This morning’s sermon is the second in our series on finding responsible ways to live. The ideas I present this morning are a radical shift in our thinking, acting, and being that one person, Daniel Quinn, sees as the a way to preserve humanity.

 Two years ago I stumbled on the book entitled Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.  Someone had mentioned the book to me and months later I ran across it in the bookstore, so I bought it. It sat on my shelf for about a year until, looking for something different to read, I finally read it.  Since Ishmael Daniel Quinn has written three others, The Story of B, My Ishmael (a sequel to the first one) and Beyond Civilization. Mr. Quinn is becoming a public phenomenon. He has been invited to speak by groups ranging from the Minnesota Social Investment Forum, to a meeting of the group called “Technologies of Peace.”  Schools and universities coast to coast such as Stanford University and the Naval Academy are using his books and study guides.  He had been featured in several Public Broadcasting programs, a sure way to tell you are becoming an event.

 B, the main character from Quinn’s book, The Story of B, says to a new follower, “you don’t become a Christian by hearing one sermon….” [1]  So, my ambition this morning, is a humble one.  I hope to present my understanding of a couple of Daniel Quinn’s core ideas in such a way as to peek your interest. Who knows perhaps some of us will discover we want to travel the road of making his message our own?

 Ishmael, the star of Quinn’s first book, is a half-ton gorilla. Ishmael is a student of ecology, life, freedom and the human condition.  He is also a teacher. Ishmael teaches his student that human history has been written to reinforce a particular way of living.  For Ishmael, our agricultural revolution was not an event that is based on advances in technology, but a moral revolution instead.  It is a revolution in what we, a particular set of humans, considers good.  According to us, our particular form of agriculture is the best way to live.

This agriculture lifestyle, now considered the only way to live, is a rebellion against the structures inherent in nature.  Life, including human life, has a structure based on the laws of nature. These laws determine such things as who lives and who dies. Humans are subject to these laws.  But now, because of our particular form of agriculture, our culture has temporarily escaped the restraints of this natural structure. Our culture has made itself a global tyrant, wielding deadly force over all species. We lack the wisdom to make this tyranny a beneficial one or even a sustainable one. [2]  In other words, now that we can grow and store food we have the power of the natural laws to say who lives and who dies, and we haven’t the knowledge to do that without destroying ourselves in the process.

We certainly have heard the bad news clearly enough. We can all recite the problems that exist.  Even children in our kindergarten classes can tell you that humans are destroying the planet.  Perhaps the most hopeful part of the picture presented in Quinn’s books is the very radical idea that we took a wrong turn at agriculture. Humans are not inherently a menace on the planet, teaches Ishmael. [3] Rather, it is our totalitarian agriculture that has caused our steady decline toward catastrophe. [4] As our reading this morning says, that’s the good news, because the way out of our current mess doesn’t involve creating an entirely new kind of human, just new cultures, new ways of being and living, that take us beyond civilization.

 Not all humans, but the ones that adopted the agricultural culture Quinn calls totalitarian, stepped out of a given structure of life, the structure of “limited competition.” The law of limited competition states that “You may complete to the full extend of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food.” [5] With agriculture we began not only to produce our own food, but also to destroy our competitors for that food. Ask any farmer who has found a fox in the chicken coop what he does with his competitors.  This destroying of our competitors and their food supply is not done by any other life form on the planet.  This phenomenon is rooted in the now common understood, but clearly flawed idea, that man was made to conquer and rule the earth.

 In Ishmael, Quinn defines two groups, the Leavers and the Takers. “Leavers, by following the law [of limited competition], leave the rule of the world in the hands of the gods [what we might call nature], whereas the Takers, by rejecting the [natural] law, take the rule of the world into their own hands.” [6]

 Now at this point you might find yourself saying – “O.K. Quinn, are we all supposed to go back to being hunters and gatherers?”  I don’t think so!  Somehow I can’t imagine too many of us going out to the conservation land and trying our hands at hunting squirrels and surviving by eating pine cones. But I would encourage you to suspend those thoughts of doubt and follow along with these ideas. They are foreign and different, but I think they offer some seeds of the answers we need to achieve sustainable living on this planet.

