I’m new here, but I did a quick search and it doesn’t seem like this book as been discussed much… referenced a few times, but not really discussed, but I didn’t look at ALL the threads so I could be wrong.
I’m curious. Who’s read it? How did it affect your thinking? Everyone I know who’s read it is almost religious in their enthusiasm for it.
Personally, I loved it. It really gave me a new perspective on things that I didn’t fully grasp until reading The Story of B and My Ishmael, then I had to read Providence and Beyond Civilization. I can’t help Daniel Quinn affecting my thinking everytime I watch the news.
I guess I’m really curious to know if there’s anyone who didn’t like it and why. If there’s any sound arguments out there against his “theories”… I’m really curious to hear a dissenting opinion. After reading Ishmael, I was skeptical, but had to read more. I finally had to accept that this guy is right in most of what he said, which left me feeling deeply sad, and yet he maintains an optimistic outlook. Has anyone actually tried living the way he suggests?
Here’s another question: Do you think his idea of the story of Adam and Eve reflecting the “battle” between Takers and Leavers is meant to be taken literally? Or was it just another tool for conveying his ideas?
Primarily as another tool for conveying his ideas, as well as an example about how to use the newfound knowledge to reexamine the world around you. However, I do believe Quinn personally adheres to his theory about it as Semantic propaganda to lift morale against the hordes of Totalitarian Agriculturalists, but personally I got the feeling he wanted everyone to come to their own conclusions and theories on the matter.
I admit I love the books, but does everyone whose religiously devout to them see Quinn as, dare I say it, messianic? Hope not, Quinn naturally opposes anyone worshiping him, I know I’d likely be singing praise to Quinn the Enlightenment if I hadn’t read Frank Herbert’s books before.
Actually I do remember now that one of the things I hated about it was the heavily loaded language.
I just hate it when a book smacks you over the head with its message, then beats you around the ears with its message, and finally kicks you in the stomach wth its message. Just in case you hadn’t noticed it had a message. Did you catch the message? Did you? Are your sure? How about one last slap about the face with the message?
He gets better about that in his later books… that’s why I liked My Ishmael the best. The character Ishmael teaches in that book is a very perceptive 12 year old girl that catches on way faster than Alan in Ishmael did. And maybe I was better able to relate to a young girl than I was Alan’s resistant attitude.
You can forgive him… he had been trying to piece his ideas together for years before he wrote Ishmael.
I just thought that the idea that “leavers” and “takers” were neutral terms was bullshit from the get go. Aren’t we taught from a young age that sharing is Good, taking things for yourself is Bad? That makes these cultural laden terms.
In fact, it doesn’t even make sense when you think about it. My memory is blessedly hazy but aren’t the “leavers” a hunter/gatherer type society? Why not call them “Users” and “Shapers” since hunter/gatherers USE things from their enviroment, while agricultural societies SHAPE plants and animals to their needs?
I think it reminded me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, another loathesome fable apparently intended to be read and understood by 5 year olds.
They were called Leavers because they left their fate to the gods. For example, they didn’t store up food for a shortage. They just dealt with it when the time came. The Takers tried to control their fate… taking things into their own hands.
Well, I call that f-ing stupid. Lots of animals store their excess in anticipation of shortages. And they don’t even have thumbs! I’d like to hope that having forthought equal to that of a squirrel is not the human race’s fatal flaw.
Read it a long time ago. Thought it simplistic, essentially Luddite propaganda. No particular interest in reading more of the same.
The experience of reading “Ishmael” was much like that of being lectured to by a teenager, convinced that everyone in the whole world is a fool except himself, who has suddenly awakened out of his childhood of apparently total comfort and ignorance to the realization that all is not well with the world - that (gasp!) problems exist. One who feels compelled to repeat the same simple mantra over and over again, as if no-one else has ever realized this startling fact.
This book could only be the product of a society immensely well-off.