-
Read Ishmael Carefully Jan 28, 2002 (67 of 72 found this helpful)
I've read several reviews of this book and found that, despite Quinn's careful attempts to get his message across clearly and unequivocally, many readers misunderstand the finer points of Ishmael's arguments and end up praising or condemning Ishmael for the wrong reasons. Here is a short list of common misunderstandings you're likely to encounter in the course of reading reviews of this book:
(1) The central message is a hackneyed statement about saving the planet: All we have to do is this or that. We need to treat the earth better, or treat each other better, etc....
No, the author has no such message. He is not even concerned with saving the planet. He merely points out that, in the past, there were many ways a human could make a living in the world that did not threaten to render the planet uninhabitable. As George Carlin once said: "The planet isn't going anywhere. We are!" The author recommends that if we are concerned about our future, then we should find out as much as we can about these other ways of living in the world and what made them sustainable.
(2) This is communism.
No, this is tribalism, the cultural traits of which have been found to be conducive to sutainable ways of living.
So-called communist countries operate the same unsustainable lifestyle as so-called democratic countries and are just as hierarchical and corrupt. Nothing new, except the academic devaluation of the individual. In "democratic" countries, the devaluation is not openly professed, only practiced and theoretically implied. Progress means the same thing in both societies: the technological displacement of people.
(3) The ape is omniscient; skeptics beware.
Skeptics always beware. Ishmael is the ultimate skeptic. He takes nothing for granted. His arguments are based on information available to any human being with a library card. You'll remember that when the student enters Ishmael's room, he notices dozens of books on history and anthropology piled up on the shelf. You don't have to take Ishmael's word for granted. If you're skeptical, go look it up. The ape is not omniscient. He's well informed.
(4) The book proclaims: "There is something unnatural about the way we live."
I agree. There is nothing natural about the way we live. But there's nothing natural about the way any human has ever lived.
There's never been an all-natural people. We are and have always been all-cultural. Nature supplies us with the urges to satisfy certain life imperatives (i.e. nutritional, procreative, protective, etc...). But culture determines the way we go about responding to these urges; that is to say, there is nothing natural about the way we satisfy these natural desires. We may be at a loss to change our nature and the urges we feel, but we are capable of constructing a better, more sustainable way of responding to nature's edicts.
(5) Based on the arguments of the book, one could conclude that "we, as a species, are...."
Quinn has nothing conclusive to say about humanity or "we as a species," except that every human is dependent on culture and that the bulk of the information that constitutes human cultures is mythological. His main concern here is with the general evolution of two distinct ways of living on this planet. One is sustainable, the other is not. We as a species have not messed things up. One culture out of tens of thousands has managed to make a mess of things. By engaging in unsustainable behavior that threatens to destroy the ecosystems upon which humans everywhere depend (i.e., totalitarian agriculture), we - the people of a single culture - are precipitating the extinction of humankind.
-
Ishmael: A Critical Analysis of Civilization Mar 9, 2002 (172 of 193 found this helpful)
It is a general rule that any particular culture can only be understood by someone outside of it - a neutral observer, unaffected by prejudice or indoctrination. This is the reasoning behind Quinn's choice of a gorilla named Ishmael as the main character of this novel, who conducts a series of dialogues analyzing the whole of civilization itself.
But what is the civilization that Quinn looks at? Instead of muttering about monumental building and written language, Quinn treats civilization in a method that is becoming increasingly popular: as the result of a critical mass of humanity that makes possible rapid advances in knowledge and science. For this to be possible, intensive agriculture must be used to raise the population density to such a point that civilization occurs.
So Quinn uses a gorilla as an outsider looking in and perceiving the reality of civilization - of cultures using intensive agriculture to dominate the world. His conclusions are for the most part negative: he concludes that civilization is not sustainable in the long term (that is, over millions of years).
The observations used to come to this conclusion are relatively well-known; that civilization is the greatest disaster to befall earth in the past 65 million years. In terms of pollution, deforestation, extinction, and overall negative impact to the web of life itself, humanity is supreme among all the species. What Quinn does not share with the others who know these facts is a belief that civilization will overcome any difficulties it encounters. Civilization, to Quinn, is the problem, not the solution.
_Ishmael_ is the presentation of these ideas in a Socratic method from a gorilla to a man "with an earnest desire to save the world." There isn't really any plot to this book, nor does Quinn intend there to be. The disappearance of Ishmael at the end of book is the only story-like element in _Ishmael_, and it is really an attempt by Quinn to set the reader free - to encourage him/her to think about civilization for himself rather than be told about it by a telepathic gorilla. I've always had the feeling that this should be considered nonfiction, rather than a story.
