were being lied to- and all found out what the lie was,” Ishmael encourages (Quinn 28).  If this were the case, it would make a huge difference indeed.
           
Quinn peaks our motivation to continue and from this point in the book, it becomes difficult to put down. So now that we know there is a humming worth attending to, how do we recognize it? From this point, Ishmael calls on the story of humanity as we define it. To us, at least, it is a story, but really, it's a myth that's so ingrained, it is a story; furthermore, people enacting this story, makes this story the basis of our culture as people- regardless of our more arbitrary cultural distinctions. Most people, including myself, hold the pinnacle of earth's creation to be people's appearance and effect on it (Quinn 58). Its not a conclusion one comes to alone, its the perspective we're taught to have from birth. Ishmael compares our mindset with the creation story as told by a jellyfish. The jellyfish runs through the evolutionary chain until jellyfish appear and land is not land to the jellyfish, it's the “lip of the vast bowl that holds the sea” (Quinn 55-58). This juxtaposition comically illustrating the self-centering effect of perspective on worldview.
           
Most religions teach that people should operate on an elevated plane of existence, allowing us to justify the havoc we wreak on the planet via using God, or gods, as a scapegoat. Our story is centered around the meaning of world, divine intentions in the world, and human destiny (Quinn 59). Our story tells us that the world, and cosmos in fact, was designed to produce and sustain human life (Quinn 59). From the premise that the world was made for people, it follows that the world belongs to us and we can do what we please with it (Quinn 61). The road destroying that three-hundred year-old tree is okay, because we need an efficient way to get to work. Filling my car with that gallon of irreplaceable fossil fuel is justifiable because God has put that layer of earth there for people to consume.  Suddenly that weird sensation that there is a lie inherent in the way we live becomes much more than a sensation; it becomes a realization.  More so, the realization that we are participating in this story that may end with the demise of the planet, and us with it, begins to weigh heavily on anyone with a conscience.
           
To me, this begs religious questions. If one believes that no other entity besides people are at the top of the spiritual hierarchy, than what we do to the environment is inconsequential. Because the end goal is ascension to a higher plane, there is no motivation to disrupt the order the gods have created for the world with us conveniently at its apex. To change the way you view the divine and the divine's purpose for creating life, the books of spiritual knowledge must be re-examined. Though they tell us that people are flawed, our arrogance exemplified by the way we view the world and our influence on it isn't what most of us take from these troves of ancient wisdom. The ancients began writing the story we enact every day by settling in one area and attempting to control it to what seems to be our benefit. It has certainly added to the conveniences which are now exponentially apparent in our modern lifestyles, but nature has ways of regulating itself and us with it. If we continue to live with this mindset in our cultures and religious beliefs, the only plane of existence suited to us will be spiritual. Many would say our teachers have given us a prophecy of Armageddon that we're simply fulfilling; a great justification of the perpetuated arrogance inherited from a long line of people living the same story their elders gave them.        

As is often the case in my estimations, truth comes from the more esoteric implications of canonized religion. Maybe the elevated form of existence isn't something to be sought as a destination to be arrived at only upon death, perhaps it's a form of living. Living elevated from the taught forms of convenience in a way that reflects your admiration of and supplication to something higher than you. God did not create the world to serve me. I am only a small part of the collective, yet right now, I am a large part destroying the common ground, which the collective shares.

Photo Courtesy: promoteafrica.org

{San (Bushman of Africa) are hunter-gatherers, using their exceptional knowledge of local flora and fauna to subsist in some the world’s most inhospitable lands, including the Kalahari Desert - www.wimsanet.org}

         
That being said, it's not about a mission to “save the planet”. Once we destroy the resources that make our lives possible, the planet does not necessarily end. The planet and many other “lesser” organisms existed long before we came into existence and some forms of life will most likely be here long after our species is extinct. The more realistic and less people-centered paradigm shift is much simpler, but harder to accept given our training: we have to find a way to live in harmony with the world instead of assuming we're the center of it and unlearn certain knowledge that refuses to allow us to be anything but the center of it (Quinn 96).

All of this isn't to say that all of our inherited knowledge is of this nature, but we must pick apart what is actually beneficial from what is convenient. This can most easily begin when our first priority is no longer our convenience, but a new form of efficiency: efficiency of the planet coupled with our needs.

Citation:

            Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. Bantum Dell Pub Group, 1992.

Comments

Sure, and it's definitely a well-ingrained bias that's hard to evade. The best alternative to "humans-first" I can conceive of is framing things in terms of happiness and pain--becoming watchdogs for all beings which experience the two (have nerves). I'm sure we'd still have greater focus on humans, but expanding the boundaries of what we protect and value is what would be important.

In any case, luckily, it doesn't seem like we need to make that large a shift in mindset in order for the environmental movement to gain momentum. Staring down issues as giant as climate change provides pressing enough needs on the grounds of human health and stability all on its own.

Thank you for the kudos Dave. Your insight is spot on. The end of this piece was difficult for me to get through because I had a similar thought. Yet, I didn't know how else to give it closure. Mother culture whispers in my ear as Quinn suggests. I'm drawn to want to make the environment more suitable for people but it is my mindset that needs to change. He describes the problem very well, but as far as a solution, the reader is left wanting. Where do we go from here after we've attained this knowledge? It is a question I ask frequently and though I know my best answer is flawed, it's better than pretending the problem doesn't exist. That's my present state, but perhaps this will spark others to attune to the problem so that we may put our combined efforts toward a better future.

Great article, I really like how you write and think.

I would like to make one criticism, however. You seem to argue that inherited knowledge which is false, in particular that human beings are the apex of importance, leads to the conclusion that people can do whatever they want to the planet. However your solution of environmental sustainability is still trapped in that inherited knowledge. It is still based in the assumption that decisions should be made purely on the basis of their consequences on human beings. How then can false or inherited knowledge be the root of this problem? Faulty logic and/or vision must be the problem.