Although the book's layout is rather odd in form, the lessons learned from reading it will change your perspective of the world forever.
Beginning with a simple, 3 lined ad in the newspaper:
TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL.
Must have an earnest desire to
save the world. Apply in person.
Must have an earnest desire to
save the world. Apply in person.
Ishmael is a dialogue between a lost man trying to save the world and his teacher, a giant ape, Ishmael. Ishmael covers the stark contrast between hunter gatherer societies (the Givers), and civilizations (the Takers) and how we can learn to change the world by looking to the past and looking towards nature.
When human’s removed themselves from nature and started playing God (beginning with agricultural practices), they started destroying the planet, along with themselves. Since they no longer play a role in the “survival of the fittest” game the rest of the planet is playing, they are devolving as a species and, simultaneously, quickly devolving the planet, as well (their focus is no longer on survival, but on income).
We, as a civilized society, look back and think, “hey, civilization must be correct, look how long we have been doing it.” However, when you consider that we are somewhat of a species with Amnesia, since we can only remember what has happen in the last 1% of our human history, you can see how truly horrible of a representation of the history of our planet that is. We have only been civilized as a species for a tiny spec of human history, and look how much damage we have done thus far.
It’s as if they drove a broken plane off a cliff, and are free falling to the ground, about to plummet, but believe themselves to be in flight.
That is one of the main ideas of Ishmael, but Quinn continues to inform us of how we can crack the plane into gear and once again soar as human beings on Earth.
