The Laws of Life

As I have been reading Ishmael, I have found myself more and more frustrated with the Student. I can not say exactly why. The general feeling is that I find myself frustrated because the Student is, or at least appears, somewhat dim. However, that by itself should not frustrate me. Characters can be less intelligent yet compelling. But, the Student isn't. The Student is nameless, back-groundless, with only a few, unimportant details about his life being given to the reader. This, I believe, is what frustrates me. The way I see it, Quinn wrote the Student as a faceless representation of the reader and the intelligence of the student reflects his opinion of the intelligence of the reader. This is what annoys me. If I think the Student is dumb, clearly he doesn't represent me, the reader, the way that Quinn thinks he should. It makes the writing feel condescending, and the Student's dimwittedness the reader's own. For whatever reason it just rubs me the wrong way. Now that that's off my chest, I would like to bring up an idea within this section that I found fascinating. That idea is the laws of life.

The idea of the laws of life is, I assume, an idea that will be critical to the novel. But, more importantly, it's an incredibly interesting idea. The premise is this, if there are laws that govern flight, gravity, thermodynamics, and all the rest; why would there not be laws that govern life? For example, take a look at Newton's laws of motion. One of those laws states that an object in motion stays in motion. This is undeniably true; when not being acted upon by an opposing force. Space allowed us to truly gain an understanding of this concept. Voyager One and Two, for example, do not propel themselves any longer. In fact, they stopped propelling themselves minutes after the broke through the Earth's atmosphere. However, they continue to travel at thousands of miles per hour. There is nothing to slow them down, no opposing forces strong enough to stop them. The sun's gravitational pull on them is so weak that they actually now orbit our galactic center, if you can believe that. If there is a law like this for motion, why would there be no law like this for life? What allows a species to continue for millennia and what causes a species to die? Well, we know that unfavorable conditions and competition can cause animals to die out. Is that not a law?

In the novel, Ishmael (or Quinn's persona, I suppose) says that laws are often unsurprising. When Newton stated the law of gravity no one looked at him as though he were crazy. Everyone understands that an object falls when unsupported, it's not revolutionary. However, Ishmael argues that by creating a law you are defining a phenomenon as something to be obeyed. Laws are meant to be obeyed. Thus a natural law is something everything must obey. Continuing along this line of reasoning, the laws of life are not particularly surprising to anyone. However, by calling them natural laws you invoke a sort of reverence for them. Currently, the problem with our society is that we like to take and destroy and ignore the future. Currently, we understand that humanity is causing species to die off, ice caps to melt, atmospheres to degrade, death through pollution, and all the rest. People understand this, it's not exactly something that can be swept under the rug anymore, much as people may try. Humanity, at it's core, does not look to the future. It's simply how we're wired. Humanity sees itself as king and Earth as its kingdom. Whether or not we continue to be a tyrant is up to us. If we choose to define the laws of life and acknowledge that they apply even to us, the wise and powerful king of 'noble' blood, then we take a step towards benevolence. It's a hard pill to swallow, but the 'king' must follow the same rules as the commoners. If we don't, we die.

We know that unfavorable conditions and competition can cause animals to die out. Humans don't compete with any other species. If life were a footrace and every species entered, it would be like humanity showed up in a car. We win every time. However, there is a second part to the first statement. Unfavorable conditions. What does global warming create? Unfavorable conditions. Pollution? Unfavorable conditions. Overfishing, draining aquifers too fast, dropping nukes, cutting down rain forest? Unfavorable conditions. Humanity is killing not just itself, but all life because we see ourselves above the laws of life.

"No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it." - Teddy Roosevelt

Introductions

The defining characteristic of mankind are not our opposable thumbs, nor our capacity for emotions, nor our ability to speak, write, read, or do mathematics. Humanity's truly defining characteristic is its self-awareness. No other recorded animal species has this attribute. Truly, at this point self-awareness is tantamount to sentience. And as humanity is the pinnacle of life on earth, as well as the sole sentient being, self-awareness is indisputably synonymous with humanity. However, what if there were a gorilla who was not only self-aware and sentient, but wiser than the majority of humanity. What becomes humanity's defining characteristic? What, then, makes us human? Are we the pinnacle of life, the end all be all, or are we just another animal floundering along? Daniel Quinn explores these concepts in his novel Ishmael, a book about a telepathic gorilla teaching a man how to think.

Despite the ludicrous premise, Ishmael sets out to change humanity's perception on the world. Ishmael's teachings thus far revolve around the story humanity tells itself and enacts every single second of every single day. Humanity has been enacting the same story for thousands of years, since the agricultural revolution to modern day. As with all stories, humanity's own story has a beginning, middle, and an end. Modern society's story, like all societies before it, begins with a creation myth.

This sparks an interesting thought, which is also brought up in the book. What is our creation myth? The main character (who I'll refer to as the Student) himself says there is no such thing in our society, our society is based on facts not myths. However, there quite clearly is such a thing, the subjects taught in school all have our creation myth interwoven into the material. The story of humanity's creation is, of course, the big bang and evolution, these things are, for the most part, seen as fact. However, the creation myth is different, it relates to the ideas I outlined in the first paragraph, and that is that humanity is the apex of evolution. Sentience is the end all be all of life and evolution. Strange then, that evolution has not stopped there. Humanity continues to evolve, does that mean self-awareness and sentience and humanity are not the pinnacle of life? Every human being knows, from birth, that man is superior, that they are superior. How could we not? Everything tells us this. What other creature controls fire, bends metals to their will, directs electricity, rules the skies, lands, oceans, Earth in the same way as man? Shouldn't that alone be proof enough that man is the pinnacle, life's greatest achievement? Surely, man is inherently different, inherently greater, than beasts.

As the Student also describes, do you ever get the feeling that you're being lied to?

Salutations!

Hello all, welcome to the one, the only, Ishmael Blog. This is your go-to source for quality, well thought-out posts and responses on the philosophical novel, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. Of course, this blog also allows me an outlet to share my hijinks and general everyday hilarity with the rest of the world. Strap in folks, it's going to be a gorilla of a ride LOL!