Ishmael- by Daniel Quinn

So, I’ve been re-reading parts of Ishmael, and it’s a good philosophical kind of a book. It’s about a man a bit disillusioned with society, who answers an ad that is asking for a student, only to find the teacher is a huge gorilla. Throughout the book, the gorilla (named Ishmael) reveals flaws in the human idea that we are the superior race, that everything on earth exists for us, and anyone who gets in our way must be exterminated.

Among other things, Ishmael addresses the issue of poverty among humans, blaming what he calls ‘mother culture’ (a subliminal voice humans have grown up with, telling us we are the superior race) for brainwashing us with the false notion that it is unethical to let famine balance out the population. Ishmael’s idea is that “every increase in food production is answered by an increase in population somewhere”. Even if Nebraska is making extra food, some other third world nation eventually consumes it, and grows as a result, throwing it further in poverty. I suppose this is a stretch, but this reminded me of the butterfly effect; the idea that the butterfly flapping its wings causes a tsunami somewhere else. It was one of his ideas that I found awfully insensitive, but now I’m not sure…

Anyway, go read this book; Ishmael is a good teacher who makes his points in clear concise ways that I found fairly easy to follow compared to other philosophical things I’ve read. I thought Ishmael was on the money for a lot of things, but there are others I don’t agree with, which I find makes the book that much more interesting, hearing what a gorilla has to say about humanity. The media center now has a copy; check it out!