July 6, 2023 • 43 mins
Ishmael theorizes our culture is held captive by a story, a mythology we take for granted, act out every day, and is leading to the destruction of the world. So in this episode we tell this story out loud, from beginning, to middle, to end.
Along the way we chat with a 6-year-old animal expert, discuss adult imaginary games, analyze the subliminal cultural messages conveyed in religion and philosophy, and meet a sassy imaginary top hat with a poorly performed Brooklyn accent.
Taker Mythology, the grand sweeping narrative playing out behind the scenes of our culture, just might explain how we got here and where we’re going… if we don’t find a way to tell another story.
If you’d like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts, leave us a review, and visit humannatureodyssey.com.
Join us on Patreon and get exclusive access to audio extras, writings, and notes.
Citations
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn (1992)
A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (1949)
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651)
Music: Celestial Soda Pop
By: Ray Lynch
From the album: Deep Breakfast
Courtesy Ray Lynch Productions © Ⓟ 1984/BMI
All rights reserved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Oh. You think I'm going to interviewMickey for a podcast?
Have you ever listen to a podcast?
No. You can't let us do it.
So first you say we have a new guy,which is me media then.
And then like if you're having questionsabout animals, then
answered, would you like to say your nameand how old you are?
(00:21):
Nietzsche. I'm six.
I would love to talk about animals.
You said animals are a specialty of thethings you're interested in talking about.
Yeah.
If I were an alien coming to earth beforeand I've never seen an animal.
Could you tell me about some ofthe animals that are on our planet?
She talked about the skull.
(00:44):
It's a great animal.
I'm just going to talk about tigers.
You know, what's a tiger?
It's a big cat.
I lots of scrapes on itand it sneak in the floor
to catch its preyand jump out to eat its prey.
And why does dead.
(01:06):
So it can eat.
What kind of things is it?
Eat, eat, eat me
and nothing else.
So me is inside an animal.
It has a surprising effect.
What's the differencebetween a human and an animal?
(01:27):
Well, actually, humans aren't animals,but the difference
between humans and animals is like a lot.
Just animals are different that way.
Way different.
I can't talk about all the differences.
Humans are pretty weird animals, right?
(01:47):
We don't have fur on our skin.
We walk on our hind legs.
We can't fly in the air like birds.
We can't swim in the water like fish.
We, we, we.
We use invention to do that.
Exactly. Right, right, right.
I think everyone knew about inventions.
(02:08):
How would you explain to someonewho doesn't know anyone
who thinks this is someone who makes that?
They make it up and they make it real
so they can go under wateror they can fly in the sky.
So humans, even though we can't flylike birds or swim
like fish, we can make things thatlet us do those things.
(02:30):
Yeah,there's one thing that humans make up
that's maybe the most powerful at all.
Do you know what it is?
It's stories.
Yeah, stories.
Welcome to Episodethree of Human Nature Odyssey,
(02:52):
a podcast exploring how the storieshumans tell shaped the world.
I'm Alex Live.
(03:14):
This is the third installment
in our series on Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
First, a quick recap in the last episode,we learned that Ishmael is a telepathic
gorilla who was raised in captivityand observed humanity
through the bars of his cage.
Once Ishmael was freed, he set up shopin an unobtrusive office building
(03:34):
and put out an ad seeking pupilswith an earnest desire to save the world.
The book's narrator visits Ishmael,and they begin having some pretty heady
conversations about humanity, mythologyand civilization.
Our narrator learns that Ishmael believesthat the world's dominant culture
is not unlike a caged animal in a zoo,
(03:56):
that we, too, are captives.
And as Ishmael proposes,the thing holding us captive,
the bars of ourmetaphorical cage is a story.
And this story
has led to disastrous results.
In today's episode, we're going to findthe story holding us captive.
And then by the end of the Ishmael series,
(04:19):
will have begun to tell a new one.
Before we get any further,I want to make sure covering all my bases
here, speaking to the many agedemographics with us today.
We started the episode with Mitchierepresenting the kindergarten demographic.
But let me just take a moment to talkspecifically with a group of people
I haven't given much attention to so far.
(04:40):
Babies.
