Washington University Cooperative

All are welcome to attend the free, public version of the Coop Focus Course, "Cooperation, Sustainability, and Spirituality," now taught at Webster University for credit, and through Cervantes Free University as a public service, Sundays 4-5pm, 6036 Pershing Avenue (across from "The Perry").

Discussion Questions for Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael:

1) If you were given the chance to leave “Taker” civilization and become a “Leaver,” would you do it? Why, or why not?

2) What does Ishmael mean when he says that "to live at the mercy of the world" is not to "be truly man"? What does it mean to be truly man? (pg 68)

3) In Ishmael's story of creation only the gods have "the knowledge of who shall live and who shall die." Is there some higher Being/s that determine/s this? Do we have the right to control this on any level as Takers? Are we in an inherently hubristic battle with the gods/God? (160)

4) Consider the narrator's philosophy paper that examined the future of
the world if the Nazis had won. Is this a plausible prediction? Would anyone eventually realize that they were being lied to? Are we being lied to right now?

5) Do you agree that we should stop feeding “Third World” peoples and let them starve, for the common good? [Should we euthanize them or send them to live on the moon? How practical or ethical would this be?]

6) Do you agree or disagree with the casual dismissal of this novel as “hippie trash” or “fascist trash” that has no place in a college course?

7) Write a critical review of the book, in the format of the New York Times or some other journal. Please feel free to write a bad review if you have a low opinion of the book.

8) Many students tell me that they take this class because they became environmentalists after having read Ishmael (usually in high school). Why do you suppose this book is so popular?

9) Some students in this class who were the most enthusiastic Daniel Quinn fans in their Freshman year characterized Daniel Quinn as a “nut” in their second year, after having studied Anthropology, Religious Studies, Environmental Studies, and Women and Gender Studies for a year. They still like the books, but they have a more critical perspective. What can you do to gain such a perspective? [Note: this class, and its sequels, are designed to help you do this!]

10) Where does Daniel Quinn get his perspective on Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, etc.? Can he support his arguments? What are his sources? [Suggestion: Read the next book on the syllabus, Rosemary Radford Ruether’s Gaia and God, and take some Religious Studies courses]

11) Daniel Quinn, in his novels, cites very few of his sources. Two exceptions are: Marshall Sahlins’ Stone Age Economics, from which he derives his characterization of gatherer/hunters as “the original affluent society,” and the work of the sociobiologist Richard Dawkins, from which he derives his concept of the “meme,” the cultural equivalent of the gene. Sahlins is famous as a critic of sociobiology, especially the “vulgar sociobiology” of Dawkins. Does Daniel Quinn’s synthesis of Sahlin’s cultural determinism and Dawkins’ biological determinism really work? [Suggestion: read Sahlin’s The Use and Abuse of Biology, or Culture and Practical Reason, and Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene]

12) Do you find Quinn’s writing style, his “diction,” effective, or not? Couldn’t he have made his points more effectively in a short essay, without the talking telepathic gorilla? [Suggestion: read Quinn’s The Story of B, and Beyond Civilization]

13) Why was a Gorilla chosen as the teacher? What is the cultural significance of the Gorilla? What does the Gorilla symbolize? [Suggestion: don’t we refer to “the 600 pound gorilla in the room?]

14) Discuss Quinn’s A’s, B’s, and C’s. Do you find this convincing? Why or why not?

15) What is Mother Culture, and today are we subjugated to it? Do we have the ability to break free of it?

16) In Ursula Kroeber LeGuin’s “Hainish Series,” of which The Dispossessed is a part, the Hainish, having tried every conceivable political system, become bored with their civilization and deliberately destroy it, after having seeded the nearby star systems with their offspring, about three million years ago. Should we destroy our own civilization, to get back to a “Leaver” lifestyle? When would be the best time to do this? Could this be done without violence, for example by an almost universally observed vow of celibacy? [Who would decide who has the right of reproduction?] Would forced sterilization (as practiced for a time in Indira Gandhi’s India) be necessary?

17) Quinn may have a good analysis of the problem, but what is his solution? [Suggestion: read his book “Beyond Civilization,” in which he prescribes a New Tribalism, not really a return to gatherer-hunter lifestyle, but instead, cooperative living and sustainable agriculture]. What is YOUR analysis of the problem, and what is YOUR solution? Do you agree with the cliches, “Think globally, act locally,” or “If you’re not part of the solution , you’re part of the problem”?

18) How is Quinn’s “New Tribalism” different from John Ikerd’s “Sustainable Capitalism” or his “Common Sense”? How is it different from “Libertarian Socialism”?

19) How do YOU answer the questions, “With gorilla gone, will there be hope for man?” and “With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?”

20) Should we Takers just leave the earth to the gorillas, dolphins, jellyfish, and the few remaining gatherer-hunter cultures, and go live in space colonies at the L5 point, made from lunar titanium? [Wouldn’t building the space stations be the easy part? Didn’t the Biosphere 2 Project have to cheat, pumping in fresh air? Do we really understand sustainable ecosystems well enough to “clone Gaia” in outer space?] [Suggestion: research the L5 Society and other space colonization advocacy groups, and read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy]

21) Can we find a sustainable Middle Way between Taker and Leaver culture? Can we live on the earth without destroying it?