The problem presented by _Ishmael_ is simple: civilization is the problem. The solution is both simple and complex: in order to preserve a human niche in the ecosystem, we must go beyond civilization. Working to figure out just what this means is one of the great joys of reading _Ishmael_, whether or not you agree with Quinn's assessment of the situation. _Ishmael_ is a book that will make you look around and think, and perhaps reach some conclusions that you may find surprising. Highly recommended.
-
Excellent May 2, 2006 (44 of 47 found this helpful)
Much like the One Book for Waterloo this year, Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer, this book looks at the history of humankind on this planet and all we have done to it. It will challenge the prevailing belief that more and bigger is better. The book begins with an ad in the paper "TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have earnest desire to save the world. Apply in Person." In the book, the gorilla Ishmael has learned to communicate through thought with humans. He also has a message that we cannot afford not to hear. The book focuses around a series of conversations between Ishmael and his student. It presents a different interpretation of how we went from being a hunter-gather society to an agrarian one. Also how that system is bound to fail. For me the most haunting thing in the book is two quotes. Early on we see a poster that states: "WITH MAN GONE, WILL THERE BE HOPE FOR GORILLA?" p.9 and much later, on the back of the first poster, "WITH GORILLA GONE, WILL THERE BE HOPE FOR MAN?" p.263. This is a great read especially for a sunny summer afternoon, or two. This is also the first in a trilogy.
-
listening to Ishmael Apr 16, 2005 (21 of 22 found this helpful)
This book's been alternately excessively hyped and criticized. Some of the reviews on this page make me question whether those reviewers and I read the same book. The book's arch premise is highly focused (not simplified) in order to successfully posit its all-embracing point: human beings are ignorantly destroying the world in which they live. It's not a book about a return to primitive man, neither is it about ideas already understood by most people; if that were the case, corporate greed, mindless militarism and fetishistic destruction of the environment would not be the cataclysmic problems they have assuredly become. There's a good deal of honest wisdom in the pages of Ishmael despite the quasi cultic aspects found on the ishmael.com website. This is a book that can help teach people in this society to listen. THAT's its erstwhile contribution. Try this experiment sometime: note how often you experience someone say they "listened to" something (a book, another person, the circumstance of any human quandary) and contrast it with the number of times you hear people say they "heard" something. The results of this simple little survey will astonish you. THAT's the value of the tale of teacher Ishmael. Until any society that measures its wealth by consumption is converted to a culture that listens, any hope for the necessarily radical reconfiguring of the means and the end is a pipe dream. The book addresses that condition with insight, a superbly original idea, an intriguing 'hero' and a genuine push for a wakeup call that fairly charges out of the author from beginning to end. Great literature it ain't - a critical choice is what's revealed, and it's powerful.
-
Clarifying points Mar 31, 2005 (15 of 15 found this helpful)
Yes, the philosophy behind Ishmael is a simple one.
Yes, the writing is basic, slowly paced, sometimes repetitive, and barely backed up by any data.
Yes, many of us have encountered similar beliefs elsewhere, or we came up with them ourselves in high school.
A few people have said this, and I'd like to reiterate: in the end, it doesn't matter. It's an important book.
I'm amazed at how many people have sneered at this book, dismissing it by saying, "Everyone already knows this, idiots." Do they really? Maybe they did discover it for themselves in high school, but many of those people (myself included), thought that we were alone in thinking the way we did, or listened to Mother Culture's insistence that human "progress" was inexorable. This book is a reassuring reminder that many of us humans do know how to live, and that minds are being changed. Granted, I wouldn't recommend that anyone's education be based solely off Ishmael. Read it, and then go out and keep reading. You want evidence? It's out there, being written by scholars with more scientific credibility than Daniel Quinn. Check out his website at www.ishmael.com if you want to know what he recommends for additional reading, or just go out and explore on your own.
To those critics who claim to "already know" everything in this book: do you really? If so, why are you spending so much time trying to discredit it? A key part of the book, perhaps THE key part, is that this knowledge does no good if it isn't shared. So you've studied the works of great philosophers and noted ecologists? Good! I am genuinely glad. But if you really buy into the ideas presented in this book, then help to teach them instead of cynically blasting Quinn's approach. He may not help everyone, but he helped me, and I know I'm not alone.
I would also be suspicious of any reviews which claim that the book promotes the ideas that humanity is "bad" or "a virus", that the book is racist, anti-semetic, anti-christian, or anything of the sort, that the book is anti-technology, or that the book promotes the idea that we have to return to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Quinn takes pains to distance himself from all these criticisms, and those who make them need to read a little more carefully.
Since this is supposed to be a review (not a review of other people's reviews), I highly recommend this book. Though it may not be for everyone, I encourage anyone with even the slightest interest to give Ishmael a shot. If you're skeptical, try a friend or a library, but I'm confident that many of you will want this on your shelves for years to come.