Sorry it's taken me so long to addressyou guys specifically.
I know that babies out theredidn't choose to listen to this.
It's not your faultyour parent and or legal guardian
is trying to listento something on the way
to acro yoga or likes to play podcastsin the background while folding sucks.
But to the babies stucklistening to this today
(05:01):
on behalf of the adults in the world,let me just say I get it.
You'rejust being introduced into the world
and it doesn't make any sense. Hungry?
You're tired. Too cold. You're too hot.
Funny white pants are a little wet.
You might have some questions for us.
And that's fair.
Why is the sky blue?
(05:22):
Why is nighttime dark?
If I can put food in my mouth,why can't I put it up my nose?
Why don't adults wear diapers?
Do they just pee in their pants?
All perfectly reasonable questions,but just know the answer.
Your questions might change dependingon what culture you're raised in.
Oh, what's culture?
Good question.
(05:42):
There's lots of different waysto define culture.
The book I've been talking about,this book called Ishmael, defines
culture as, quote,a people who enact a shared story.
What does it mean to enact the story?
Well,it means to act out a story in real life.
Now, a culture doesn't act outjust any story,
(06:04):
only a very special, importantkind of story.
A mythology, what's right.
A mythology
is a story that has to do with really big,important
things like humanity, the whole world,and the gods.
Pretty soonand it's probably already started.
(06:25):
You'll begin to learn our culturesmythology.
Now, the funny thing is, no one tells youthis is our mythology.
In fact, cultures don't usually thinkof their mythology as a mythology.
They just think of it as the truth.
Also, no one's going to sit you downand tell you the story all at once.
It doesn't work like that.
(06:46):
Your parentswill probably give you some answers.
Maybe you'll pick some stuff up offan episode of SpongeBob.
Green Some wisdom hereand there from the Cat in the Hat.
But our culture's mythology.
It's kind of subtle. It's the background.
And the reason why you won't hearthe whole story out loud is because
the things we tend to all agree onare the things that get taken for granted.
(07:08):
And when things are taken for granted,they rarely have to be mentioned that.
Well, you probably noticethat some of the smaller details
and versions of the story may be a bitdifferent depending who you talk to.
For example, your mom might letyou wear shoes in the house
and your friend's mom might be a no shoeswearing hippie.
But ultimately, they both thinkwe're supposed to live in a house.
(07:31):
In fact,because they both agree about this,
you're probably never hear them have tosay, we're supposed to live in a house.
It'll just be the assumption.
So then the lateryou find out that you live in
something called a country,and in your country,
people think it's good to driveon a certain side of the road.
One day you might go to another countryand find that people there
(07:52):
believe, No, no, no, no.
The other side of the road.
Now, that's beside the driver.
Again, these differences, ultimately,they're trivial.
What they both agree onand therefore don't talk about
is that we've got to be drivingand it's got to be on a road.
But the really big story, the mythologythat our culture tells, isn't
really about wearing shoes in the houseor driving on one side of the road.
(08:15):
It's about something much largerthan that, something called civilization.
Did this make any sense?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I'm going to go back to talking
with the older people,but hey, you're doing great.
Keep doing your baby thing.
I'm rooting for you.
You're working for.
Okay. Hey, guys, I'm back.
(08:36):
We were just talking about baby stuff.
It's all things you already know.
So I first read Ishmael when I was 14.
And when I got to the partwhere Ishmael tells
the narrator that civilization is a story,our culture acts out, I immediately
understood, Oh, it's an imaginary gameand I love the imaginary.
Yes, catch me on the playgroundat animal mentary.
(08:58):
I would have been totally immersedin a pokemon battle on the swing
set with Mitchell and Elliott,but by the time I hit middle school,
I started feeling embarrassedabout playing imaginary games.
It didn't seem like a very grownup thing to do.
Don't get me wrong, I still totally didsecretly in my basement,
even all through high school.
Like, for example,
I made up this country lasagna,which was founded in the year 2000.
(09:21):
After a decade long conflict with Franceover a new piece of land that just formed
thanks to volcanic eruptionsin the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
I would be in that world for hours
left.
