Back in the early 90s, I came across this book that changed everything for me. It asked me questions, made me stop and re-evaluate everything. Not just about me, but about all of THIS. The world, our culture, how we live, everything.
Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn is a story about this normal everyday guy who’d decided to answer a classified ad in his local newspaper:
TEACHER seeks pupil.
Must have an earnest desire to save the world.
Apply in person.
So, he shows up, and there sitting in this room is this giant gorilla… who says something like… I bet you’re wondering what Gorilla could teach you?
Sure! In his writings, he shares his environmental philosophy through fictional stories that teach us important lessons about ourselves and how we approach things.
He continued the series with additional books like “The Story of B” and “My Ishmael.” Hollywood eventually made a movie adaptation, which wasn’t received well.
It offers a history of a change that took place over 10,000+ years ago, our gradual adaption of agriculture and animal husbandry and the division of peoples that formed because of it… who Quinn labels Takers and Leavers. Our culture (East and West) the Takers, and some present day existing tribal peoples are the remaining Leavers.
Basically, because anything they left around we took. Raping and pillaging across the world, indifferent to the long-term effects our desire for more and more would have.
And here we are.
The alarm bells started going off in environmental circles back in the 80s on Climate Change, back then called Global Warming. This book was Quinn’s critique on civilization and our cultural narratives, and how they have brought us to where we are.
The term global warming was misleading though. It made folks think that it was only a warming thing, and first cold blast of Arctic Winter and the naysayrers were all…. “see… see… its not real”, “just environmental mumbo jumbo”. But it wasn’t really just about warming, it was that Climate Change doesn’t cause heat waves, it makes them more common. It doesn’t cause hurricanes, but makes them worse. Doesn’t cause wildfires, makes them worse. A natural component + a man-made component.
For me, I suppose Quinn’s most important tenet was… we can do better, be better.
At the time in those early 90s, I was married, we owned a home, I had a garden, and we went for walks in the woods with our dog. I loved what I had access to right out my door, the beauty of my hometown is something I’ve explored, discovered, and hiked since I moved here from the tiny village just on the outskirts were I had grown up.
I found wild hidden treasures all over the city. Not always formal parks, as some of my favourite spots have a checkered past, as garbage dumps or abandoned orchards at the edge of a long gone paint factory that used the pectin to make the paint. All unsafe to build on due to various crap we’d dumped there. Meandering past were rivers and creeks, all these sites leeching their poison’s into our waterways, thus eventually making it into our drinking water. These areas became wild, abandoned, with seedlings of pioneer species taking root, making them gradually into oasis of wildness, where deer lay down at night and were their fawns were born. Where Red-tail hawks nested. Alive with birds and bees, and the things that need those wild niches to survive.
We could do better.
Quinn’s probably most life changing philosophy is, that the reality is, we are not trying to save the world, we’re really trying to save ourselves. All the animals, birds, landscapes of majestic mountains, and oceans alike, these will bounce back, comeback, return, once we are gone. We are not necessary for the Earths existence. We can be as temporary as we choose… our choice. Free Will.
However, right now, we don’t have any other spot to move to if we fuck it all up, so, there’s that.
There’s No One Right Way To Be
Now, we don’t all have to do it the same way, but we all do need to find a better way.
A better way to get our energy to run our homes, drive our vehicles, make our goods, produce our food, where we build our homes, how we build them. Why we build them. All the things, the small and the large, the function, design, all of it.
The idea that some people are against the changes needed to protect our future is wrong. We have options for better food sources, cleaner energy, and alternative ways to fuel our vehicles. Let’s focus on these alternatives instead of pointing fingers. Regardless of who did what, when, or how, maybe the better message is why are we wasting valuable non-renewable resources on stuff that can be more efficiently provided with renewable ones? Why are we making things worse when we have more environmentally gentler ways?
Back in the early 90s when I found Quinn, many of these options viability where off in the distance. That’s no longer the case.
Frankly, as is plainly evident, sitting around waiting for some government, corporation, or whatever to change their greedy ways is insufficient.
Protest and such are all well and good, they play their part, but our choices, our lifestyle, our beliefs, our futures are in our hands.
A Billion Being B
Any culture will become an obscenity when blown up into a universal world culture to which all must belong.
The next book Quinn brought out was The Story of B. Quinn challenges readers to delve deep into their own belief systems, encouraging them to critically examine their cherished ideologies and ways of life. Quinn compels us to question not only our individual perspectives but also the very foundation of our societies.
“The Story of B” functions as a powerful parable, weaving together elements of philosophy, anthropology, and spirituality. It invites us to ponder the consequences of our actions and the impact they have on the intricate web of life on Earth. He prompts us to consider alternative paths towards more sustainable and harmonious ways of existence.
