A Student With No Master
by Jason GodeskyIn my youth, I was a devout disciple of the Roman Catholic Church. As a teenager, I was a disciple of Daniel Quinn. I still have much to learn–I am still a student–but now, for the first time in my life, I have no master.
Though I have long held doubts about some of Quinn’s details, it is only recently that I have lost faith in the core tenets of that belief. For Quinn, everything turns on the idea of “changing minds.” Culture, Quinn says, is a story we enact–change the story, and our actions will follow. To curb the destructive force of civilization, we need only undermine the foundational memes of the Taker mythology.
Occupational tribes are pivotal in this. They do not abandon civilization, but instead serve as a powerful counter-proof against the Taker memeplex. They undo our mythology and reveal it to be lies, coercion and manipulation. Once we see ourselves and how we relate to the world differently, we will change the way we live.
It is, of course, a very old debate in the social sciences. The prevailing attitude in anthropology now–and my own opinion on the matter–is the brand of materialism championed by the late, great Marvin Harris. People are animals like any other–we do what we have to, to get by. The human powers of rationalization are incredible; no matter our mindset, we will either twist it or change it entirely in order to live comfortably with ourselves without having to change our day-to-day existence. Inertia applies as much to attitudes and routines as physical objects. Since the publication of Ishmael, Daniel Quinn’s own followers have borne this out: rationalizing away the hypocricy of our beliefs, some even manage to fancy themselves “Leavers” while failing to change a single aspect of their lives.
It is only the nigh-superhuman few who can bear the cognitive dissonance to overcome inertia and change their lives. If they are successful, they might even convince others to change their lives. Then, those who follow will change their worldview to mesh with their new reality–but their new, healthy memeplex will follow from a new, healthy culture, not vice versa.
Even if “changing minds” did result in a changed society, the timeline requires nothing short of the miraculous. Probably the most successful implementation of that approach occurred among the early Christians. From a few Galileans, Christianity had become one of Rome’s “mystery cults” in a mere three centuries. Not by influencing all the people, but by influencing the right people, it became the state religion of Rome. Of course, to do so, it needed to sacrifice everything that defined it as a unique philosophy. It needed to abandon everything good about it, so that it would not conflict with the average Roman’s daily life. It succeeded only when it ceased to challenge people to change their lives….
For us to “save the world” by “changing minds,” we need to do one better. We need to match Christianity’s success as a memeplex, without sacrificing our idealism as it did. The real clincher though, is that where Christianity had three centuries, we’ll be lucky if we have three decades.
In short, it is impossible. I lost my faith in Quinn’s program of “changing minds,” and thus lost my last teacher.
Not that I’ve given up all hope, mind you. Trying to alter civilization’s cataclysmic course is impossible. Force of arms is counter-productive. We are, almost certainly, beyond the point of no return, as far as human agency is involved. Nothing we do now can stop the collapse that is coming. But my faith remains in the universe to take care of itself, for the world to heal itself, and for a pantheistic G-d to excise the tumor that is our civilized world.
All that’s left to us now is to prepare for that. “Preparation” means learning to live beyond civilization, as foragers. Going off into the woods alone is the path of a madman: the lone wolf always dies. We must form tribes of foragers. Cooperation has always been the key to our species’ survival, and simply because we now face the greatest crisis in our history, our nature has not changed so radically.
Neatly, as fate would have it, it’s not so far from what I would be doing if I were still a student of Ishmael.
My Autobiography
- My Catholic Faith
- Testing the Gorilla
- Tribal Dawn
- The Dream that was Anthropik
- A Student With No Master
Jason, I’m saddened to read this post, and to know that you’ve taken the position that all that’s left to do is to prepare for a collapse.