 After moving toward totalitarian agriculture, the next big mistake our civilization made was promoting that totalitarian agriculture as the one right way to live. As our reading suggested this morning, there is no one right way to do anything.  The same is true of culture. While Quinn will certainly hold the pre-agricultural tribal-style life up as one possibility, he never takes the stance that it is the only possibility.  In fact, he believes that we will move beyond it, but the successes of tribal cultures are a place to start.

 Certainly, the way things are now people are not getting what they need. Many people, probably some in this room, feel tied to dead end jobs with no security and no enjoyment.  There is very little economic security for anyone.  There is certainly little economic equality. The young, in particular, have lost a sense of hope and a feeling of cynicism rules many of their lives. This culture is not sustainable.  We need hope for the future. We need freedom to begin to live a different way.

 One of my favorite images in Quinn’s work is that of the river.  Our culture is a river that is heading in a disastrous direction.  Creating programs like the war on poverty and the war on drugs are like sticks put in a river. The sticks only impeded the flow of the river, they don’t change its course.  As Daniel Quinn states in Beyond Civilization, “We need to divert [the river] into an entirely new channel.  If our culture’s river of vision ever begins to carry us away from catastrophe and into a sustainable future, then programs will be superfluous.” [7] We need a new river, a new way of thinking and being.

 We need to abandon the notion that there is one right way to live and that we have it.  We need to abandon the idea that our civilization must continue at all costs.  This is not easy or even comfortable.  “Mother Culture,” as Quinn calls the messages we all carry, is very powerful. She wants to survive and will do all she can to maintain the status quo. We need to challenge mother culture’s resistance and shift from what Quinn calls “old minds to new minds”

 Old minds, I actually prefer the phrase “current mindsets,” think, “how do we stop these bad things from happening?” New mindsets think, “How do we make things the way we want them to be?” The current mindset is, “If it didn’t work last year let’s do MORE of it this year?” New mindsets think, “If it didn’t work last year lets do something ELSE this year.” [8]  We need to get out of the ruts we are in and be willing to think in new and innovative ways.

 At this point in the sermon if you are not completely hungry for some solid “how do we do this already?” answers, than you are much more patient then me.  I want this guy to give me answers of how this can be done and now. But of course, like Uru in the story this morning, Quinn doesn’t give us the answers. Our culture didn’t get into this mess over night and the change won’t come overnight or from one person.

We all assume that our descendants will generally be like us. Sure their gadgets and music and fashions will be different, but we are certain their mindset will be pretty much like ours because we can’t imagine a different one.  Quinn uses the example that the people of the Middle Ages didn’t know they were in the middle of anything and they certainly couldn’t imagine the Renaissance.  So too, we can’t imagine what will come next.

 In Beyond Civilization, Quinn spends a great deal of time talking about cultural memes. A meme is a piece of culture like a gene is a piece of the body. [9]  A meme carries bits of information about culture that we pass on from generation to generation.  Memes are the building blocks of culture. Thus, it is with the memes, that we can begin to make the changes necessary to change the culture. One such meme is: Ours is the one right way for people to live and everyone should live like us.  It is with this meme that the Old World conquered the New World.  The native peoples were wasting the land.  They were not using it our way. The land needed to be put to use, our God’s intended use. The land needed to be farmed and farmed by us. [10]

 Among the convincing points that Quinn discusses is the disappearance of great cultures.  He posits that several ancient civilizations, like the Mayans, for instance, had discovered the error of their culture and walked away. Quinn points out that no one satisfactory explanation for why the Mayan culture ended has been given.  Most such civilizations were gone when the New World explorers arrived.  The lack of satisfactory explanation, says Quinn, is because we are unwilling to accept the fact that these people just walked away from their culture.  We have a very powerful meme that states that our culture must go on at any cost.  They lacked this meme and simply walked back into the forest.  We posses the meme so not only can’t we imagine walking away ourselves, but we can’t fathom why others would.

