Can a Society That Has Developed Agriculture Still Be a Leaver Society - Essay Example

? Can a society that has developed agriculture still be a Leaver society, or is it doomed to be a society of Takers? Affiliation Author Note Author note with more information about affiliation, research grants, conflict of interest and how to contact Can a society that has developed agriculture still be a Leaver society, or is it doomed to be a society of Takers? The novel titled, “Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (1991),”written by Daniel Quinn, is a philosophical work, dealing with the teaching of a man on the world. The story is unfolds as a conversation between Ishmael, an enormous, telepathic Gorilla and a mysterious narrator. They indulge in a string of meetings, wherein Ishmael lends a hand to the narrator in comprehending the cultural history of humans. Ishmael holds the view that there are two breeds of human beings; the Leavers and the Takers. While the so called Takers are those who become sophisticated, by virtue of their faculty of intelligence, the Leavers are supposed to represent the category that has remained where they belong, purportedly living their lives in a way that the Takers could not. However, by virtue of embracing a new concept and living by it does not make a human a simple taker. This becomes valid when one considers every aspect that this person leaves to takes another. This is how the transition of humans from agriculture to the extreme of technology has taken place. Thus, to conclude that those who developed agriculture, eschewing their existence as hunters, are doomed to be a society of Takers is not a justifiable proposition. First consideration is the statement, “I’m going to call the people of your culture Takers and the people of all other cultures Leavers” (Quinn 21). Takers are considered as belonging to a dominant culture, which roots its belief on the premise that humans are rulers of the world, whose destiny is to nurture without check and dominate the entire world through technological innovations through their intelligence. Leavers are from the tribal culture, and live more simply, following the same crucial rules that administrate the other populations on earth. These groups can also be described both as civilized and primitives. With the help of Ishmael, the narrator deduces that Takers culture has outwitted the ecological rules that govern other life forms. In many ways Takers culture is in freefall, doomed to collapse once it has exhausted the planet of its biological and environmental resources. However, it matters that Takers have left a legacy for others to emulate and thus they are not mere takers but they have left something for others. The mysterious narrator and Ishmael engages in prolonged discussions about various myths and how both the Taker and leaver cultures evolved bent with the help of various myths. During the past, to explain the expansion of Takers culture, Leavers culture uses the myth. Commonly Leavers are the hunters or gatherers and Takers are agriculturalists. Leavers are constantly seeking to understand why Takers have turned to agriculture. In the middle of the story is human kind’s evolutionary stage as hunter, a time when they were leading life akin to that of other animals without a permanent habitat to return to, hunting down other animals, uncertain of any boundaries or land they could call theirs. For achieving the destiny of human kinds, it has to discover agriculture, which provided the Taker culture with the means of finding a permanent settlement and making the way for the development of civilization and technology. From the Ishmael it is clear that Takers see agriculture as a means to promote growth. The Takers culture finds its base on agriculture, which departs from the previous concept of humans as nomadic and binds them to a certain locality. They believe the universe is a potential source for them to tap their necessities and they disregard the fact that the resources equally belong to other creations. Thus, their selfishness stretches beyond any limit as they take it that the world is a mere “human life- support system” as if it were some kind of machinery designed for their sustenance (Quinn 35) On the other hand, leavers have never understood the mechanics of agriculture or of the advantages they can derive from it. They go on with their nomadic, “hunting-gathering life so tenaciously” (Quinn 130). “Leavers just didn’t know what they were missing. They didn’t understand the benefits of the agricultural life, and that’s why they clung to the hunting–gathering life so tenaciously” (Quinn 130). However, the very basic argument that the Takers have not lived their life, but the Leavers did, contradicts the contention that the former is mere takers. They, indeed, have sacrificed something in their pursuit to the next stage and this absolves them from being a mere doomed lot. Similarly, though Leavers are purported to act as a hunters or gatherers they also make use of the resources on earth. Thus, this behavior makes them also takers to certain extent. Besides, some people from the Leaver culture are known to have engaged in “agriculture, but they were never obsessed by the delusion that what they were doing was right” (Quinn 99). Thus, it transpires that when humans take the resources for basic sustenance, they still fall in the leaver category, even though they are taking something. On the other hand, the use of resources extends to purposes other than basic survival in the case of Taker culture. This depletes the valuable resources that should be shared with other beings on earth. However the Leavers engaging in taking practices only to a limited extent and they are close to nature, and thus they gather something from their nature for their survival. Humans think they are born to conquer the world and rule it and their rule, in fact, is “meant to make it a Paradise” (Quinn 47). Takers thus rule the world with their innovative ideas like discovery of how to fly, split atom and so on. But sometime they become Leavers also, perhaps revisiting their original traits and manifesting their primal instincts. They thus fail to study the universe to collect the most basic knowledge of all that is the “Knowledge of how you ought to live” (Quinn 55). Takers have the knowledge to rule the world but Leavers do not have any such faculty. Takers slowly develop and improve the technology used to grow crops and pass their knowledge on agricultural product over the centuries and from generation to generation. In another context, the Leaver cultures pass the knowledge on how to live well and the way of life of a specific culture rather than dwelling on the means of production. Taker leaves all these things. Leavers in the world have not forgotten to live but Takers have. But, again, one can raise an argument that the concept of living one’s life well tantamount to another variety of manifestation of selfishness. On the other hand, the Takers have made a lot of legacies that have benefitted others, perhaps of the Taker kind. But still, a sacrifice is a sacrifice that negates selfishness. So, the society that has invented agriculture a definitely be seen as a Leaver society despite their being a part of the Taker community. Reference List Quinn, D. (n.d.). Ishmael An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. 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