Voting as
founding father and first electedpresident was also named Alex off anyway.
But by 14,when I was first reading Ishmael,
I already had way less timefor imaginary games than I used to.
(09:45):
I was too busy going to school,being taught by teachers
who tell us all about the real worldthey were preparing us for.
Just wait until you get to the real world.
They say that to you.
I always thought that was weirdbecause, like, Mr.
Huggins, aren'tyou here in school with us all day?
If this isn't the real world,what are you doing?
So when Ishmael talkedabout enacting a story, it made total
(10:07):
sense to me that this real worldI was supposedly being prepared
for was some kind of imaginary gamefor grownups.
Instead of Pokemon and Star Wars,it was homework and grades,
and then eventually it would be jobsand paychecks,
bureaucracies and nation states.
It's all the acting out of a really weird,
(10:29):
incredibly elaborateand often boring, imaginary game.
Yet the consequences are very real,and the stakes are very high.
And it wasn't just my suburban townof Cheltenham that was part of this game.
It was being enacted worldwide by a dominant culture that Ishmael calls the takers
in. Ishmael.
(10:49):
The takers are the ones who are acting outthe story that's destroying the world.
And this isn't some kind of cultor special group.
This is a very broad categoryat this point in history.
Most of the worlds have been ropedinto the dominant culture of the Tigers.
In the next episode,
we're going to really explore who Ishmaelconsiders part of this huge group.
But chances are, if you're listeningto this, you believe in what Ishmael
(11:11):
called tiger civilization
and the story.
The Tigers act out the story that holds uscaptive
is take your mythology.
Now, as an aside, for thosewho are familiar
(11:32):
with Ishmael and Daniel Quinn's books,the term he uses for this collective
mythology is mother culture,which lets him personify
this mysterious social forceas if it's a person whispering to us
these subtle messagesthat influence our behavior.
I find the gendered languageof mother culture unnecessary.
(11:52):
So instead, I'll be using the term
take mythology,which I think is more precise anyway.
Okay.
So as I was trying to explain to our babylisteners
here, you'll never really hearthe mythology spoken out loud.
It exists subtly in bits and pieces.
Yeah.
And what Ishmael does is weave together
these fragments into a cohesive narrative.
(12:16):
One simple story that if we tell out loud,maybe we'll see that it's just a story
on how to stop enacting itand start to act out a
new one.
(12:36):
According to Ishmael, take your mythology.
Like all goodmythologies begins with the creation myth.
There are many versions of our culturescreation myth.
One of the most well-knownis a very ancient story
passed downorally for countless generations
before being transcribed into what is nowknown as the first book of the Bible.
(12:57):
The Book of Genesis.
You know the story.
It's the storyof how God created the world.
FirstGod said, Let there be light separated.
The heavens from the earthmade the oceans.
Blah, blah, blah.
Over a few days.
Made yieldingseeds of every kind, the marijuana
and then every creeping thingthat creepeth upon the earth.
(13:19):
And then finally, by being bloom,God created humankind in God's image.
And God told Adam and Eve and I quote
To go fill the earth and subdue it
and have dominion over the fish of the seaand over the birds of the air,
and over every living thingthat moves upon the earth. Wow.
(13:41):
So what's the moral of thisbiblical creation story?
What's it telling usabout our place in the world?
Because it's not like God createdjellyfish
last and told jellyfishto have dominion over the earth.
I'm kind of getting the vibethat the world was made for us.
This is the premiseof Take Your Mythology.
(14:03):
The fundamental assumption, according toIshmael, that our entire culture
is based on thatthe world was made for us.
And if the world was made for us,then that would mean Adam and Eve
and all their descendantswould be within their right
to go around treating the worldlike it was made for us.
Dammingthe world's rivers, plowing its fields,
(14:25):
filling its swamps, clearing its forests.
And here's the thing
even if this is not a story you believeliterally, even if you don't think God
really spoke to Adam and Eve telling themthey had dominion over the earth,
the mythological imprint is still there,and not just in Abrahamic religions,
the Judeo-Christian Islamic world,or even the religious world in general.
(14:47):
In fact, the same messagethe core of the take or creation
myth can be conveyedeven without any religious language.
