Testing the Gorilla
by Jason GodeskyI was assigned Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael in my high school junior English class. I mocked it when I first saw it: “What is this, the sequel to Moby Dick?” I put it off for quite a while, but when I finally began reading it, it sucked me in. I read it in one day–it remains only one of two books I have ever read so voraciously.1 I came into school the next day gushing–everything was changed.
It was a moment of revelation. It took time to settle in, and I found myself increasingly alienated from those around me. Where others disagreed on superficial issues of party lines, I took issue with the most fundamental tenets of civilization itself. As I began to see the implications, I came to understand that if Quinn was right, I had to dedicate the rest of my life to this cause. I prayed he was wrong for that very reason. My life was easy and comfortable. My prospects were bright. I didn’t want to give that up for the hard life of a revolutionary. I had to put Quinn’s ideas to the test. If they stood up to that test, then I would have to change my life, radically and forever.
My graduation from high school was well-timed in this regard; I was able to use my education at the University of Pittsburgh for just that end. I was initially interested in psychology, but when I became disgusted with its cultural myopia, I joined Pitt’s Anthropology Department. My collegiate studies became a rigorous examination of Quinn’s ideas, subjecting them to every assault I could muster. I was desperate to find some hole in them, some flaw that would bring the entire memeplex down and allow me to return to my safe, comfortable, traditional, conservative world.
I did find some flaws in several of Quinn’s arguments. His division between “Takers” and “Leavers” seems increasingly suspect to me. Quinn first defines the division in terms of the phrase, “Take it or leave it,” with regard to our culture. While he identifies the characteristics of these groups very well, his defining criteria seem a bit out of whack. In later books, Quinn defines Takers in terms of ethnocentrism, but ethnocentrism is universal. If Takers are simply ethnocentrists, then there are no Leavers. The !Kung hate the Bantu, and would jump at the chance to eradicate them; the key is that they never have that chance. Quinn’s best definition relies on “locking up the food”–a culture that redefines “food” in such a way that it becomes difficult to acquire.2 What Quinn glosses over is that all agricultural societies must do precisely that. Why live such a precarious existence, when food is freely available? Unless, of course, “food” is limited to the products of agriculture.
Elsewhere, Quinn argues that “Takerism” is an anomoly, a flash in the pan which, once surpassed, will never rise again–just as the theocratic mindset of the Middle Ages has not yet risen again following the Enlightenment. To bolster this point, Quinn argues that the Mayans were not Takers, because they were willing to abandon civilization when it didn’t go their way. Yet there were still Mayan kingdoms when the Spanish invaded–they were among Cortez’s allies against the Aztecs. By Quinn’s argument the Inka, who saw it as their gods-given mission to bring civilization to their barbarian neighbors, were not Takers. If the Aztecs and Inka were not Takers, then I don’t think anyone deserves the term.
Quibbles. Details. The central thesis remained unchallenged, and unchallengable. The primary criticism I have heard of Ishmael in the years since is that its case is simple and self-evident; that it is something everybody already knows. What no one argues is that it’s wrong.
What shook me to my core, though, was the fact that where Quinn was wrong were precisely those points where he tried to mitigate, moderate, and pull back. I subjected his arguments to four years of rigorous scrutiny, and what I found was that his errors were all the times he understated the case.
Quinn tries to redeem agriculture by damning only “totalitarian agriculture,” yet it is a redundant term. I still cannot answer certainly whether horticulture (Quinn’s “non-totalitarian agriculture”) is a stable lifestyle, or merely a transition from foraging to agriculture. The “Taker” memeplex Quinn discusses arise from agriculture–must arise from agriculture, because of the inherent difficulties of that lifestyle. It is mechanistic and deterministic. Quinn wants to change the way we live by changing the way we think; what I learned is that the only way to change the way people think, is by changing how they live.
“Takerism” is not a flash in the pan or an anomoly; it is the natural, unavoidable end-point of agriculture. Civilization is a package deal. Its defining criteria are dependent on one another. It arises wherever agriculture arises. It is contrary to human nature, and it is killing us. If it is not stopped–and soon–we will soon bear witness to the end of our species. There is no greater struggle in human history than this; everything else is but one more front to this.
By my junior year of college, I suspected I had to commit myself to the cause; by my senior year, I knew it. That was when I resolved to do something about it. I took Quinn’s advice, and started my first tribe.
Footnotes
1 The other being the first of Anya Weinstein’s tragically discontinued trilogy, Words Like Weeds, Ring Around the Moon. [ Back ]
2 We are, of course, constantly surrounded with edible material. “Food” is only the culturally defined subset of that. A great deal of money has been made from this mismatch–just ask the producers of “Fear Factor.” [ Back ]
My Autobiography
- My Catholic Faith
- Testing the Gorilla
- Tribal Dawn
- The Dream that was Anthropik
- A Student With No Master
Excellent analysis for the most part, but I must take issue with your analysis of the Maya.
