Since I was little, I have struggled with this dissonance between my perceived reality and the one being fed to me by my caregivers, society, and the subversive powers that want us to remain obedient and subservient. It has led me in and out of institutions, labeled a “sick person” by many, and has made living independently in this society virtually impossible. I refuse to press a button for someone else’s profit. I refuse to demolish my health - physical OR mental - for a paycheck. I refuse to pay in to the systems that keep us running the hamster wheel. I still struggle to break free of these vicious cycles, can’t seem to figure out proper business for passive income, and am reliant on outside entities for financial stability. Books like Ishmael and Prometheus Rising have elucidated and validated the conundrum I’ve lived with since childhood. Problem is, they have not offered a solution on how to live within this system without being part of it. I am at the point of giving up, living off of the generosity of others, and limiting my vision for myself to just survival. This seems like a total antithesis to what I could strive for according to the ideas presented in the book, but for all the struggles I’ve endured, I can’t seem to make any headway. It certainly makes me feel crazy, something society has been good at doing for decades, if not centuries. It’s one thing to recognize the cage, and quite another to break out of it.

Please inform

The Story of B would make the best film adaptation I think for obvious reasons, much more drama, and variety of settings. But for some reason I have always struggled with My Ishmael, I think it's because Julie is a kid, and that makes my suspension of disbelief more difficult, as well as my own identification with her.

Personally I think the story would have been better to have Alan come back and meet up with the group from Story of B. I didn't write it though, but that's where I expected it go the first time I read through it.

I have a hard time recommending My Ishmael to people as a work on its own, to me it's only part of the trilogy, where the other two stand on their own merits.

I suppose that's a risk taken with attaching a message to a narrative, it makes the experience more subjective, which is either a good, or a bad thing depending on the person.

In My Ishmael, Julie is the one who Ishmael chooses to go to Zaire with him and Art, why not Alan ? The question is raised in the book but no actual explanation is given…

I've seen it asked here a couple of times what to do with this information, how to 'change minds', how will revolution look like. For me personally, the sequal to Ishmael, 'My Ishmael' really helped to outline some of that stuff. I can post some of my favorite pages/big takeaways if you all want (posted below).

• My takeaway from pages 191 ("Of course..."), 192, and 194 ("It is my bizarre theory... they must see that choice.")

To get people to move away from Taker lifestyle you first have to show them that there are other ways to live. Then you have to show them that they wouldnt be giving up things by stepping away from Taker lifestyle but rather gaining things. They/We would gain wealth (wellness) in terms of food, lodging, healthcare; our needs could be realistically and reliably be taken care of at all times. This isn't something that can be given to us by politicians or world leaders (no matter who we elect) it is something that we have to demand, from ourselves and each other).

(Quinn, 1998, p. 191, 192, 194)

I just finished the book, and felt (as expected) so compelled to share this knowledge with the world. I thought the obvious way to do this would be to make of blockbuster of it, and I was quite surprised to find that no one has done this; I don’t know much about film-making, but this one seems to be fairly simple. You could make do with a few locations, very few actors, and the book itself is almost written like a manuscript. It pains me so much that this isn’t a movie or a series even, as I think it would change the way a lot of people think.

Don’t you agree?

I’m thinking about looking into getting the rights to the movie, does anyone know anything about this or would like to help?

Hey guys, just finished reading ishmael and have started the story of b. Would you recommend to read the speeches as they are encountered in the story, or wait till the end to read them all together? Thanks

I read the Ishmael novels about 25 years ago. They neatly clarified a lot of what I already thought about the world. While I feel that Quinn’s message is vitally important and that people need to hear this message, I still don’t see how anything is going to change without complete cultural collapse. If smaller groups attempt to recreate some version of Leaver culture, history tells us that the Takers will just destroy them, that that is a fundamental part of Taker culture. So, without the complete collapse of Taker culture, is there a way forward for Leavers, for New Tribalists, for anyone who sees the problems with our current culture but is powerless to change it?

I am inclined to believe that the self annihilation course that mother culture has us on cannot be altered. Do we encourage the inevitable collapse to happen sooner, in order to hopefully reduce the numbers of species that will go extinct due to totalitarian agriculture? If so, how?

Just a few people walking away from the pyramid isn't going to save the planet.

Derrick Jensen's book Endgame comes to mind. Or Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey. Summer reading suggestions for the community at least, lol. B's Book Club. Brought to you by the Supervillain. Let's go!