You can call humans the dominant speciesor the most evolved form of consciousness.
Either way, it's conveyingthat humans are the pinnacle of creation.
All of life was leading to us,
which is not actually what science says.
(15:10):
It's our mythology,speaking in scientific language.
There's a quote by the authorand conservationists utterly appalled
that I think speaks to this well,writing in 1949, Leopold wrote,
It is a century now
since Darwin gave us the first glimpseof the origin of Species.
We know now what was unknown toall the preceding caravan of generations.
(15:32):
That man is only fellow voyagerswith other creatures.
In the odyssey of evolution.
This new
knowledge should have given usby this time,
a sense of kinship with fellow creatures,a wish to live and let live,
a sense of wonder over the magnitudeand duration of the biotic enterprise.
What are we appalled as sayingis that even though most of us understand
(15:55):
we weren't created separatelybut evolved with the rest of life.
It seems our old relationship withthe world has been maintained.
Even if we understandwe're one of many creatures on this earth.
We still actas if we're the ones made in God's image.
The confusing world.
I was growing up in the world of suburbsand cities and the looming development
(16:17):
of Ashbourne Country Clubstarted to make a bit more sense to me.
At least I could start to seewhy we were acting this way.
As I went about my day,I could see the evidence of our taker
cultureacting like the world belongs to us.
It was playing out not just in large scale
epic ways, like the blasting awayof million year old mountaintops
(16:40):
for an energy source that gets used upin just one human lifetime,
but all the way downto even the most mundane things.
Here's an example not from Ishmael,but from me of the story.
The world belongs to us being acted out.
Have you ever gone to some big ass store?
Let's say HomeDepot to do your Sunday shopping.
You can come with me and my dad
(17:00):
while he looks for the right toolsto fix our gutter.
As we complete the trek from our car
across the once forest,now barren asphalt parking lot.
You'll notice the big signwelcoming you to Home Depot.
The giant letters tower over uslike ancient monuments
and then the crevicesof each massive letter.
You notice something despitethe welcoming message of the word home.
(17:23):
There are metal spikeslike the barbed wire
stopping the encroachment of enemy lines.
But these are little metal spikesfor very little enemies.
These metal spikes go by different nameslike bird
deterrent spikes or anti bird nails.
And on Amazon, they advertisethat these spikes will let you repel
(17:44):
flying pestsor make any area owning free zone.
That's right.
Not only the bird's habitat was clearedfor the parking lot
and accompanying building,
but even the letters of the freakin signare lined with steel spikes
to make sure that no bird could dare makethe sign that says Home be their home.
And it's not just the signs on buildings.
It's on the roofs of parking
(18:05):
lots, the sides of bridges,the tops of stadium lights.
But what about the birds?
Where can they make a nest?
As someone who gives a shit,the world was made for us.
So if Ishmael, the gorilla, askssomeone why
there's all those metal spikes to keep offbirds, he'd probably get the answers.
Well, you can't have pigeons
taking roost on their buildings,or it's more humane than killing them.
(18:26):
But what Ishmael would hear deep downin the subtle unsaid message
of those reasons is that they believethe world belongs to them.
Okay, so we have the creation myth down
and an oddly specific bird based exampleof what it means to act out.
The world was made for us.
That's just the prolog of take mythology.
(18:47):
That's the opening credits.
The movie's just getting started.
Ishmael dividesthe rest of the story into three parts.
The beginning, the middle and the end.
So let us continue with
the beginning
way, way,way before we get into the real action.
You need to introduce a special toolfor us to use on our journey.
(19:10):
This isn't from Ishmael.
It's a gift from me.
I call it the take your mythology hat.
It's an imaginary hat.
But as we're seeing, imaginary games takenseriously have real power.
We each wear our own imaginary.
Take your hat.Your hat can look any way you want.
Maybe some feathers, pearls and diamonds.
(19:30):
Maybe it's that kind of hat with a littlespinning fan thing on top, you know?
My take your hat is a black top hatbecause I think top hats on Reddit.
It also has googly eyes.
So what's the point of this hat?
