"No. If your plane isn't built according to the law, it doesn't fly."

"But if you push it off a cliff, it stays in the air, doesn't it?"

"For a while."

"The same is true of a civilization that isn't built in accordance with the law of limited competition. It stays in the air for a while, and then it comes down with a crash. Isn't that what the people of your culture are facing here? A crash?"

"Yes."

"I'll ask the question another way. Are you certain that any species that, as a matter of policy, exempts itself from the law of limited competition will end by destroying the community to support its own expansion?"

"Yes."

"Then what have we discovered here?"

"We've discovered a piece of certain knowledge about how people ought to live. Must live, in fact."

"Knowledge that a week ago you said was unobtainable."

"Yes. But . . ."

"Yes?"

"I don't see how . . . Hold on for a minute."

"Take your time."

"I don't see how to make this a source of knowledge in general in general. I mean, I don't see any way to apply this knowledge in a general way, to other issues."

"Do the laws of aerodynamics show you how to repair damaged genes?"

"No."

"Then what good are they?"

"They're good for . . . They enable us to fly."

"The law we've outlined here enables species to live-enables species to survive, including the human. It won't tell you whether moodaltering drugs should be legalized or not. It won't tell you whether premarital sex is good or bad. It won't tell you whether capital punishment is right or wrong. It will will tell you how you have to live if you want to avoid extinction, and that's the first and most fundamental knowledge anyone needs." tell you how you have to live if you want to avoid extinction, and that's the first and most fundamental knowledge anyone needs."

"True. All the same . . ."

"Yes?"

"All the same, the people of my culture will not accept it."

"You mean the people of your culture will not accept what you've learned here."

"That's right."

"Let's be clear about what they will and will not accept. The law itself is beyond argument. It's there, plainly in place in the community of life. What the Takers will deny is that it applies to mankind."

"That's right."

"That hardly comes as a surprise. Mother Culture could accept the fact that mankind's home is not the center of the universe. She could accept the fact that man evolved from the common slime. But she will never accept the fact that man is not exempt from the peacekeeping law of the community of life. To accept that would finish her off."

"So what are you saying? That it's hopeless?"

"Not at all. Obviously Mother Culture must must be finished off if you're going to survive, and that's something the people of your culture can do. She has no existence outside your minds. Once you stop listening to her, she ceases to exist." be finished off if you're going to survive, and that's something the people of your culture can do. She has no existence outside your minds. Once you stop listening to her, she ceases to exist."

"True. But I don't think people will let that happen."

Ishmael shrugged. "Then the law will do it for them. If they refuse to live under the law, then they simply won't live. You might say that this is one of the law's basic operations: Those who threaten the stability of the community by defying the law automatically eliminate themselves."

"The Takers will never accept that."

"Acceptance has nothing to do with it. You may as well talk about a man stepping off the edge of a cliff not accepting the effects of gravity. The Takers are in the process of eliminating themselves, and when they've done so, the stability of the community will be restored and the damage you've done can begin to be repaired."

"True."

"On the other hand, I think you're being unreasonably pessimistic about this. I think there are a lot of people out there who know the jig is up and are ready to hear something new-who want want to hear something new, just like you." to hear something new, just like you."

"I hope you're right."

9.

"I'm not quite satisfied with the way we've formulated this law," I said.

"No?"

"We refer to it as a law, but it's actually three laws. Or at any rate I described it as three laws."

"The three laws are branches. What you're looking for is the trunk, which is something like, 'No one species shall make the life of the world its own.' "

"Yes, that's what the rules of competition ensure."

"That's one expression of the law. Here's another: 'The world was not made for any one species.' "

"Yes. Then man was certainly not made to conquer and rule it."

"That's too big a leap. In Taker mythology, the world needed a ruler because the gods had made a mess of it. What they'd created was a jungle, a howling chaos, an anarchy. But was it that in fact?"

"No, everything was in good order. It was the Takers who introduced disorder into the world."

"The rule of that law was and is sufficient. Mankind was not needed to bring order to the world."

10.

"The people of your culture cling with fanatical tenacity to the specialness of man. They want desperately to perceive a vast gulf between man and the rest of creation. This mythology of human superiority justifies their doing whatever they please with the world, just the way Hitler's mythology of Aryan superiority justified his doing whatever he pleased with Europe. But in the end this mythology is not deeply satisfying. The Takers are a profoundly lonely people. The world for them is enemy territory, and they live in it like an army of occupation, alienated and isolated by their extraordinary specialness."

"That's true. But what are you getting at?"

Instead of answering my question, Ishmael said, "Among the Leavers, crime, mental illness, suicide, and drug addiction are great rarities. How does Mother Culture account for this?"

"I'd say it's because . . . Mother Culture says it's because the Leavers are just too primitive to have these things."

"In other words, crime, mental illness, suicide, and drug addiction are features of an advanced culture."

"That's right. Nobody says it that way, of course, but that's how it's understood. These things are the price of advancement."

