![]() ![]() ![]() For they think of themselves as destined to rule the world, and “knowledge of good and evil is fundamentally the knowledge the rulers of the world must exercise, because every single thing they do is good for some but evil for others.” (9, 7)Īccording to Ishmael, the mystery is solved by noting that Genesis reflects a narrative of the Semites, a Leaver people, who experienced the expansion of the Taker culture as Cain slaughtering his brother Abel. ![]() (He tasted anyway.) The ban constitutes a mystery for Takers. The gods realized that “of all the trees in the garden, only the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could destroy Adam.” (9, 6) And so they forbid Adam to taste the fruit of that tree. The Takers reject the notion that man is part of a balanced, competitive and evolving natural system but this rejection places humanity on a trajectory ultimately leading to self-destruction. Ishmael-the gorilla-characterizes the early agricultural revolution as the takeoff of the nowadays-dominant “Takers’” culture, a culture that does not only reject the hunter-gatherer and herder life of “Leaver” tribes but also finds it acceptable to eradicate the latter. In Daniel Quinn’s “ Ishmael,” a gorilla offers his perspective on human civilization and the narratives surrounding it. ![]()
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