Ishmael

Ishmael asserts that 2,000 years prior, the Takers adopted a Leaver story about the origins of the Takers as their own. He calls this ironic, since the Leaver story predicts the coming of the Takers, making the Taker narrative a self-fulfilling prophecy. The narrator is confused, and Ishmael says he will tell him a story to explain.

Ishmael says there is a specific knowledge needed to rule the world, and the Takers have this knowledge, but the Leavers do not. He asks the narrator who else would have the knowledge of how to rule the world, and the narrator responds that the gods would have it. Ishmael says that the upcoming story will reveal this knowledge and how the gods discovered it.

Ishmael presents the gods debating over whether to send locusts to the savannah, as the locusts will flourish along with the birds and lizards that will eat them. However, some gods note that the locusts will eat the grasses, which will starve the deer and gazelle, which will lead to the predators, like lions and wolves, starving. They realize that no matter what they do, some animals will curse them and others will thank them, and they cannot avoid committing crimes even unintentionally. The gods decide to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, and they become confident that they can rule the world properly.

They decide to let a lion go hungry, saving a deer, but they stop the lion’s curses by telling it that they know how to rule the world, and it is the lion’s day to go hungry. The next day, they let the lion eat the deer they saved the previous day, but they stop the deer’s curses by telling it that it was the deer’s day to die. One of the gods who did not eat from the tree of knowledge notes that one action must be a crime, since they are direct opposites, but the other gods claim that they have the knowledge, now, of who should live and who should die.

Ishmael pauses to see if the narrator has any questions, and he does not. The narrator is fascinated by the story so far.

The gods discuss the creation of Adam, the first human, and they debate whether they should allow him to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever, or of the Tree of Knowledge, even though the Tree of Knowledge cannot give him the knowledge of the gods. They agree that if Adam and humanity thought they had the knowledge of good and evil, humanity would decide to kill off the other animals and take control of the world, expanding without limit. The delusion that humanity possesses the knowledge of the gods would convince them that such a path was good, and it would lead to the destruction of the world, the universe, and humanity itself. In Adam’s mind, war and destruction would become good so long as they enabled some groups to grow without limit, and those groups would then continue to destroy the world. The gods decide to let Adam eat from anything he wants in the world, except the Tree of Knowledge.

The narrator searches through some books, and he claims that he cannot find any scholarship on why, in the Christian Bible, the Abrahamic God refused to let Adam eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Ishmael says that this story is an impenetrable mystery to Taker culture because they need the knowledge of good and evil to rule. The disaster of Taker culture is the result of the decision, 10,000 years prior, that the Takers had this knowledge, even though they did not.

Ishmael explains that the story does not explain the knowledge of good and evil, and even forbids humanity from it, because it is a story from Leaver culture. Had the Takers written the story, the gods would have given this knowledge to—or perhaps forced this knowledge on—humanity, therein justifying the Takers’ assertion of dominance. He goes on to show how Takers cannot relinquish their current narrative without admitting defeat, whereas Leavers can take up agriculture or hunting and gathering without any loss of dignity or self-perception. The narrator agrees, noting that the Takers can only change their story by admitting that they never had the knowledge to rule the world at all.

Ishmael shows the narrator a map of the development of agriculture in what is known as the Fertile Crescent, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in contemporary Iraq, in 8,000 BCE. He then shows the narrator his own map, showing the same thing but with added dots across the remainder of the land to show that Leaver cultures were still plentiful and active all around the agricultural revolution in the Fertile Crescent. However, Ishmael notes that the Hebrew people, preceded by the Semites, did not exist for another few thousand years after this point, and he brings out another map showing the region in 4,500 BCE. The land marked by agriculture expanded north, west, and east, with the Semites located to the south. The Semites were not agriculturalists, but herders, tending to grazing animals, and Ishmael indicates the biblical story of Cain and Abel, in which Cain kills his brother Abel when God prefers Abel’s gift of a lamb to Cain’s of fruits and vegetables, to show their relationship with the agriculturalists.