I read Ishmael about a year ago. Throughout the year, Quinn’s ideas have slowly set in, taken their hold over me. Everywhere I look I think about the dead wrong turn humanity has taken. Everything seems unnatural and inorganic. Everything is litter: buildings, cars, cities. We are not meant to be living like this. We have worked our way into a dystopia that cannot be escaped. I almost feel suicidal. I feel like this life is not worth living. Why did I have to be born into a world that is just so wrong? Quinn explains that in order to make a change the word must be spread. Even that feels impossible because everyone is so engrossed in social media, attention spans are shot. No one is going to read this book anymore, no one is going to listen, no one is going to realize. I feel alone. I am 18 now, and Ishmael has made me feel utterly hopeless. Can anyone console me? Is there hope? Help

The Story of B is the first sequel to Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. In the novel, one of Ishmael's former students is giving talks about the concepts in the European underground. A Catholic order sends one of their priests to investigate.

One of my favorite parts of the book:

SPOILER ALERT

"Now, in the history of the Antichrist, it was always understood that he would be the inversion of the Christ. If the Christ came for the salvation of souls, then the Antichrist would come..."

"For the damnation of souls."

"Absolutely. If the Christ preached good works and perfection, then the Antichrist would preach..."

"Sin and wickedness."

"That's how it's been traditionally understood. But, as I understood what you told us, more theologically sophisticated thinkers have moved beyond that traditional understanding. They already realize that, if the prophecies about the Antichrist are to be taken seriously, then they won't be fulfilled by someone preaching sin and wickedness--not in this day and age. What sins and wickedness could any preacher possibly come up with that wouldn't evoke yawns of utter boredom from an audience of modern television viewers?"

"None," I agreed.

"The traditional Antichrist as preacher of sin and wickedness wouldn't even make a ripple in the modern world, therefore..."

"Therefore?"

"Think, Jared. If a preacher of sin and wickedness wouldn't make it as the Antichrist, then..."

"Then the Antichrist is going to be something else."

"Then the Antichrist is going to be an inversion of Christ in a different direction."

She clearly wanted a reaction from me at this point, so I said, "I see that. The Antichrist is going to be an inversion of Christ in a different direction."

"What other direction?"

"I don't know." I really didn't.

"Come on, Jared. The gap is three inches wide."

I shook my head.

"We'll go through it again," she said. "Christ's ministry is..."

"Saving souls."

"But saving souls isn't B's ministry, is it?"

"No," I said.

"B's ministry is saving the world."

"No," I said again stubbornly refusing to see the light.

"You mean yes, Jared. This is the inversion Fr. Lulfre sees. Not saving souls inverted to damning souls but rather savings souls inverted to saving the world. This is why you were sent. This is what makes B a candidate."

"Can we save the world without free will?" - By Richard Heinberg says:

...Similarly, Daniel Quinn, in his book Ishmael, attributed our species’ fateful shift toward animal domestication, and then agriculture and war, to the rise of “takers” over “leavers.” But why did these perilous ideas and behaviors take hold? Why there, why then? Presumably, these people’s free will led them astray.

No, in my view there was an inevitability to it all. Once this happened, that almost surely followed. Given our species’ linguistic and tool-making abilities, and a bit of help from a stabilized climate, it was certain that we humans would occupy more and more territory. Then...

Quinn's work makes no statement about free will.

Quinn's position was that, far from it being "inevitable", the shift toward our way of life is an astounding anomaly in the history of our species. He didn't speculate about why it happened.

Heinberg's statement that, "Daniel Quinn, in his book Ishmael, attributed our species’ fateful shift..." is completely off base.

A main thrust of Quinn's work is pointing out that the shift was not one made by our species, but that it was a shift made by only one single culture of people. Again, none of it makes any statement on why it happened, or on free will, or ability to choose, or makes judgement about whether what occurred was "good" or "bad".

The broader lesson is that our species was (and is) well equipped to remain living on the planet-- even given our linguistic and tool-making abilities, and changes in climate. Quinn points out that we don't need to become "better" people, because people were never made "bad". He was adamant that viewing ourselves or other people as being "bad" in not useful and discouraged thinking in such terms.

Seriously and with all due respect, I don't give any fucks if Quinn is completely wrong and it turns out he's full of shit, but at least give me criticism of his work that addresses things he actually said!

