Ishmael

forests. If the will is there, the method will be found.”

7

“As you see, I left a book beside your chair,” Ishmael said.

It was The American Heritage Book of Indians.

“While we’re on or near the subject of population control, there’s a map of tribal locations there in the front that you may find illuminating.” After I’d studied it for a minute, he asked me what I made of it.

“I didn’t realize there were so many. So many different peoples.”

“Not all of them were there at the same time, but most of them were. What I’d like you to think about is what served to limit their growth.”

“How is the map supposed to help?”

“I wanted you to see that this was far from an empty continent. Population control wasn’t a luxury, it was a necessity.”

“Okay.”

“Any ideas?”

“You mean from looking at the map? No, I’m afraid not.”

“Tell me this: What do the people of your culture do if they get tired of living in the crowded Northeast?”

“That’s easy. They move to Arizona. New Mexico. Colorado. The wide open spaces.”

“And how do the Takers in the wide open spaces like that?”

“They don’t. They put bumper stickers on their cars that say, ‘If you love New Mexico, go back where you came from.’ ”

“But they don’t go back.”

“No, they just keep coming.”

“Why can’t the Takers of these areas stem the flood? Why can’t they limit the population growth of the Northeast?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see how they could.”

“So what you have is a gushing wellspring of growth in one part of the country that no one bothers to turn off, because the excess can always flow into the wide open spaces of the West.”

“That’s right.”

“Yet each of these states has a boundary. Why don’t those boundaries keep them out?”

“Because they’re just imaginary lines.”

“Exactly. All you have to do to transform yourself into an Arizonan is to cross that imaginary line and settle down. But the point to note is that around each of the Leaver peoples on that map was a boundary that was definitely not imaginary: a cultural boundary. If the Navajo started feeling crowded, they couldn’t say to themselves, ‘Well, the Hopi have a lot of wide open space. Let’s go over there and be Hopi.’ Such a thing would have been unthinkable to them. In short, New Yorkers can solve their population problems by becoming Arizonans, but the Navajo couldn’t solve their population problems by becoming Hopi. Those cultural boundaries were boundaries that no one crossed by choice.”

“True. On the other hand, the Navajo could cross the Hopi’s territorial boundary without crossing their cultural boundary.”

“You mean they could invade Hopi territory. Yes, absolutely. But the point I’m making still stands. If you crossed over into Hopi territory, they didn’t give you a form to fill out, they killed you. That worked very well. That gave people a powerful incentive to limit their growth.”

“Yes, there is that.”

“These were not people limiting their growth for the benefit of mankind or for the benefit of the environment. They limited their growth because for the most part this was easier than going to war with their neighbors. And of course there were some who made no great effort to limit their growth, because they had no qualms about going to war with their neighbors. I don’t mean to suggest that this was the peaceable kingdom of a utopian dream. In a world where no Big Brother monitors everyone’s behavior and guarantees everyone’s property rights, it works well to have a reputation for fearlessness and ferocity—and you don’t acquire such a reputation by sending your neighbors curt notes. You want them to know exactly what they’ll be in for if they don’t limit their growth and stay in their own territory.”

“Yes, I see. They limited each other.”

“But not just by erecting uncrossable territorial boundaries. Their cultural boundaries had to be uncrossable too. The excess population of the Narraganset couldn’t just pack up and move out west to be Cheyenne. The Narraganset had to stay where they were and limit their population.”

“Yes. It’s another case where diversity seems to work better than homogeneity.”

8

“A week ago,” Ishmael said, “when we were talking about laws, you said that there’s only one kind of law about how people should live—the kind that can be changed by a vote. What do you think now? Can the laws that govern competition in the community be changed by a vote?”

“No. But they’re not absolutes, like the laws of aerodynamics. They can be broken.”

“Can’t the laws of aerodynamics be broken?”

“No. If your plane isn’t built according to the law, it doesn’t fly.”

“But if you push it off a cliff, it stays in the air, doesn’t it?”

“For a while.”

“The same is true of a civilization that isn’t built in accordance with the law of limited competition. It stays in the air for a while, and then it comes down with a crash. Isn’t that what the people of your culture are facing here? A crash?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll ask the question another way. Are you certain that any species that, as a matter of policy, exempts itself from the law of limited competition will end by destroying the community to support its own expansion?”

“Yes.”

“Then what have we discovered here?”

“We’ve discovered a piece of certain knowledge about how people ought to live. Must live, in fact.”

“Knowledge that a week ago you said was unobtainable.”

“Yes. But…”

“Yes?”

“I don’t see how… Hold on for a minute.”

“Take your time.”

“I don’t see how to make this a source of knowledge in general. I mean, I don’t see any way to apply this knowledge in a general way, to other issues.”

“Do the laws of aerodynamics show you how to repair damaged genes?”

“No.”

“Then what good are they?”

“They’re good for… They enable us to fly.”

“The law we’ve outlined here enables species to live—enables species to survive, including the human. It won’t tell you whether mood–altering drugs should be legalized or not. It won’t tell you whether premarital sex is good or bad. It won’t tell you whether capital punishment is right or wrong. It will tell you how you have to live if you want to avoid extinction, and that’s the first and most fundamental knowledge anyone needs.”