Ishmael

that worked well for three million years and that still works well where the Takers haven’t yet managed to stamp it out.”

“Okay. That sounds terrific. When do we get to that story?”

“Tomorrow. At least we’ll begin tomorrow.”

“Good,” I said. “But before we quit today, I have a question. Why Mother Culture? I personally have no difficulty with it, but I can imagine some women would, on the grounds that you seem to be singling out a figure of specifically female gender to serve as a cultural villain.”

Ishmael grunted. “I don’t consider her a villain in any sense whatever, but I understand what you’re getting at. Here is my answer: Culture is a mother everywhere and at every time, because culture is inherently a nurturer—the nurturer of human societies and life–styles. Among Leaver peoples, Mother Culture explains and preserves a life–style that is healthy and self–sustaining. Among Taker peoples she explains and preserves a lifestyle that has proven to be unhealthy and self–destructive.”

“Okay. So?”

“So what’s your question? If culture is a mother among the Alawa of Australia and the Bushmen of Africa and the Kayapo of Brazil, then why wouldn’t she be a mother among the Takers?”

NINE

1

When I arrived the next day, I found that a new plan was in effect: Ishmael was no longer on the other side of the glass, he was on my side of it, sprawled on some cushions a few feet from my chair. I hadn’t realized how important that sheet of glass had become to our relationship: to be honest, I felt a flutter of alarm in my stomach. His nearness and enormity disconcerted me, but without hesitating for more than a fraction of a second, I took my seat and gave him my usual nod of greeting. He nodded back, but I thought I glimpsed a look of wary speculation in his eyes, as if my proximity troubled him as much as his troubled me.

“Before we go on,” Ishmael said after a few moments, “I want to clear up a misconception.” He held up a pad of drawing paper with a diagram on it.

 

“Not a particularly difficult visualization. It represents the story line of the Leavers,” he said.

“Yes, I see.”

He added something and held it up again.

“This offshoot, beginning at about 8000 B.C., represents the story line of the Takers.”

“Right.”

“And what event does this represent?” he asked, touching the point of his pencil to the dot labeled 8000 B.C.

“The agricultural revolution.”

“Did this event occur at a point in time or over a period of time?”

“I assume over a period of time.”

“Then this dot at 8000 B.C. represents what?”

“The beginning of the revolution.”

“Where shall I put the dot to show when it ended?”

“Ah,” I said witlessly. “I don’t really know. It must have lasted a couple thousand years.”

“What event marked the end of the revolution?”

“Again, I don’t know. I don’t know that any particular event would have marked it.”

“No popping champagne corks?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think.”

I thought, and after a while said, “Okay. It’s strange that this isn’t taught. I remember being taught about the agricultural revolution, but I don’t remember this.”

“Go on.”

“It didn’t end. It just spread. It’s been spreading ever since it began back there ten thousand years ago. It spread across this continent during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It’s still spreading across parts of New Zealand and Africa and South America today.”

“Of course. So you see that your agricultural revolution is not an event like the Trojan War, isolated in the distant past and without direct relevance to your lives today. The work begun by those neolithic farmers in the Near East has been carried forward from one generation to the next without a single break, right into the present moment. It’s the foundation of your vast civilization today in exactly the same way that it was the foundation of the very first farming village.”

“Yes, I see that.”

“This should help you understand why the story you tell your children about the meaning of the world, about divine intentions in the world, and about the destiny of man is of such profound importance to the people of your culture. It’s the manifesto of the revolution on which your culture is based. It’s the repository of all your revolutionary doctrine and the definitive expression of your revolutionary spirit. It explains why the revolution was necessary and why it must be carried forward at any cost whatever.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s quite a thought.”

2

“About two thousand years ago,” Ishmael went on, “an event of exquisite irony occurred within your culture. The Takers—or at least a very large segment of them—adopted as their own a story that seemed to them pregnant with meaning and mystery. It came to them from a Taker people of the Near East who had been telling it to their own children for countless generations—for so many generations that it had become a mystery even to them. Do you know why?”

“Why it had become a mystery? No.”

“It had become a mystery because those who first told the story—their ancient ancestors—were not Takers but Leavers.”

I sat there for a while blinking at him. Then I asked him if he’d mind running that past me again.

“About two thousand years ago, the Takers adopted as their own a story that had originated among Leavers many centuries before.”

“Okay. What’s the irony in that?”

“The irony is that it was a story that had once been told among Leavers about the origins of the Takers.”

“So?”

“The Takers adopted as their own a Leaver story about their origins.”

“I’m afraid I just don’t get it.”

“What sort of story would a Leaver people tell about the appearance of the Takers in the world?”