“When the people of your culture encountered the hunter-gatherers of Africa and America, it was thought that these were people who had degenerated from the natural, agricultural state, people who had lost the arts they’d been born with. 201
“The Leaver life-style isn’t about hunting and gathering, it’s about letting the rest of the community live- and agriculturalists can do that as well as hunter-gathers.” 250
Finishing up Ishmael, I noticed the theme of enacting was heavily emphasized. This ties into issues of sustainability and ethics of human civility. As a philosophical text, Quinn offers a path we should take as humans. Towards the end of the book it was Ishmael’s death was quite surprising. But I think his passing, gives the narrator a final deciding factor. Without his mentor, it really is his responsibility to take Ishmael’s teachings and change the status quo’s mindset. Our story of enacting is important to know so like the narrator; we too can embrace a different, non-destructive life. Quinn contrasts these ideas to things like Christian literature. From my readings of Genesis, these Christian scholars intended for man to lead a anthropocentric existence. Animals are implied to be the man’s laborers and the land was our source of food. Quinn critiques this by saying, “The Leaver life-style isn’t about hunting and gathering, it’s about letting the rest of the community live- and agriculturalists can do that as well as hunter-gathers” (250). Ishmael suggests we have full autonomy of our lives, not the gods. I think this is something society fails to recognize sometimes. Similar to our desire for power over “inferior” beings, we also hope for some higher being to take responsibility our actions. And when a group of people or a species acts differently than this, our society responds with condemnation. Ishmael says, “When the people of your culture encountered the hunter-gatherers of Africa and America, it was thought that these were people who had degenerated from the natural, agricultural state, people who had lost the arts they’d been born with” (201).
 |
| Forever taking and taking. http://nyc.indymedia.org/images/2005/10/58495.jpg |
In every history or anthropology class I’ve taken, the early human civilization is described as one that aimed to succeed by conquering land, people, or animals. Ishmael is an insightful novel that theorizes both our history and the future in terms of adopting new waves of thinking.
 |
| Anthropolog, the study of anthropcentrism ? |
No comments:
Post a Comment