While I’m realistic about the possibility or even probability that collapse is near (and indeed am making my own preparations), it would seem tragic if we spent the bulk of the rest of our life energy learning to survive the negative outcomes of the failures of our fellow humans. Having benefitted from and contributed to the very culture that is propelling us toward such outcomes — indeed, our abilities to prepare for a collapse are funded by it — is there no obligation to work toward a positive, alternative vision that might also affect others? Isn’t forming a tribe of foragers roughly equivalent to creating a new healthy culture that could then produce a new healthy memeplex, to be spread around and held up? Are the concepts of preparing to survive beyond civilization and of creating a a positive cultural space that *is* beyond civilization so mutually exclusive?
I realize you have limited time and energies and must prioritize accordingly, and that your inner-calling may have shifted directions. But you’ve always been such a bright beacon in the oft-muddied dialogue about “what do we do now?” Or, to put it another way, you have super powers that no one else has. It would be a shame if you turned away from the good you could do (for yourself and others) with those powers, based solely on the speculation that the world will end in your lifetime. You know as well as anyone how quickly things can change, how much order chaos can bring, that nothing is impossible.
Chris
Comment by Chris Hardie — 20 February 2005 @ 12:22 PM
Thanks for your kind note, Chris. I’ve been working, off-and-on, ever since the big blow-up on IshCon, on a fairly large work tentatively titled, “Civilization, the Apocalypse & You.” The main point of it is that I don’t think changing minds will get very far, but what do you do of it? If you want to change minds, you need to prove tribalism works–and you can only do that by forming tribes. If you want to try to ride out the collapse, your best bet is to do so in a tribe. Regardless of where you think it’s going, the course of action is the same. So it’s really all an academic discussion, isn’t it? How to get there is all the same.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 20 February 2005 @ 12:26 PM
Hello Jason,
It is so odd that we Homo Sapiens are seemingly the only species that can cause so much destruction, and simultaneously obsess over and lament causing so much destruction.
I, like you, have found Quinn’s prescription for “changing minds” to be, in effect, mere proselytizing dressed in drag.
We have reached a point of “meme saturation” (to use the clumsy jargon) such that, in the public shpere at least, one point of view is more or less equivalent to any other. Of course, that equivalence does not dominate our hearts. Some of us feel that the wholesale slaughter of life is someting worthy of consideration….
And yet, is the prescription for balance to take up yet another symbolic worldview, and force our lives to fit the pattern?
So many “Ishmaelites” compare themselves to other species (we are just like the Baboons…), and yet no one seems capable of simply LIVING from the effortless flow of living wisdom. Call it genetics if you must…but it is there. It becons to us all.
Jason, a tribe will happen or it will not. Is that not so?
I say this because I sense (perhaps wrongly) a sense of desperation on your part. I would like to see you live out the rest of your days without the cognitive dissonance, and without the sense that life has somehow gone terribly wrong.
Feeling that life is good, despite the story that your mind has settled upon, need not be a case of hiding your head in the sand. Facing the terrors, and finding life worth living, finding an emphatic “YES” arising from the depths of your soul, is possible. And, I will venture to predict, I think you will find that - if you haven’t already.
The deer living in my neighborhood deal with the evils of civilization daily. Do we blame them for “making peace” with the monster? No. The truth is, the respond as they can - from the depth of their nature.
We owe each other no less - to resond to our world, every day, every moment, from the depth of our nature. I have found my nature to be, after many years of excavation and healing, essentially supportive and non-harming. I will defend my family with ferocity, of course. And, at my core, is a paradoxical combination of ruthlessness and comapssion. But, I have never yet physically hurt another. And, with all my heart, I wish for the carnage to end.
Responding deeply to life is not the same as trying to “change minds”. I do not live for an “effect”. I respond. I recognize that my mind is essentially a nifty survival tool. And, as such, it does not possess the wisdon necessary to RUN MY WHOLE LIFE.
We are in the same boat - figuratively and literally!
I wish for you all the completion you desire and more. I have missed your voice since I left IshCon.
Warm Wishes,
Ron
Comment by Ron Stilwell — 22 February 2005 @ 1:03 AM
There is simultaneously desperation and peace, that’s the funny thing about it. The knot in my stomach is gone, but instead I’m fully aware of the nightmare we’re living in. An innocent deer is a victim of the nightmare, so finding peace with that reality is reasonable. But we are helping perpetuate that nightmare–which means we must do something to stop it, even if it is only to end our own involvement.