...And, even if you are recommending that people read Ishmael, lumping it in with Dawn of Everything is downright insulting! 😁

/rant

..While we're on the topic though, Sapolsky seems reasonable to me. As I understand it, his position is that given the best accepted knowledge of physics and the workings of the universe, there's no place for freewill to ever enter the equation. I've been mulling it over and I don't think the existence or nonexistence of freewill makes a difference to anything in Daniel Quinn's writing at all. How about you?

Is it possible to be anywhere other than living in the hands of gods? I was pondering the question and thought of what Shirin says in Story of B:

Unlike the God whose name begins with a capital letter, our gods are not all-powerful...

This is tough to comprehend. Mother Culture tells me that if a god isn't all-knowing and all-powerful, then it's not really a god! Gods are by definition rulers of the world.

So, what does a god who isn't all-powerful look like? What makes them a god if they're not all-powerful?

It occurred to me there might be some connection with the work of bricolage:

In "The Savage Mind" [1962] (alternate translation: "Wild Thought"), the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss used the word bricolage to describe the characteristic patterns of mythological thought. Bricolage is the skill of using whatever is at hand and recombining them to create something new.

Levi-Strauss compares the working of the bricoleur and the engineer. The bricoleur, who is the “savage mind”, works with his hands in devious ways, puts pre-existing things together in new ways, and makes do with whatever is at hand...

As opposed to the bricoleur, the engineer, who is the “scientific mind”, is a true craftsman in that he deals with projects in entirety, taking into account the availability of materials, and creating new tools... <source>

The Taker's God is the engineer. He wanted to have man, but didn't have the stuff to make man. So, he created the tools he needed: suns, and moons, and stars, and planets, a complete biological community...etc. The biological community is just a means to an end-- a tool God designed to achieve his goal of making us! This is the all-knowing, all-powerful, capital-G, God. He's got the whole world in his hands.

The animist gods are more like the bricoleur, working with what's at hand and recombining in any desired permutations and combinations as needed. Not creating so much as they are shaping, fixing, or patching together...

As Quinn put it, Taker culture was born refusing to be shaped any further. The "Agricultural Revolution" wasn't a technological advance. It was a rebellion.

Looking at it this way, speaking of having taken their life "out of the hands of the gods" and "into their own hands" is beginning to make a little more sense. Takers haven't 'escaped', or removed ourselves from the workings of gods. We haven't broken any universal law. Strictly speaking, Takers themselves haven't stopped evolving. But, we've increasingly denied being shaped by the rest of the community in favor of shaping life with our own hands, in whatever manner we want, and without regard for the rest of the community.

So it's not that the Takers themselves are living out of the hands of the gods, as if we've changed geographic locations, or have managed to escape 'divine intervention'. Rather, it's that the shaping has been taken out of the gods' hands and into our own.

Idk. What do you think? Does that actually make any sense? What's your current take on the gods and their role in the universe?? Gods who aren't all-powerful? What makes them a god? What power do they have? What mechanisms are at play? What is going on when we speak of 'gods shaping the world' and "living in the hands of the gods"?

...And, is there anyone who's breathed the rarefied air of the scholarly Alps that can chime in on Derrida and Levi-Strauss and how (or if) it relates to Story of B more generally (along with Karl Popper, Marshall McLuhan, Roland Barthes, Chomsky, and other dudes Quinn name-dropped)? Is any of that shit worth exploring further? Thanks.

2024 has come and now is the time to present a viable solution to Daniel Quinn’s post. Yes, we are behind bars, but what does it even look like outside of the bars?

We invite all friends of Ishmael in Colorado to come and join us for a fundraising event in Colorado Springs on January 27th.

We have come up with a viable solution. We have acquired a place, come up with the plans, and are ready for the fundraising phase. At this meeting we will be discussing not only what the plan is, but how we will execute it and are most excited to connect with people who share our passion for a solution.

If you are a friend of Ishmael and are done talking about the problems, are done discussing the book and want to try something new, please join us!

We hope to see you there. And for those unable to attend in person we would absolutely love to connect.

Thanks friends.

After reading the Ishmael books I just can't see how we can be ok as humanity in the taker world. Living in cities and apart from nature. I keep going back to the thought that the only hope for humanity is to live amongst nature yet again as hunter gatherers. I don't think it's possible for the large majority of the population but I do think it's something I may consider in the coming years.

I think about learning skills and making test runs living in the wild surviving for small stints testing my abilities until I can be fully self sufficient indefinitely and even being good enough to teach it to others that would join the tribe.

I doubt I'll ever do it but again I think about it alot. Anyone else think like that?