The narrator understands the story of Cain and Abel to be a representation of the conflict between the Takers, or agriculturalists, and the Leavers, or Semites and herders. Ishmael says that the story makes sense from the perspective of the Leavers, since it frames the agriculturalist Takers as evil and the pastoral Leavers as good. Neither of them thinks that any biblical scholars have interpreted the story this way, and the narrator adds that he sees a racial component, noting that whiteness is the mark of Cain, and white people have proven to be dangerous to Leaver cultures. Ishmael does not seem interested in this line of discussion.

Ishmael claims that the Semites, and later, the Hebrews, never acclimated to Taker culture, but no other stories from those early Leaver cultures remain. Ishmael says that, as the Semitic story of Adam, Cain, and Abel transitioned into Christianity, the Takers adopted the story as their own, even though it was a story demonizing them.

The narrator recreates what he thinks the Semites must have thought about the early Taker culture, speculating that they must have concluded that the Takers thought they had the wisdom of the gods, since they were killing everything that competed with them. The Semites, as Leavers, would have thought this was evil, so they characterize the Takers as Cain, killing off Abel, his competition. Ishmael approves of this interpretation, and the narrator is proud that he came up with it.

Ishmael clarifies that the Semites who wrote these stories did not see agriculture as a choice, but a punishment. So, they did not wonder why the agriculturalist Takers chose their culture, but instead asked what Takers had done to deserve the punishment of Taker culture.

The narrator asks why the Semites would view Cain as the firstborn, if Taker culture came after Leaver culture, represented in Abel. He also asks why the Semites would see themselves as descendants of Adam, who supposedly ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Ishmael claims that these are all metaphorical links, with Adam generically representing humanity, and Cain fulfilling a trope of the unworthy firstborn son. What matters, Ishmael asserts, is that the Semites viewed a distinction between themselves and the Takers.

The narrator asks how Eve, the first woman in the Garden of Eden story, fits into Ishmael’s understanding of this relationship between Leavers and Takers. Ishmael reduces Eve’s name, meaning “life,” and her sex to indicate that she merely represented the promise of unbridled population growth. In Ishmael’s view, Adam accepts the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge from Eve as a way of choosing to have children without limit. In this sense, the knowledge of who should live or die is expanded to also mean who should be born at all, and the Taker mentality is that Takers should have as many children as they want, since they can simply expand their food production to accommodate.

The narrator feels that something else does not fit in the connection Ishmael makes between the Bible and the agricultural revolution, but he cannot articulate his question. Ishmael tells him that the story is not a perfect analogy, as the Semites did not know that the agricultural revolution was happening all over the world, nor did they know that many Leaver cultures retained the lifestyles they practiced prior to the revolution.

Ishmael acknowledges that the story of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel is well-known across Taker culture, even in countries where Christianity is not common or popular. He asks the narrator what the normal interpretation of Adam’s story is, but the narrator claims he has never heard an explanation that made sense before. The narrator claims that some people see eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as a mere test of obedience or as a loss of innocence, but neither explanation makes sense to him. Ishmael says that he, too, does not understand the Takers’ explanations of the story, and he reasserts that it is about disobeying the law of competition. The narrator agrees, claiming resolutely that the law of competition is what the story addresses.

The narrator gets an unexpected visit from an uncle, who stays with him for two and half days. Once the narrator drops his uncle off at the airport, he gets a call from a client demanding his work be completed immediately, so the narrator goes home and works on the assignment. The next day, he goes to the dentist and has a tooth pulled, which leads him to spend the remainder of the day taking painkillers and drinking. The day after that, he continues to work on the client’s project, and finally, he returns to Ishmael’s office the following day. However, there is a maintenance person cleaning the office, and he tells the narrator that the previous tenant was evicted because she was not paying rent. The narrator wonders who “she” is and asks to see inside the office, but the maintenance person locks the door and tells him to speak with management.

The receptionist for the building refuses to let the narrator inside the office, even when the narrator reveals that a gorilla lived in it. He asks if Rachel Sokolow was the name on the previous lease, but the receptionist refuses to give him any information.

