Ishmael

I hadn’t planned for this—or for anything at all, in fact—so I didn’t know what to do. I checked into the cheapest motel I could find and went out for a steak and a couple of drinks to think things over. By nine o’clock, I hadn’t made any progress, so I went back to the carnival to see what was going on out there. I was in luck, of sorts—a cold front was moving in, and a nasty light rain was sending the merrymakers home with their spirits dampened.

Do you suppose they’re still called roustabouts? I didn’t ask the one I found closing down the sideshow tent. He looked to be about eighty, and I offered him a ten for the privilege of communing with nature for a while in the person of the gorilla who was no more Gargantua than I was. He didn’t appear to consider any of the ethical aspects of the matter but distinctly sneered at the size of the bribe. I added another ten, and he left a light burning by the cage when he hobbled off. There were folding chairs set up on several of the performers’ stages, and I dragged one over and sat down.

Ishmael gazed down at me for a few minutes and then asked where we had left off.

“You’d just finished showing me that the story in Genesis that begins with the Fall of Adam and ends with the murder of Abel is not what it’s conventionally understood to be by the people of my culture. It’s the story of our agricultural revolution as told by some of the earliest victims of that revolution.”

“And what remains, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Maybe what remains is to bring it all together for me. I don’t know what it all adds up to yet.”

“Yes, I agree. Let me think for a bit.”

6

“What exactly is culture?” Ishmael asked at last. “As the word is commonly used, not in the special sense we’ve given it for the purposes of these conversations.”

It seemed like a hell of a question to ask someone sitting in a carnival sideshow tent, but I did my best to give it some thought. “I’d say it’s the sum total of everything that makes a people a people.”

He nodded. “And how does that sum total come into existence?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at. It comes into existence by people living.”

“Yes, but sparrows live, and they don’t have a culture.”

“Okay, I see what you mean. It’s an accumulation. The sum total is an accumulation.”

“What you’re not telling me is how the accumulation comes into being.”

“Oh, I see. Okay. The accumulation is the sum total that is passed from one generation to the next. It comes into being when… When a species attains a certain order of intelligence, the members of one generation begin to pass along information and techniques to the next. The next generation takes this accumulation, adds its own discoveries and refinements, and passes the total on to the next.”

“And this accumulation is what is called culture.”

“Yes, I’d say so.”

“It’s the sum total of what’s passed along, of course, not just information and techniques. It’s beliefs, assumptions, theories, customs, legends, songs, stories, dances, jokes, superstitions, prejudices, tastes, attitudes. Everything.”

“That’s right.”

“Oddly enough, the order of intelligence needed for the accumulation to begin is not terribly high. Chimpanzees in the wild are already passing along tool–making and tool–using behaviors to their young. I see that this surprises you.”

“No. Well… I guess I’m surprised that you cite chimpanzees.”

“Instead of gorillas?”

“That’s right.”

Ishmael frowned. “To tell the truth, I have deliberately avoided all field studies of gorilla life. It is a subject I find I do not care to explore.”

I nodded, feeling stupid.

“In any case, if chimpanzees have already begun to accumulate knowledge about what works well for chimpanzees, when do you suppose people began to accumulate knowledge about what works well for people?”

“I’d have to assume it began when people began.”

“Your paleoanthropologists would agree. Human culture began with human life, which is to say with Homo habilis. The people who were Homo habilis passed along to their children all they’d learned, and as each generation contributed its mite, there was an accumulation of this knowledge. And who were the heirs to this accumulation?”

“Homo erectus?”

“That’s right. And the people who were Homo erectus passed along this accumulation generation after generation, each adding its mite to the whole. And who were the heirs to this accumulation?”

“Homo sapiens.”

“Of course. And the heirs of Homo sapiens were the people of Homo sapiens sapiens, who passed along this accumulation generation after generation, each adding its mite to the whole. And who were the heirs to this accumulation?”

“I’d have to say that the various peoples of the Leavers were the heirs.”

“Not the Takers? Why is that?”

“Why is that? I don’t know. I’d say it’s because… Obviously there was a total break with the past at the time of the agricultural revolution. There was no break with the past in the various peoples who were migrating to the Americas at this time. There was no break with the past in the various peoples who inhabited New Zealand or Australia or Polynesia.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I don’t know. It’s my impression.”

“Yes, but what’s the basis for the impression?”

“I think it’s this. I don’t know what story all these people are enacting, but I can see that they’re all enacting the same one. I can’t spell the story out as yet, but it’s clearly there—in distinction to the story the people of my culture are enacting. Wherever we encounter them, they’re always doing much the same sort of thing, always living much the same sort of life—just the way that wherever we encounter us, we’re always doing much the same sort of thing, always living much the same sort of life.”

“But what’s the connection between this and the transmittal of that cultural accumulation that mankind made during the first three million years of human life?”

I thought about it for a couple minutes, then said, “This is the connection. The Leavers are still passing that accumulation along in whatever form it came to them. But we’re not, because ten thousand years ago the founders of our culture said, ‘This is all shit. This is not the way people should live,’ and they got rid of it. They obviously did get rid of it, because by the time their descendants step into history there’s no trace of the attitudes and ideas you encounter among Leaver peoples everywhere. And then too…”

“Yes?”

“This is interesting. I’ve never noticed this before…. Leaver peoples are always conscious of having a tradition that goes back to very ancient times. We have no such consciousness. For the most part, we’re a very ‘new’ people. Every generation is somehow new, more thoroughly cut off from the past than the one that came before.”

“What does Mother Culture have to say about this?”

“Ah,” I said, and closed my eyes. “Mother Culture says that this is as it should be. There’s nothing in the past for us. The past is dreck. The past is something to be put behind us, something to be escaped from.”

Ishmael nodded. “So you see: This is how you came to be cultural amnesiacs.”

“How do you mean?”