Ishmael

“Well, now you do. Did the Plains Indians understand the benefits of the agricultural life?”

“I guess they must have.”

“What does Mother Culture say?”

I thought about that for a while, then laughed. “She says they didn’t really understand. If they had, they would never have gone back to hunting and gathering.”

“Because that’s a detestable life.”

“That’s right.”

“You can begin to see how thoroughly effective Mother Culture’s teachings are on this issue.”

“True. But what I don’t see is where this gets us.”

“We’re on our way to discovering what lies at the very root of your fear and loathing of the Leaver life. We’re on our way to discovering why you feel you must carry the revolution forward even if it destroys you and the entire world. We’re on our way to discovering what your revolution was a revolution against.”

“Ah,” I said.

“And when we’ve done all that, I’m sure you’ll be able to tell me what story was being enacted here by the Leavers during the first three million years of human life and is still being enacted by them wherever they survive today.”

4

Having spoken of survival, Ishmael shuddered and sank down into his blankets with a kind of moaning sigh. For a minute he seemed to lose himself in the tireless drumming of rain on the canvas overhead, then he cleared his throat and went on.

“Let’s try this,” he said. “Why was the revolution necessary?”

“It was necessary if man was to get somewhere.”

“You mean if man was to have central heating and universities and opera houses and spaceships.”

“That’s right.”

Ishmael nodded. “That sort of answer would have been acceptable when we began our work together, but I want you to go deeper than that now.”

“Okay. But I don’t know what you mean by deeper.”

“You know very well that for hundreds of millions of you, things like central heating, universities, opera houses, and spaceships belong to a remote and unattainable world. Hundreds of millions of you live in conditions that most people in this country can only guess at. Even in this country, millions are homeless or live in squalor and despair in slums, in prisons, in public institutions that are little better than prisons. For these people, your facile justification for the agricultural revolution would be completely meaningless.”

“True.”

“But though they don’t enjoy the fruits of your revolution, would they turn their backs on it? Would they trade their misery and despair for the sort of life that was lived in prerevolutionary times?”

“Again, I’d have to say no.”

“This is my impression as well. Takers believe in their revolution, even when they enjoy none of its benefits. There are no grumblers, no dissidents, no counterrevolutionaries. They all believe profoundly that, however bad things are now, they’re still infinitely preferable to what came before.”

“Yes, I’d say so.”

“Today I want you to get to the root of this extraordinary belief. When you’ve done that, you’ll have a completely different understanding of your revolution and of the Leaver life as well.”

“Okay. But how do I do that?”

“By listening to Mother Culture. She’s been whispering in your ear throughout your life, and what you’ve heard is no different from what your parents and grandparents heard, from what people all over the world hear daily. In other words, what I’m looking for is buried in your mind just as it’s buried in all your minds. Today I want you to unearth it. Mother Culture has taught you to have a horror of the life you put behind you with your revolution, and I want you to trace this horror to its roots.”

“Okay,” I said. “It’s true that we have something amounting to a horror of that life, but the trouble is, this just doesn’t seem particularly mysterious to me.”

“It doesn’t? Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s a life that leads nowhere.”

“No more of these superficial answers. Dig.”

With a sigh, I scrunched down inside my blanket and proceeded to dig. “This is interesting,” I said a few minutes later. “I was sitting here thinking about the way our ancestors lived, and a very specific image popped into my head fully formed.”

Ishmael waited for me to go on.

“It has a sort of dreamlike quality to it. Or nightmarish. A man is scrabbling along a ridge at twilight. In this world it’s always twilight. The man is short, thin, dark, and naked. He’s running in a half crouch, looking for tracks. He’s hunting, and he’s desperate. Night is falling and he’s got nothing to eat.

“He’s running and running and running, as if he were on a treadmill. It is a treadmill, because tomorrow at twilight he’ll be there running still—or running again. But there’s more than hunger and desperation driving him. He’s terrified as well. Behind him on the ridge, just out of sight, his enemies are in pursuit to tear him to pieces—the lions, the wolves, the tigers. And so he has to stay on that treadmill forever, forever one step behind his prey and one step ahead of his enemies.

“The ridge, of course, represents the knife–edge of survival. The man lives on the knife–edge of survival and has to struggle perpetually to keep from falling off. Actually it’s as though the ridge and the sky are in motion instead of him. He’s running in place, trapped, going nowhere.”

“In other words, hunter–gatherers lead a very grim life.”

“Yes.”

“And why is it grim?”

“Because it’s a struggle just to stay alive.”

“But in fact it isn’t anything of the kind. I’m sure you know that, in another compartment of your mind. Hunter–gatherers no more live on the knife–edge of survival than wolves or lions or sparrows or rabbits. Man was as well adapted to life on this planet as any other species, and the idea that he lived on the knife–edge of survival is simply biological nonsense. As an omnivore, his dietary range is immense. Thousands of species will go hungry before he does. His intelligence and dexterity enable him to live comfortably in conditions that would utterly defeat any other primate.

“Far from scrabbling endlessly and desperately for food, hunter–gatherers are among the best–fed people on earth, and they manage this with only two or three hours a day of what you would call work—which makes them among the most leisured people on earth as well. In his book on stone age economics, Marshall Sahlins described them as ‘the original affluent society.’ And incidentally, predation of man is practically nonexistent. He’s simply not the first choice on any predator’s menu. So you see that your wonderfully horrific vision of your ancestors’ life is just another bit of Mother Culture’s nonsense. If you like, you can confirm all this for yourself in an afternoon at the library.”

“Okay,” I said. “So?”

“So now that you know that it’s nonsense, do you feel differently about that life? Does it seem less repulsive to you?”

“Less repulsive maybe. But still repulsive.”

“Consider this. Let’s suppose you’re one of this nation’s homeless. Out of work, no skills, a wife the same, two kids. Nowhere to turn, no hope, no future. But I can give you a box with a button on it. Press the button and you’ll all be whisked instantly back to prerevolutionary times. You’ll all be able to speak the language, you’ll all have the skills everyone had then. You’ll never again have to worry about taking care of yourself and your family. You’ll have it made, you’ll be a part of that original affluent society.”