The narrator looks up a Grace Sokolow in the phone book and then travels to her address, hoping to find the gazebo Ishmael mentioned. The gazebo is there, and the mansion is impressive. Knocking on the door, the narrator is greeted by Partridge, a man who works for the Sokolows, and Partridge informs the narrator that Rachel Sokolow died three months prior. He does not know where Ishmael is, though he is familiar with Ishmael’s abilities. Partridge assumes that someone must have helped Ishmael move out of the office, but he has no information to help the narrator search for him.

The narrator puts an ad in the newspaper looking for anyone who might know Ishmael, since that is how he found Ishmael to begin with. The ad yields no results, so the narrator calls the city to find if there had been any traveling carnivals. One called the Daryl Hicks Carnival passed through town, and the narrator manages to track it down to a new location two hours north. Traveling to the carnival, the narrator comments on how all carnivals are the same, and he makes it clear that he does not like them.

He finds Ishmael, now called Gargantua, in a cage, but Ishmael ignores him. The narrator expresses his desire to get Ishmael out. Finally, Ishmael acknowledges him, but he says that he does not want to live on the narrator’s money. He would prefer to live at the carnival, and he refuses to discuss the situation further. The narrator asks if this means that he is another failed pupil, and Ishmael says they can continue their lessons as usual. However, the narrator does not see how they can continue under these conditions, and when people start to notice the narrator talking to Ishmael, Ishmael removes himself to the back of his cage.

The narrator returns to the carnival that night, and he bribes one of the workers to let him stay with Ishmael for a while. Ishmael asks where they left off, and the narrator says they last covered the stories of Adam and Abel as allegories for the agricultural revolution. Ishmael asks what to cover next, and the narrator says he needs Ishmael to piece all the information they have discussed into a broader point. Ishmael agrees and asks for a moment to think.

Ishmael asks the narrator to define culture on his own, not using the definition they agreed on earlier. The narrator says that culture is an accumulation of ideas passed on from one generation to the next, each with the added information of the previous generation. Ishmael tracks this accumulation back to the earliest human ancestors, Homo habilis, through to the present, and the narrator asserts that this culture is only transferred through the Leavers’ story. Ishmael asks why the Takers have not inherited this culture, and the narrator says that the Takers’ culture disregards the past. Beginning with the agricultural revolution, Takers chose to ignore the past prior to agriculture to build something new. Ishmael agrees, and he calls the Takers “cultural amnesiacs,” meaning they have forgotten their earlier cultures. The result is that Takers often value or even worship ancient things, people, and ideas, but they do not adopt ancient practices into their daily lives. Instead, they feel the need to constantly be renewed as a new generation distinct from the one that came before them.

Ishmael asks the narrator how Leavers transfer culture, since it seems to him that methods of production make up very little of their culture. The narrator responds that most of their culture must be about how to live well, and Ishmael asks if their culture is how they should live, or how all people should live. The narrator says that different groups of Leavers only feel that their culture is right for them, while the other Leaver groups have their own cultures. The narrator claims that for Takers, though, culture is only about how to make more and better things through production, with no lessons about how to live well. The narrator then claims that the ways his grandparents and parents lived were “useless,” and future generations will probably say that the way he lives is also “useless.”

The narrator says that he is on the cusp of a thought, and he asks for a minute to formulate it. He says that earlier, they talked about finding knowledge on the correct way to live, and the Takers are looking for one, specific way to live well. However, the Leavers each have different ways of living well. While the Takers started making laws declaring the best way to live, the narrator claims that the Leavers simply continued living as they had been for generations. The Takers had forgotten the rules of living, so they needed to make laws that represent a singular, correct way to live. He compares this thought to the modern day, noting how people argue for laws regarding reproductive rights and drug use, more because they believe these laws establish a correct way to live than because they have any knowledge of that manner of living.

The narrator calls the Leavers’ method of developing laws a kind of evolution, and Ishmael clarifies that the laws of Leavers are developed over generations because they are tested by time. He says, like the narrator claims, that Takers’ laws are developed through speculation about how they might improve life. He notes that the Leavers have wisdom, or knowledge of how to live well, and each time a Leaver culture is destroyed, their wisdom is destroyed, as well. In the same way, whenever a species goes extinct, it removes their unique set of adaptations to life from the world. They both agree that this removal of wisdom and adaptations is “ugly.”

Ishmael sends the narrator home, saying that he is tired and cold.