"There's an almost opposite opinion that has had wide currency in your culture for a century or so. An opposite opinion as to why these things are rare among the Leavers."

I thought for a minute. "You mean the Noble Savage theory. I can't say I know it in any detail."

"But you have an impression of it. That's what's current in your culture-not the theory in detail but an impression of it."

"True. It's the idea that people living close to nature tend to be noble. It's seeing all those sunsets that does it. You can't watch a sunset and then go off and set fire to your neighbor's tepee. Living close to nature is wonderful for your mental health."

"You understand that I'm not saying anything like this."

"Yes. But what are are you saying?" you saying?"

"We've had a look at the story the Takers have been enacting here for the past ten thousand years. The Leavers too are enacting a story. Not a story told but a story enacted."

"What do you mean by that?"

"If you go among the various peoples of your culture-if you go to China and Japan and Russia and England and India-each people will give you a completely different account of themselves, but they are nonetheless all enacting a single basic story, which is the story of the Takers. The same is true of the Leavers. The Bushmen of Africa, the Alawa of Australia, the KreenAkrore of Brazil, and the Navajo of the United States would each give you a different account of themselves, but they too are all enacting one basic story, which is the story of the Leavers."

"I see what you're getting at. It isn't the tale you tell that counts, it's the way you actually live."

"That's correct. The story the Takers have been enacting here for the past ten thousand years is not only disastrous for mankind and for the world, it's fundamentally unhealthy and unsatisfying. It's a megalomaniac's fantasy, and enacting it has given the Takers a culture riddled with greed, cruelty, mental illness, crime, and drug addiction."

"Yes, that seems to be so."

"The story the Leavers have been enacting here for the past three million years isn't a story of conquest and rule. Enacting it doesn't give them power. Enacting it gives them lives that are satisfying and meaningful to them. This is what you'll find if you go among them. They're not seething with discontent and rebellion, not incessantly wrangling over what should be allowed and what forbidden, not forever accusing each other of not living the right way, not living in terror of each other, not going crazy because their lives seem empty and pointless, not having to stupefy themselves with drugs to get through the days, not inventing a new religion every week to give them something to hold on to, not forever searching for something to do or something to believe in that will make their lives worth living. And-I repeat-this is not because they live close to nature or have no formal government or because they're innately noble. This is simply because they're enacting a story that works well for people-a story that worked well for three million years and that still works well where the Takers haven't yet managed to stamp it out."

"Okay. That sounds terrific. When do we get to that story?"

"Tomorrow. At least we'll begin tomorrow."

"Good," I said. "But before we quit today, I have a question. Why Mother Mother Culture? I personally have no difficulty with it, but I can imagine some women would, on the grounds that you seem to be singling out a figure of Culture? I personally have no difficulty with it, but I can imagine some women would, on the grounds that you seem to be singling out a figure of specifically specifically female gender to serve as a cultural villain." female gender to serve as a cultural villain."

Ishmael grunted. "I don't consider her a villain villain in any sense whatever, but I understand what you're getting at. Here is my answer: Culture is a mother everywhere and at every time, because culture is inherently a nurturer-the nurturer of human societies and lifestyles. Among Leaver peoples, Mother Culture explains and preserves a lifestyle that is healthy and selfsustaining. Among Taker peoples she explains and preserves a lifestyle that has proven to be unhealthy and selfdestructive." in any sense whatever, but I understand what you're getting at. Here is my answer: Culture is a mother everywhere and at every time, because culture is inherently a nurturer-the nurturer of human societies and lifestyles. Among Leaver peoples, Mother Culture explains and preserves a lifestyle that is healthy and selfsustaining. Among Taker peoples she explains and preserves a lifestyle that has proven to be unhealthy and selfdestructive."

"Okay. So?"

"So what's your question? If culture is a mother among the Alawa of Australia and the Bushmen of Africa and the Kayapo of Brazil, then why wouldn't she be a mother among the Takers?"

NINE.

1.

When I arrived the next day, I found that a new plan was in effect: Ishmael was no longer on the other side of the glass, he was on my side of it, sprawled on some cushions a few feet from my chair. I hadn't realized how important that sheet of glass had become to our relationship: to be honest, I felt a flutter of alarm in my stomach. His nearness and enormity disconcerted me, but without hesitating for more than a fraction of a second, I took my seat and gave him my usual nod of greeting. He nodded back, but I thought I glimpsed a look of wary speculation in his eyes, as if my proximity troubled him as much as his troubled me.

"Before we go on," Ishmael said after a few moments, "I want to clear up a misconception." He held up a pad of drawing paper with a diagram on it.

[image]

"Not a particularly difficult visualization. It represents the story line of the Leavers," he said.

"Yes, I see."

He added something and held it up again.

[image]

"This offshoot, beginning at about 8000 B.C., represents the story line of the Takers."

"Right."

"And what event does this represent?" he asked, touching the point of his pencil to the dot labeled 8000 B.C.

"The agricultural revolution."

"Did this event occur at a point in time or over a period of time?"

"I assume over a period of time."