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Daniel Quinn

Started by Whitney, June 22, 2006, 09:56:25 AM

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Whitney

Has anyone read Quinn's books (Ishmael, The Story of B, and My Ishmael)? I've read the first two and am about to start on the last. I recommend the Story of B for anyone who just wants to read one of them.

The books are basically about why the 'civilized' world is having so many problems at the moment. It places the root cause at our forgetting (the great forgetting) that humans are also part of nature and therefore will have to answer to the law of limited competition just like any other animal. Quinn also gives a wonderful explanation of how our current means of food production is causing populations to explode at a relatively alarming rate (more food=more people). Additionally, he gives his explanation for why the major religious groups developed and came to offer the promise of salvation.

The books are novels, however they do make a lot of sense when considering how the world is now and how we know it was in the past.

Squid

#1
Hmm, never heard of him before.

Asmodean Prime

#2
Sounds interesting. I have not been reading any fiction lately, but will add it to my list. Thanks!

toink33

#3
I don't know about the books, but the idea that more food = more people can not be applied in my country. Instead here it is more time = more sex = more people. Many here have no job and little money and little food for their family, what they do have is lots of free time.

The government here have tried to promote use of condom and family planning, but always the church got in the way.

Whitney

#4
It is unfortunate that the church ignores an obvious overpopulation problem just to promote their religious agenda.  The basic idea behind more food=more people is more along the lines of how many survive rather than how many are born.  For example, if there was a way to get even more food into your country and nothing else changed, then there would be even more people with all that free time to have unprotected sex.    Basically, there is a certain amount of food 100,000 people need to survive so that if we give enough food to sustain 200,000 there will eventually be 200,000 people although they would be starving just as much as those 100,000.  If the food supply was then decreased back to what could keep 100,000 alive then that's how many we would have in a short time.

Unfortunately, it seems that any solutions to overpopulation which follow this idea involve decreasing food supply to a level that is just enough to feed a sustainable population....essentially leaving everyone else to literally starve to death.  Quinn did not promote this as a solution...he just gave his theory on how populations grow out of control in the first place.

What he does seem to see as a solution is going back to a society where food is not under lock and key.  Before we developed the type of agriculture which produces an overabundance of food people just gathered or grew what they needed and actually had to work a lot fewer hours a day to acquire the food that now takes many hours of time on the job to acquire.  I'm not sure of how possible it would be to restructure societies in this manner while still maintaining the technologies most value so highly today...Quinn seemed to think it was very possible, yet didn't really offer a process to make it happen.

Court

#5
Interesting, is that based on Malthus by any chance?

Are they dystopias? I have a sort of fascination with dystopia and utopia novels.
[size=92]
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas
[/size]
[size=92]
try having a little faith = stop using your brain for a while -- ziffel[/size]

pony1976

#6
Quote from: "Court"Interesting, is that based on Malthus by any chance?

Are they dystopias? I have a sort of fascination with dystopia and utopia novels.

me too.  I've read many of the greats like 1984, farenheit 451, brave new world. Ever heard of a Canticle for Leibowitz? Heard great things, haven't read it!

Whitney

#7
Quote from: "Court"Interesting, is that based on Malthus by any chance?

I think I kinda mixed in what I've read of Malthus's work while trying to explain Quinn's ideas (I read both writers around the same time).  I think Malthus is an earlier writer so it wouldn't surprise me if Quinn had those ideas in mind while writing.

QuoteAre they dystopias?

You made me have to use the dictionary :P In a way yes, but I'm not sure if they could fall under that category since the storyline is intended to be read as occurring in real modern times rather than some imaginary location.  The only thing necessarily imaginary about it is that in Ishmael and My Ishmael the wise teacher is a gorilla (who uses the Socratic Method to guide his students throughout most of the books).

Court

#8
Nope, I haven't heard of it. I'll have to add it to my list. One of the more obscure ones you might want to check out is an Amazonian utopia by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland.
[size=92]
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas
[/size]
[size=92]
try having a little faith = stop using your brain for a while -- ziffel[/size]

Tom62

#9
Quote from: "pony1976"I've read many of the greats like 1984, farenheit 451, brave new world. Ever heard of a Canticle for Leibowitz? Heard great things, haven't read it!

My favourite is Walther Tevis's brilliant future novel "Mockingbird". I found that book hundreds of times better than 1984 or Brave new World
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

pony1976

#10
vieldank Tom,

Many thanks court

imrational

#11
I've read "Ishmael", and while it is an entertaining read, I also thought it was total woo bullshit.

The idea that an agrarian society is worse for all versus a "better" hunter-gatherer society totally ignores reality.  

I suggest watching or reading, "Guns, Germs, & Steel".

Whitney

#12
I got from the book that Quinn was saying that we don't have to abandon society the way it is now, just reformat it in some way.  He wasn't really saying that agrarian is bad and hunter gatherer is good...just that producing way too much then locking up the extras is a bad idea; and that's what the specific type of farming we are using now does.  I do question if it is even possible to change how society operates since we are so use to having to find jobs just to eat (and it may even be good that we have to find jobs since that allows people to specialize in certain fields).