The story

So, what is this story that has made captives of us all? It must surely be an insidious tale, one that would shock the ears to hear? Unfortunately, this is not the case. The story that keeps us locked in our cage is one that we hear almost every day. It is a story that we take for truth, and rarely question.

I will start with the beginning of the story. The beginning is, like the stories acted out by all cultures, our culture’s creation myth. Most people will deny that it is a myth; they will tell you that it is based on scientific research and observation. But read carefully, and you will see that this story shares a fundamental similarity with those stories we do consider myths.

So, the beginning:

The universe was formed around thirteen billion years ago, when an incredibly hot and dense mass suddenly expanded, thereby creating all matter. Around six billion years ago, our own solar system was formed, including the planet Earth.

Life first appeared in Earth’s oceans around three and a half billion years ago, starting out as bacteria. These single-celled microorganisms evolved into more complex, multi-celled organisms, such as plankton. Evolution continued until the oceans were full of all manner of marine animals. Some of the animals then emerged onto land, first as amphibians, and later as fully-fledged land animals, such as reptiles.

Alongside these reptiles lived small mammals, which hid from the larger animals in trees and bushes. When the dinosaurs became extinct, these mammals were allowed to evolve into larger creatures, such as primates. Around ten million years ago, some of these primates left the trees and lived on the ground. These primates continued to evolve until finally, around three millions years ago, man appeared.

And that is the beginning of the story that keeps us in our cage.

Definitions

Some definitions are in order.

I have already defined Daniel Quinn's use of the term "story" as a scenario concerning man, the world, and the gods. ("Gods" can be taken literally or metaphorically; either an actual higher being responsible for the creation of the world, or just the abstract force of nature.) People enact a story; that is, they live as to make a story a reality. A culture is a people enacting a story.

There are two primary cultures in the world. You may know them as the civilised (us), and the primitive (them). Quinn uses a different set of terms: the Takers and the Leavers, respectively.

Finally, Quinn uses the term "Mother Culture" to refer to the abstract entity that enforces the Taker story on our Taker society. Mother Culture permeates all media, from film and television, to books and journalism. Mother Culture keeps us in our cage.

The bars

Where are the bars? What is keeping us trapped in our cage? The answer is simple: a story.

Daniel Quinn, as way of example, uses Nazi Germany. The Germans followed Adolph Hitler because Hitler told them a story. It was a story in which the German people had been denied their rightful place in the world. A story in which Hitler would lead the Aryan race to victory and mastery of the world.

For clarity's sake, I will explain Quinn's usage of the word 'story': it is a scenario concerning man, the world, and the gods; a story that people enact to make it a reality.

The people of Nazi Germany enacted Hitler's story in an attempt to make it a reality. There were those who refused to believe the story, but they were swept along with the rest of the population, like animals in a stampede. Like everyone else, they were captives of the story.

In a similar way, we are all captives of a story. It is a story that our culture (Mother Culture, as Quinn refers to it) tells us from birth. It is a story that we must enact if we are to be fed. If someone in Hitler's Germany disagreed with his story, they could leave. We have no such option. If we refuse to enact Mother Culture's story, we don't get fed. Mother Culture tells us that this is as it should be, that this is the story man was born to enact. And that is where you will find the bars.

Captivity

We're destroying the world. There's no doubt about it; you only have to watch the news, read the papers, or just look out the window. Ishmael asks his pupil, "Why don't you stop?" His pupil can only shrug.

So why are we destroying the world? Is it because we want to? Ask any person if they want to destroy the world, and they'll tell you that they don't. And yet we are destroying the world. Everyday we spew pollution into the seas and skies, cut down huge swathes of rainforest, and kill off hundreds of species.

The concepts Daniel Quinn deals with in Ishmael are essentially about captivity. We destroy the world because we are captives. We are captives of a culture that forces us to destroy the world in order to live. Food production, housing, medicine; all things that our culture tells us must be done in a certain way. And in a way that destroys the world.

There have been numerous attempts over the years to halt, or at least slow down, our destruction of the world. In the Sixties, an entire social group tried to change our culture for the better, albeit in a rather disorganised fashion. Recently, the Kyoto Protocol, recycling, and Al Gore have made attempts at stemming the tide of destruction.

The hippies failed, and ultimately Al Gore will fail, for one simple reason: we can't find the bars of our cage. We are not the only captives; the world has become our captive. And if we can't find the bars, the world isn't going to survive very long.

Ishmael

I am not a teacher, and you are certainly not my pupil. There may be those among you who recognise the title of this blog. For those who don't, it is paraphrased from the basic premise of Daniel Quinn's novel Ishmael: "TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL. Must have an earnest desire to save the world." In this novel, Quinn, through the character of Ishmael, teaches us how we may save the world. It seems far-fetched, but the book may just help us to do that. At the end of the book, Ishmael tells us to "teach a hundred what I've taught you, and inspire each of them to teach a hundred." I don't know how many I'll reach, but with this blog I intend to give it a go.

For those of you who have read Ishmael, please tell as many people as you can about it. Lend out your copy, give copies as presents at Christmas, or just link to this blog on MySpace, your own blog, or whatever. If you haven't read the book, do it now. It's called Ishmael, it's written by Daniel Quinn, and the ISBN is 0553375407. For those of you still unwilling to give the book a try, I can only hope that you're willing to give this blog a try.

At the risk of being sued, I am going to use this blog to broadcast the basic concepts of Ishmael. On a (hopefully) regular basis, I will update the blog in roughly the order Daniel Quinn uses to convey his message in the book. So, please, visit regularly, and maybe together we can get Ishmael's message to the world at large.