Idea of Civilization in Ishmael - Essay Example

Civilization and Ishmael In the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, the character s that “it should be d that what is crucial to your survival as a race is not the redistribution of power and wealth within the prison but rather the destruction of the prison itself” (pg. 252). What first should be noted is the idea of the “redistribution of wealth and power.” This is obviously referring to communism, but not the communism that has been enacted in Russia or China. This is referring to pure communism, where people do not consider idea of property to exist. People have attempted to enact the redistribution of wealth, and this is what takes place for the most part in communist countries. The idea is to have the government forces the citizens into the idea of having no personal property until they are used to it, then the government can dissolve. The problem that Ishmael is discussing is that people are trying to fix a system within a prison, but no matter what, being in that prison will prevent any perfection of any system. This system that is being referred to is society. What is basically being argued throughout the book is that it does not matter how hard people attempt to fix the system, it will inevitably fail because it is still within the prison. More aptly put, society is the prison and the system at the same time that we are trying to fix. There are various reasons that we will be unable to fix society. The book defines two concepts which are important to understand why society cannot be fixed. The first is Takers, which refers to people of the heritage from the agricultural revolution. The second is Leavers, which refers to people who those of other non-Taker cultures, which might be referred to as primitive. The character Ishmael states that it is because Takers view themselves as being responsible and in charge of other species. Because Takers are not perfect, omnipotent beings, there is no way for them to be able to discern what should actually be done in regards to other species. This is basically why our society will not work, and the view put forward by the book is that society will continue to be ineffective to the point that it will wipe out the Takers, the very thing that it was supposed to have been set up to save in the first place. This is ultimately what the quote means. To mention communism again, state-mandated redistribution of wealth is not going to work, according to Ishmael. It is simply an attempt to construct the system in such a way as to perfect the system, but of course as mentioned the system cannot be fixed. The eventual goal of communism can be evidenced by what our society would call primitive societies to an extent. Native American tribal societies can be viewed as being communal. Everybody was expected to put in a certain amount of effort into the tribe by hunting, fishing, caring for children, or any number of other tasks, and everybody received what they needed to survive. This was more a matter of survival as it was necessary for everybody to contribute in order for the tribes to have enough to survive in the first place. The idea that mankind is the culmination of history is incorrect is maintained throughout the book. Society attempts to remove people from natural laws and place themselves in a position of superiority. In order to survive, this tendency needs to be reversed, not achieved through any means that society has to offer. I cannot claim to agree with everything that is being said in Ishmael. First off, I agree that attempting to achieve a perfect society that would match primitive societies would be impossible. The problem is that state-mandated redistribution will not work; there are too many aspects of it which simply allows people of the Taker mentality to take advantage of it. The Taker mentality arose from agriculture; once people cultivated an area of land, that meant that they felt that it was their property. They took necessary means to protect it. Furthermore, they ended up taking from others as their population expanded and they needed more space. They ended up taking from other societies, such as the Leavers. As such, state-mandated communism is simply a system which allows for Takers to take from other people and not redistribute to other people fairly, keeping the dynamic in place. As we have learned from Russia, communism is not a system that is going to achieve the final result of some sort of utopian society. I agree that this system cannot be perfected, but I disagree on a different basis. I don’t think that society can achieve any amount of perfection, but I don’t think that it needs to achieve any this sort of perfection. We don’t necessarily need to resort to a “primitive” society in order to save mankind. What needs to be mentioned here is that no matter what, people are not going to survive. Even if we’re talking millions of years from now, the sun will extinguish, the expansion of the universe will render every planet uninhabitable , and there will be no place for humankind to live. Even if we are able to extend our life-span by reverting to more primitive societies, we are not able to permanently extend the lifespan of humanity. Nothing will save humanity in the long run. The way mankind is functioning currently is obviously detrimental to the planet, other species, and ourselves as a whole. But the thing that needs to be considered is that even if we did revert to primitive society, that would not solve all of our problems. For one thing, let’s consider the process of child-birth. Child-birth used to be a highly risky process. It is now currently rather unheard of for a woman to die in labor in modern society. The book would state that this is a bad thing and detrimental to the planet. It would argue that child-birth being risky is a process that keeps us from a population explosion; it keeps our population in check by weeding out, in evolutionary terms, the weakest of the species. It is true that the rapid expansion of population is putting a strain on the natural resources of the planet, but that doesn’t mean that that is a bad thing. Population control is an issue that needs to be dealt with, but that doesn’t mean that we should simply revert to more dangerous methods of childbirth. That on its own won’t solve the problem. We need to keep in mind that we are discussing problems that have their root in events from thousands of years ago. If we are in the hands of nature and evolution as we would be in a primitive society, what we need to keep in mind is that we might still quite easily be wiped out rather quickly. It is true that every technological advance causes more problems, but that does not mean that we can eliminate our problems by reverting to a society-less state and solve our problems. The dinosaurs were wiped out quite quickly, and their evolutionary process came to an end. This is simply the way species work. A complete process of reverting to a “primitive” society would simply place us back at the mercy of the issues that the technological advances were attempting to solve in the first place. To state it succinctly, we would simply be trading one set of problems for another, which is what we did with the technological advances in the first place. We are not going to necessarily save humankind by dissolving society. It is possible to, though not perfect society, deal with various issues to an extent to where we can deal with the problems created by various technological advances. The argument from the book would state that any technological advance that helps people to survive should be considered a bad thing, and the evidence of this is dealing with the population problem . I really can’t agree with the idea that the way to deal with the problems of society is to function without society. This idea seems short sighted as well. Would we simply dispense of our technological advances? Would we not treat diseases because we are placing ourselves in the hands of nature to determine our fates? It is true that giving antibiotics leads to the growth of resistant strains of bacteria, but that does not mean that would should not ever use antibiotics. We simply need to figure out a way to use them and not abuse them. That holds true to most any advance in society that causes more problems. One way or another we are going to be dealing with problems, and it is true we need to figure out how to not put a strain on our resources and our species, but that does not mean that the only solution is to revert to a “primitive” society. This is not necessarily the only way to keep people from killing themselves off. We might not be able to perfect society, but that does not mean we should all together eliminate society. Read More