Saturday, November 14, 2009

"TEACHER seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person."





"Yesterday you told me you have the impression of being a captive. You have this impression because there is enormous pressure on you to take a place in the story your culture is enacting in the world--any place at all. This pressure is exerted in all sorts of ways , on all sorts of levels, but it's exerted most basically this way: Those who refuse to take a place do not get fed(36)."
"They've been told an explaining story. They've been given an explanation of how things came to be this way, and this stills their alarm. This explanation covers everything, including the deterioration of the ozone layer, the pollution of the oceans, the destruction of the rain forests, and even human extinction--and it satisfies them. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it pacifies them. They put their shoulders to the wheel during the day, stupefy themselves with drugs or television at night, and try not to think too searchingly about the world they're leaving their children to cope with(44-45)."
"So now we have a clearer idea what this story is all about: The world was made for man, and man was made to rule it(74)."
"I'm saying that the 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 cast mankind as the enemy of the world(77)."
"Yes. I no longer think of what we're doing as a blunder . We're not destroying the world because we're clumsy. We're destroying the world because we are, in a very literal and deliberate way, at war with it(132)."
"Giving it up would mean . . . It would mean that all along they'd been wrong. It would mean that they'd never known how to rule the world. It would mean . . . relinquishing their pretensions to godhood(170)."
~Ishmael Daniel Quinn Bantam/Turner: 1992

3 comments:

  1. in sync: i've been thinking over the concept of The Wilderness... desolation vs isolation, getting lost vs finding yourself... the man-in-the-woods, the hermit... the temple prostitute found the wild man in the the woods and upgraded his consciousness with a good roll in the hay

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  2. I have a feeling the intention with the word "man" encompasses both sexes. Of course our civilization is totally patriarchal and has been since the agricultural revolution and so likely you are on to something Nexus.
    -I guess I've been think about this too.
    If wife is property, then man running the world will take his needs from his wife (and likely destroy her in the process--much like our species is destroying the earth).
    I don't know if this is true, but I heard that Adam = man; Eve = life.
    The emperor hangs on the tree of life, but does not own said tree. The tree supports him, and he is roundly mistaken if he thinks he can control it.

    -I've been have similar thoughts as you toure. The prostitute sounds right and to what does she give birth?

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  3. Ishmael was a life changing book for me, I love Daniel Quinn, thanks for sharing! Beyond Civilization is an awsome read as well, very timely, love the morpheus tie in. Peace in! Nature is indeed an androgynous Organism whos opposites only create eachother as a simultanius unity, I enjoy the Kabbalistic idea that man is peace woman is war, saying that Man alone cannot be the creative force until united with its opposite feminine, we cancel eachothers power out until were one, Nature tends to operate on a similiar function, as Neo walks into the Mirror/Wilderness. Peace in! Namaste

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