In the Southern Lowlands, which had been the center of Classic Maya civilization, the Maya did return to a tribal, non-Agricultural way of life. They didn’t become foragers as Quinn suggests, but they did adopt swidden horticulture, which is perhaps even more inspiring, as it shows that horticulture does not need to be a transitory stage between foraging and farming.
Those parts of Maya country which did reemerge as centers of civilization, like Mayapan and Chichen Itza, had been periferal areas during the Classic period and thus hit less hard by the Collapse. It’s not so much that there were still Maya around, as that those Maya who didn’t learn their lesson as well as the others tried it again.
I don’t think he’s right at all about Teotihuacan. A few years ago I had a class in Mesoamerican archaeology where we examined settlement patterns in the Valley of Mexico from the earliest adoption of agriculture to Toltec times. When Teotihuacan collapsed, a number of smaller centers emerged. They weren’t grand empires as Teo. had been, but they were still centralized, hierarchical, agricultural societies - and soon they were part of an empire again under Toltec dominion. Then the same thing happened again, and Tenochtitlan emerged. It was far more like the Roman collapse, if I understand the Roman collapse correctly (and I don’t, but you do, so correct me if I’m wrong), with civilization retreating to a less complex state for a time, only to reemerge as soon as it could.
In the Southern Lowlands, on the other hand, it was replaced by a stable alternative–negative-feedback-driven swidden horticulture.
Comment by Steve Thomas — 8 February 2005 @ 2:30 AM
I’m content with agriculturalists becoming horticulturalists because of the limitations of their environment–as happened with the Maya. It was hardly the ideological renunciation of civilization Quinn depicts. They wanted to keep their great temples and cities, but when they farmed their environment straight into ecological catastrophe, that ceased being an option. They took the next best thing; horticulture.
Horticulture is fine. Horticultural civilizations are not possible, and most horticultural societies are tribal and egalitarian. The problem is, I doubt its stability.
In the Yucatan, it worked out all right (at least on the limited timeline we have before the Spanish showed up), because the environment would not allow complexity beyond that level. What happens if we’re content with horticulture in other, more verdant areas?
Foraging has systemic barriers against civilization. For foragers, the wilderness is not just sacred, it is that which they depend on for life. Destroying the wilderness is for them as unspeakable and unthinkable as for us to burn down all our own churches, groceries and restaurants. Add to that tabboos like the !Kung “cursing of the meat,” and you have a cultural environment where hierarchy is damn near impossible.
But horticulture breeds hierarchy almost as often as it does egalitarianism. All the world’s Big Man societies are horticultural. I don’t see it as deterministic–a horticultural tribe could remain tribal–but if the environment permits intensification, what’s to stop an emergent Big Man from doing so?
Your take on the fall of Rome isn’t too far from the truth, and from my own study of Teotihuacan, I agree with your assessment. But, it’s also the Maya, isn’t it? Only they never got their chance to return, and maybe they never would have. They also never collapsed as severely–Rome and Teotihuacan’s heirs always had at least chiefdom-level societies.
It’s a very tricky question, but I still fear horticulture may be a slippery slope. It’s a great stepping stone, but as an endpoint, it makes me wary.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 February 2005 @ 9:24 AM
Jason-
Is there any way we (that is to say, you) can set up a specific area of the site where we can discuss them in more depth?
I don’t mean a debate-proper where we each set up our positions and then attack, of course…but…something where we, and anyone else who wants can compile as much evidence on various agricultural and foraging practices, resource management/intensification techniques and their consequences, “aftermath societies,” permaculture, and so forth…?
…cause that would be really helpful.
Comment by Steve Thomas — 8 February 2005 @ 11:03 AM
By “them” I meant “these issues”….deleted a sentence and forgot…
Comment by Steve Thomas — 8 February 2005 @ 11:04 AM
If you look up above, you’ll see two links that get you error pages. One of them says “fora,” the Latinate plural of the Latin word “forum,” e.g., a discussion forum. Would that be the kind of “specific area” you had in mind?
It’ll use phpBB, so it will take some time to set up. I’d expect it to appear sometime over the next month or so….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 February 2005 @ 11:11 AM
Why…yes…yes indeed….or perhaps, the wiki would be better….?
“Hmm,” said Steve, his memory beginning to return.
Comment by Steve Thomas — 8 February 2005 @ 11:16 AM
No, discussion is for discussion boards. The wiki is where you post things like how you just found out how to dress a deer, or some interesting new factoid about Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 February 2005 @ 2:34 PM