There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will ACT like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.
Daniel Quinn
The story the Leavers have been enacting for the past three million years isnt a story of conquest and rule. Enacting it doesnt give them power. Enacting it gives them lives that are satisfying and meaningful to them. This is what youll find if you go among them. Theyre not seething with discontent and rebellion, not incessantly wrangling over what should be allowed and what forbidden, not forever accusing each other of not living the right way, not living in terror of each other not going crazy because their lives seem empty and pointless, not having to stupefy themselves with drugs to get through the days, not having a new religion every week to give them something to hold on to, not forever searching for something to do or something to believe in that will make lives worth living. And I repeat this is not because they live close to nature or have no formal government or because theyre innately noble. This is simply because theyre enacting a story that works well for people a story that worked well for three million years and that still works well where the Takers havent yet managed to stamp it out.
worth philosophy people government power nature days live religion depression past meaning drugs meaningful living story terror lives searching works crazy find noble forever forbidden empty rebellion anthropology close rule discontent conquest give
To you, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism look very different, but to me they look the same. Many of you would say that something like Buddhism doesn't even belong on the list, since it doesn't link salvation to divine worship, but to me this is just a quibble. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism all perceive human beings as flawed, wounded creatures in need of salvation, and all rely fundamentally on revelations that spell out how salvation is to be attained, either by departing from this life or rising above it.
culture philosophy life christianity religion human judaism islam buddhism divine hinduism salvation worship creatures rising
But we're not humanity, we're just one culture - one culture out of hundreds of thousands that have lived their vision on this planet and sung their song. If it were humanity that needed changing, then we'd be out of luck. But it isn't humanity that needs changing, it's just.. Us.
vision culture philosophy luck religion humanity song changing planet
philosophy exploitation civilization
Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere in the universe that creation came to an end with the birth of man? Do you see the slightest evidence anywhere out there that man was the climax toward which creation had been straining from the beginning?.. Very far from it. The universe went on as before, the planet went on as before. Man's appearance caused no more stir than the appearance of jellyfish.
philosophy evolution
The premise of the Taker story is 'the world belongs to man'. The premise of the Leaver story is 'man belongs to the world'.
philosophy civilization
[A]ny species that exempts itself from the rules of competition ends up destroying the community in order to support its own expansion.
philosophy exploitation ecology
The mythology of your culture hums in your ears so constantly that no one pays the slightest bit of attention to it. Of course man is conquering space and the atom and the deserts and the oceans and the elements. According to your mythology, this is what he was BORN to do.
[T]he price you've paid is not the price of becoming human. It's not even the price of having the things you just mentioned. It's the price of enacting a story that casts mankind as the enemy of the world.
[Y]our agricultural revolution is not an event like the Trojan War, isolated in the distant past and without 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.
philosophy civilization agriculture
No one species shall make the life of the world its own.' That's one expression of the law. Here's another: 'The world was not made for any one species.
philosophy civilization ecology
This law defines the limits of competition in the community of life. You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war.
philosophy exploitation civilization ecology
[N]ow we have a clearer idea what this story is all about: The world was made for man, and man was made to rule it.
If the world was made for us, then it BELONGS to us and we can do what we damn well please with it.
This is precisely how someone speaks who imagines that he is the world's divinely appointed ruler: 'I will not LET them starve. I will not LET the drought come. I will not LET the river flood.
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