Quinn explores themes of interconnectedness, environmental ethics, and cultural evolution. He challenges the assumptions underlying our modern civilization, highlighting the ecological crisis that looms over humanity and offering insights into potential solutions.
It chronicles a young priest’s movement away from his religion and toward the environmentalist teachings of an international lecturer known as “B”. [Wikipedia]
It’s written in the style of a letter, a missive by a priest Jared to his advisor, reporting back what he has learned about this itinerate priest B spreading blasphemy. Over time, Jared becomes intrigued with Bs message. But, these priests believe, in fact, that B is the Antichrist; and B himself supports this view (to a degree).
Yet, its not a book about religion, it is a critique of our culture, and certain beliefs that hold us enthrall of it, this Mother Culture.
There are many themes the book explores, but one in particular that has always resonated for me, is the opposition to Totalitarian Agriculture… the style of agriculture whereby its practitioners destroy all competition and assume all resources are made only for their own use. As someone who grew up surrounded by small farms, and has watched the big corporate farms take over large tracks of countryside, destroying their competition in the process. Watched as local farmers, unable to compete with them, forced to sell-out so a developer can build sprawling cookie-cutter subdivisions devoid of life and community.
The result of this aggressive style of agriculture is that, as we now can see all around us, ecological imbalance and over-population, which themselves are rapidly leading to humankind’s self-destruction.
Nothing in the community lives in isolation from the rest, not even the queens of the social insects. Nothing lives only in itself, needing nothing from the community. Nothing lives only for itself, owing nothing to the community. Nothing is untouchable or untouched. Every life is on loan from the community from birth and without fail is paid back to the community in death. The community is a web of life, and every strand of the web is a path to all the other strands. Nothing is exempt or excused. Nothing is special. Nothing lives on a strand by itself, unconnected to the rest.
Massive industrialized agriculture destroys the ability of smaller, community based agriculture. Thus, sacrificing our landscapes, our arable lands, to be over worked and bled of their ability to sustain itself, bleeding toxic substances into our watersheds. Outside entities with no ties to the communities in which they operate, also often have little to no personal investment in the health of the ecosystem in which they operate.
Now, over 25-years after this book was published, we are seeing the concrete effects of how the size of our individual carbon foot print effects everything around us.
Yet, the balance between population growth and our food production remain at loggerheads. How do we balance these two realities, mindful of lowering our collective carbon footprint in a meaningful way?
Well, as they say, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.
It can not just be about building greener, more sustainable homes; though that’s a good start. It has to also be building communities that are mindful of health and welfare of those who live there. Building up, not out. Fostering collective food gardens, creating food forests, deregulating building codes that prevent establishment of tiny homes on shared lots. These are just a few examples, because in fact there are hundreds of different ways we can be, and still not feed the machine (or feed it less).
In essence, what the book is warning is that the success of totalitarian agriculture will be our undoing. With more population we need more food, and more food produces the effect of producing more people in unsustainable accelerated growth patterns. Instead, bringing food production again closer to the people allows the people to better manage their own resources, as well as provide better foresight to make better decisions for our individual communities.
The carbon footprint of our supply chain is also a concern, and our global world is suffering the consequences.
So, Quinn emphasizes the significance of changing minds. Without changed minds, without a recognition of our individual ability to at the very least change OUR own world, there can be no change.
There are many who feel defeated watching what climate change has destroyed, and will destroy.
These books totally changed my perspective. Quinn asserts, it was never about saving the planet, which always seemed such arrogance, we are saving ourselves.
It is a way of taking back your power, not giving in to that sense of this demoralizing insurmountable task. Rather then saving the planet, if we concentrate instead on saving ourselves, we will be far better off long-term. And, not with big industrialized programs for the masses, but instead in small communities of folks working towards a better way of being.
If the world is saved, it will not be saved by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.
A while back, when I came across my old copy of The Story of B, I found myself taking stock, “how B was I”?
See, the letter after my screen name doesn’t represent my surname initial – paulaB was always a nod to Daniel Quinn.
In fact, in terms of carbon footprint, I am far better then I once was. Not living on a hippie co-op in the wild, but I have adapted some of Quinns more leaver ways of being, whilst living within a village in a city with most of what I need in walking distance. No hunting, per se, unless we include hunting for plants to junglefy my own space, which is certainly gathering. I am not vegetarian (yet), and rarely eat meat, cheaper and more sustainable choosing instead to obtain my protein in different ways – like beans, legumes, oats, eggs, yogurt, peanut butter. I don’t have more then I need, and have settled into a life of needing far, far less.
