Ishmael

you think the gods are going to look after you. That’s okay for animals, but you should know better.”

“We should not trust the gods with our lives?”

“Definitely not. You should trust yourselves with your lives. That’s the human way to live.”

Ishmael shook his head ponderously. “This is sorry news indeed, Bwana. From time out of mind we’ve lived in the hands of the gods, and it seemed to us we lived well. We left to the gods all the labor of sowing and growing and lived a carefree life, and it seemed there was always enough in the world for us, because—behold!— we are here!”

“Yes,” I told him sternly. “You are here, and look at you. You have nothing. You’re naked and homeless. You live without security, without comfort, without opportunity.”

“And this is because we live in the hands of the gods?”

“Absolutely. In the hands of the gods you’re no more important than lions or lizards or fleas. In the hands of these gods—these gods who look after lions and lizards and fleas—you’re nothing special. You’re just another animal to be fed. Wait a second,” I said, and closed my eyes for a couple minutes. “Okay, this is important. The gods make no distinction between you and any other creature. No, that’s not quite it. Hold on.” I went back to work, then tried again. “Here it is: What the gods provide is enough for your life as animals—I grant you that. But for your life as humans, you must provide. The gods are not going to do that.”

Ishmael gave me a stunned look. “You mean there is something we need that the gods are not willing to give us, Bwana?”

“That’s the way it seems, yes. They give you what you need to live as animals but not what you need beyond that to live as humans.”

“But how can that be, Bwana? How can it be that the gods are wise enough to shape the universe and the world and the life of the world but lack the wisdom to give humans what they need to be human?”

“I don’t know how it can be, but it is. That’s the fact. Man lived in the hands of the gods for three million years and at the end of those three million years was no better off and no farther ahead than when he started.”

“Truly, Bwana, this is strange news. What kind of gods are these?”

I snorted a laugh. “These, my friend, are incompetent gods. This is why you’ve got to take your lives out of their hands entirely. You’ve got to take your lives into your own hands.”

“And how do we do that, Bwana?”

“As I say, you’ve got to begin planting your own food.”

“But how will that change anything, Bwana? Food is food, whether we plant it or the gods plant it.”

“That’s exactly the point. The gods plant only what you need. You will plant more than you need.”

“To what end, Bwana? What’s the good of having more food than we need?”

“Damn!” I shouted. “I get it!”

Ishmael smiled and said, “So what’s the good of having more food than we need?”

“That is the whole goddamned point! When you have more food than you need, then the gods have no power over you!”

“We can thumb our noses at them.”

“Exactly.”

“All the same, Bwana, what are we to do with this food if we don’t need it?”

“You save it! You save it to thwart the gods when they decide it’s your turn to go hungry. You save it so that when they send a drought, you can say, ‘Not me, goddamn it! I’m not going hungry, and there’s nothing you can do about it, because my life is in my own hands now!’ ”

5

Ishmael nodded, abandoning his hunter–gatherer role. “So your lives are now in your own hands.”

“That’s right.”

“Then what are you all so worried about?”

“What do you mean?”

“If your lives are in your own hands, then it’s entirely up to you whether you go on living or become extinct. That’s what this expression means, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But obviously there are still some things that aren’t in our hands. We wouldn’t be able to control or survive a total ecological collapse.”

“So you’re not safe yet. When will you finally be safe?”

“When we’ve taken the whole world out of the hands of the gods.”

“When the whole world is in your own, more competent, hands.”

“That’s right. Then the gods will finally have no more power over us. Then the gods will have no more power over anything. All the power will be in our hands and we’ll be free at last.”

6

“Well,” Ishmael said, “are we making progress?”

“I think so.”

“Do you think we’ve found the root of your revulsion toward the sort of life that was lived in prerevolutionary times?”

“Yes. Far and away the most futile admonition Christ ever offered was when he said, ‘Have no care for tomorrow. Don’t worry about whether you’re going to have something to eat. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, but God takes perfect care of them. Don’t you think he’ll do the same for you?’ In our culture the overwhelming answer to that question is, ‘Hell no!’ Even the most dedicated monastics saw to their sowing and reaping and gathering into barns.”

“What about Saint Francis?”

“Saint Francis relied on the bounty of farmers, not the bounty of God. Even the most fundamental of the fundamentalists plug their ears when Jesus starts talking about birds of the air and lilies of the field. They know damn well he’s just yarning, just making pretty speeches.”

“So you think this is what’s at the root of your revolution. You wanted and still want to have your lives in your own hands.”

“Yes. Absolutely. To me, living any other way is almost inconceivable. I can only think that hunter–gatherers live in a state of utter and unending anxiety over what tomorrow’s going to bring.”

“Yet they don’t. Any anthropologist will tell you that. They are far less anxiety–ridden than you are. They have no jobs to lose. No one can say to them, ‘Show me your money or you don’t get fed, don’t get clothed, don’t get sheltered.’ ”

“I believe you. Rationally speaking, I believe you. But I’m talking about my feelings, about my conditioning. My conditioning tells me—Mother Culture tells me—that living in the hands of the gods has got to be a never–ending nightmare of terror and anxiety.”

“And this is what your revolution does for you: It puts you beyond the reach of that appalling nightmare. It puts you beyond the reach of the gods.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“So. We have a new pair of names for you. The Takers are those who know good and evil, and the Leavers are… ?”