So yes, desperation. Now that I know the situation, I know what must be done. But with that also comes contentment. That knot in the pit of my stomach that something is terribly, terribly wrong is undone. I know what I have to do. There is a great deal of serenity in that.
The great, hopeful irony of it all is, of course, that the single best way to end the nightmare, is to try to wake from it ourselves. So, that’s what I’m in the process of doing; in more literal terms, “going native.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 23 February 2005 @ 1:32 PM
Jason,
Given time, I suppose I can be erudite about the subject. Tonight, I think I’ll be simple. I certainly understand your feelings on the matter. I have three children now and every day I see this nightmare of a world lurch around them and try to mold them in insidious ways. How do you fight that without becoming isolating yourself from the society you hope to fix?
I found simply passing along the message wasn’t enough. Half my friends didn’t believe it. My parents flat out rejected it on the hope that it might be wrong. Those who did accept it made no changes in their lifestyle whatsoever.
Left alone and in increasing desperation, I set out on a multi-part plan. It’s still in motion; perhaps three years from now, I will be talking about the Little Foot Project much like you talk about Tribal Dawn. I hope not (actually, I believe not as, right now, it’s progressing exactly on schedule and quite well). Still, here it is.
First, I started making connections with the local tribes, supporting them in their efforts in return for the chance to expose myself to their day-to-day beliefs. I’m not trying to copy them; lacking the degree you have in Anthropology, I’m trying to understand the details of how their various memeplexes function and comparing/contrasting it to the details of our own Taker lifestyle.
Second, I’ve started a co-housing group. I apologize if you already know the definition for this (I’ll add it for other readers): basically, it’s a group of (preferably) 15-30 households centered around a common house and responsible for their communal space. The modern trend traces itself back to Denmark but it basically mimics the social dynamics of tribes.
Now, according to Quinn’s Beyond Civilization, this is an exercise in futility. He believes that if people are just ‘living together’ (as opposed to forming Occupational Tribes), it’s a commune. Perhaps he’s right. The selling point on this co-housing project was this: What if we built a community where the fundamentals of life - shelter, water, food, sewage, and power — were taken care of? A place where, if you lost your job, you wouldn’t have to worry about losing these fundamental needs. You wouldn’t be comfortable — if you lost your job you might find yourselves eating lettuce for a month or working extra gardening shifts — but you wouldn’t have to live in fear. Now, take that foundation and add on all the modern amenities that we love. An intranet as well as an internet. Cable TV, close to urban centers. Wouldn’t that be nice?
The answer, from over a dozen households so far, is yes.
There is a very real human need to get over the day-to-day fear we feel. This can be played upon by offering people a simple, practical way out. I was suprised at how much people remembered communities from their youth (neighborhoods, small towns, youth groups) and how hungry they were to be a part of a project that could bring back that comfort. The co-housing model fits right in (though technically it is an ‘eco-village’, I don’t advertise it as such).
This community is already discussing ways to form a business, a natural evolution to this process. This leads to the next step in the plan? Once a foundation is built (the community) in approximately 3-4 years, it will be brought out into the market. The ideas which make it function will be made palatable to others. We’re not alone in this idea. There are other companies doing the same thing in different regions of the U.S.
I’ve said to those around me that I’m not interested in saving the world, just my family and friends and the environment we live in. The rest of it is just too big. I see what we’re all doing (those of us who are actively trying to make a change) as building a path step by step, stone by stone. For me, I’m trying to build a foundation from which other things can spring.
What happens if I fail? I’ll start all over again. And I’ll keep going and keep learning until I either succeed, civilization dies, or I go stark raving mad. Either way, there is no choice in the matter. Once set upon the path, you have to walk it to its end. You just have to remember that despite what happens, you’re not alone.
Bill
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 24 February 2005 @ 4:40 AM