In fact, my lifestyle today is far more sustainable, low-key, more reliant on what’s just out my door. Most of the clothes I wear are second hand, and I rarely buy new. I use what I have in different ways, upcycling, reusing, and generally making more strategic purchases towards a higher goal – like new pair of practical all-round walking shoes that are also stylish, within my budget, and encourage me to walk more, and farther afield. You know, health and wellness is also key to saving ourselves.
There is a lot in this book, in all Quinns work. Its not an easy read, and it’s the kind of thing you will put down at times, and find yourself staring off into space thinking about what he just said. Sometimes putting it down for days, and thinking about the words, the ideas, and what they mean to you.
The world was made for Man, and Man was made to conquer and rule it’… that manifesto is doubted now, ladies and gentlemen… almost everywhere in our culture, in all walks of life, among the young and the old, but especially among the young, for whom the dream of a glittering future in which life will become ever sweeter and sweeter and sweeter, decade after decade, century after century, has been exploded and is meaningless. Your children know better. They know better in large part because you know better.
Only our politicians still insist that the world was made for Man, and Man was made to conquer and rule it. They must, as a professional obligation, still affirm and proclaim the manifesto of our revolution. If they want to hold on to their jobs, they assure us with absolute conviction that a glorious future lies just ahead for us – provided that we march forward under the banner of conquest and rule. They assure us of this, and then they wonder, year after year, why fewer and fewer voters go to the polls.
Yet, some fear turning away from make-believe shadows on the wall. Fear the reality of our own making. Fear turning away from Mother Culture which has nestled us into blissful ignorance.
Binary Focused Thinking
Not a Quinn tenet, but more a critique of certain philosophies, in terms of the Leaver vs Taker idea. A warning, really, of the consequences of holding onto us vs them ideologies, and narratives.
Binary Focused Thinking: Binary thinking is a cognitive framework that simplifies complex situations or concepts by reducing them to only two opposing categories or perspectives. It is also known as dichotomous thinking. Binary thinking allows individuals to simplify cognitive processes by seeing a situation in black or white, but not gray. This allows them to clearly see major advantages and disadvantages of a situation, but they may miss the finer details to make an informed decision.
[Bing AI Summary]
Though certainly, the political divide today infesting democracies around the world provides one more way in which ol’Mother Culture tries to drag us back to old patterns. Patterns of governing, ruling over the many, dictating what we consume, believe, who we are, what we are. The elitist, the aristocracy, the empires and regimes, dictating who can rule, and who will serve. One side believing their way is the best way, the only way, the other defending their right to be whatever they be, placing us within this binary argument of us vs them. Its not real, its an illusion created by certain groups who wish to see their way as the only “right way to be”. Besides being unkind, angry, violent, it is destructive to everything around us, as we fight over cracks in the sidewalk.
There is no one right way to be. There are many ways.
We are experiencing a cultural collapse. The very same collapse that was experienced by the Plains Indians when their way of life was destroyed and they were herded onto reservations. The very same collapse that was experiences by aboriginal people overrun by us in Africa, everywhere. For all of us, in just a few decades, shocking realities invalidated our vision of the world and made nonsense of a destiny that had always seemed self evident. The outcome: things fall apart. Order and purpose are replaced by chaos and bewilderment. People lose the will to live, become listless, violent, suicidal, addicted. The frog smiled for ten thousand years, as the water got hotter and hotter and hotter, but eventually when the water began to boil , the frog was dead.
Heady stuff, for sure, and not for the faint of heart.
Some followers of Quinns philosophies advocate for solutions of a global reset that is disturbingly cogent today in some circles. Quinn himself never did, instead using certain extreme examples, parables of a sort, to make certain points. And, perhaps some of these conspiracies of the Great Reset stem from this group that think the best solution, to burn it all to the ground and remake everything anew in a better way, more sustainable way.
Which is hogwash.
Some groups do today actually believe there is this nefarious deep state, pulling the strings in the background. Conspiracies formulated by those who see a new way as threatening to the old way, the good old way. With man the (human) the centre of the universe, and all the other flora and fauna optional.
It isn’t.
How do I know this? Well, because these deep state conspiracies, for one, fly in the face of the powers that be (whoever they are) obsession with that grand old dame, Mother Culture. Without that, who would give socialism to corporate empires and scraps to the rest of us? Who would foster the myth of money trickling down to the poor?
WHO WOULD FEED THE RICH?
So, I’ll leave this here for now, and give you one more idea of Quinns to ponder.
The relevant measures are not ease and difficulty. The relevant measures are readiness and unreadiness. If the time isn’t right for a new idea, no power on earth can make it catch on, but if the time is right, it will sweep the world like wildfire.
Can a billion being B save our ass? Or, is that even the right question any more? Can a billion being B survive the crash?
by PaulaB 