 But walk away is what Quinn is suggesting we do.  Not all of us. Not all at once. And not back into the forest. But to a kind of tribal life style that will allow us to live as successfully as the other creatures on the planet. We need to create the cultural space to allow for these new ways to be created and tried.  We can’t simply give up the way we are living now without having a place to go. Our current script, “Man was created to rule the planet,” isn’t going to allow us to survive. We need a new story, a new set of memes, a new culture in which to live. Quinn offers the tribal way of life as a place to start.  He calls this the New Tribal Revolution. He believes that this tribal way will undoubtedly be surpassed by something better, but for now it is the best alternative we have.

 Quinn uses the example of homelessness to make this point clearer.  Homelessness is a part of our current culture.  We try to eliminate it with programs and more programs. While it pretty clear in fact that nothing we have done has eliminated homelessness.  Quinn suggests that we deal with homelessness by acknowledging it and drawing it in instead of fighting it. Where do we want to be with the homeless?  We want people to live in a safe place and contribute to society.  How can that be done?  What would it look like to help the homeless succeed at being homeless?  What if we didn’t try to drive them into places we find suitable but instead helped them to live in places they find suitable.

Quinn offers the analogy of homelessness to earthquakes. It does no good to build a strong rigid house against an earthquake – it will simply crumble. What we do is build homes that flex with the shifting of the earth.  We need to flex with the homeless, organize systems to provide food, a living and sanitation where they want it and how they want it. Quinn’s Tribal revolution would create a tribe of the homeless, acceding to it and allowing it to serve as an example of how to live beyond our civilization. This tribal way of life is not the answer forever, but it would allow some of us to move beyond the memes and perhaps get beyond civilization. [11]

 So where does all this leave us? We are anxious for change.  We want civilization to survive. We want humanity to continue. Quinn would say we can’t necessarily have both – our current culture and human survival. But he readily admits that’s just the view from where he sits.  Who knows what the river to sustainability will look like?

Two somewhat concrete places to start: First, we should behave in ways Quinn likens to being handed a lined piece of paper and then writing across the lines instead of within the lines. [12] When we are handed lined paper we need to turn it sideways.  For instance, there is a set way to write about being in favor of capital punishment and a set way to write about being opposed to capitol punishment.  Quinn suggests writing across the lines. Then one might say, “Punishment has no value for me, and deterrence can never be demonstrated in any definitive way. So where do we go from here?”  [13]

Second, we can’t wait for others to act.  Some people would say we have to wait till war is eliminated, we have to wait till there are laws to support our way of thinking, and we have to wait till…… you fill in the blank. Quinn says. “People who think like this would wait for the cut to heal before applying a bandage.” [14] We need to start thinking, working, and living, now, today, the way we want. We can take the words that Ken gave us last week,  “We want a simpler life.  We want a life that is sustainable.” And we can begin to think beyond the lines we now know.  What would it take?

For me it will take concentrated study and effort, but the rewards will be great.  Our species will survive. I would offer that studying Quinn’s ideas, while concentrating on how I would like my life to be, might be an effective step.  On April 2, after this series of sermons, there will be a social action forum to discuss next steps to a simpler more sustainable life.  For my part, I would like to offer a study group to look at Quinn’s ideas - not a group where I know the answers, but instead where I am an equal searcher on the path toward sustainability.  Lets start Thursday April 6 at 7:30 by reading and discussing the first chapter of Daniel Quinn’s first book, Ishmael.  I put a sign up sheet on the table in the Vestry.

Let us begin on the road to sustainability.

Let us promote a life that flexes with the laws of nature.

Let us examine our own lives for possibilities.

Let us believe there are other ways to live.

Let us have the courage to allow the new ways to emerge.

References
1   Quinn, Daniel. The Story of B p. 72
2   http:/www.ishmael.org/origins/Ishmael/
3   Ishmael p. 82-84
4   Ibid. p. 128-135
5   The Story of B p. 252
6   Ibid. p. 253
7   Beyond Civilization p. 8
8   Ibid. p. 7-9
9   Ibid. p. 21
10 Ibid. p.50
11 Ibid. 121-136
12 Address by Daniel Quinn to the Student Pugwash “Technologies of Peace” conference, Carnegie Mellon University, 1997
13 Ibid. p. 2
14 Beyond Civilization p. 99
 
 
 
 

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