Well, we're all opinionatedcritical thinkers here,
we think for ourselves,and that's very important.
But what this hat does is temporarilyturn off our own ideas
(19:52):
so we can tap into a more general culturalsense of things.
The conventional wisdomwhen we wear the take your mythology hat,
we're able to ask not what we think,but what our overall culture thinks.
The hive mind, you know.
So with the help of our newTake Your Hat, let's get to
the beginning of take your mythology.
(20:15):
In the beginning of Take Your Mythology,Ishmael points out,
the world may have been made for humans,but humans didn't realize this right away.
Picture Adam and Eve running aroundnaked in the Garden of Eden.
Just a little leaf covering them up.
Okay.
Sorry, Adam. The leaf wasn't that little,
but back then, humanity livedlike any other animal.
(20:36):
What does it mean to live like an animal?
Okay, this is where I take your mythology
hat comes in putting mine on.
If I listen closely,I can hear it starting to talk to me.
Hey, how you doing?
Always a pleasure to be up hereon your head.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for being here.Take your mythology hat.
We were hoping we could ask yousome questions today.
(20:58):
And, you know, I love giving advice.
First,I'm going to give a free to it, my friend.
Dandruff shampoo.
Okay.
Thanks for that.
Remember, we're not trying to arguewith the take your hat here.
It's valuable information for usto just listen to what he says for now.
So take your mythology hat.
(21:18):
Yeah.
I wanted to ask you,what's the general sense
our culture has of what it means to livelike an animal?
What do you picture?
Hmm? Okay. Okay.
To live like an animal.
So is it like a Disney moviewhere all the woodland creatures
spend their time dancingand singing with each other?
Yeah. No, I'm not buying that.
(21:39):
Life was terrible backthen for you humans.
You guys are barely scraping by.
Ah, I see.
I actually sent some of these hatsto a few friends of mine as well
and asked them what their takeyour hat tells them about what
living like an animal was like back then.
Okay, I'm
going to put on my tigermythology hat here.
(22:02):
My head is telling methat when humans were living like animals,
they're probably hiding a lotand everything was out of our control.
Hmm. Yeah.
My hat, as we were just, like, wastingour time and didn't have tools then just.
We weren't advancing.
Okay, so my hat is saying that to live
(22:24):
like an animal is to be constantly afraid.
So do those othertake your hat sound right to you?
Yeah.
I mean, imagine a pack of wild wolvestearing you to shreds.
The terrorof becoming someone's meal at any moment.
Every step you take could be your last.
You ever heard that poem NatureRed in Tooth and Claw?
You wouldn't like thattooth and claw, my friend.
(22:46):
Yeah. It doesn't sound great.Well, thanks.
Take your head.
You've disturbed me greatly. Any time.
Let me take you out for a minute.
This reminds me of that old linethat humanity's origins were
nasty, brutish and short.
And when Thomas Hobbes, the Englishphilosopher, wrote that line back
(23:07):
during the Enlightenment, he wasn't sayinganything that controversial.
He was just articulating the generalcultural viewpoint at that time.
The 17th centuryEuropean version of Take Your Mythology.
The full quote of the nasty,brutish and short line is in Thomas Hobbes
book Leviathan, written in 1651.
(23:28):
He's describingwhat life for humans was like back
in the day,what he calls the state of nature.
Here's the full quote.
In such condition, the state of nature,there is no place for industry
because the fruit thereof is uncertainand consequently no culture of the earth,
no navigation, no use of the commoditiesthat may be imported by sea.
(23:51):
No commodious building.
No instruments of moving and removingsuch things as require much force,
no knowledge of the face of the earth,
no account of time,no arts, no letters, no society.
And which is worst of all, continual fearand danger.
A violent deathand the life of man, solitary, poor,
(24:16):
nasty, brutish and short.
Where did Hobbs get this idea
that this is what it's like to liveas an animal in the state of nature?
Sure.
I mean, the beaver is not sitting down
to write anyone a letter,but is it living in continual fear?
And who are we to call a nasty?
Was this idea coming from some pure place
(24:37):
within the logic of Thomas Hobbes mind,or was he wearing his own?
Take your head and regurgitatinga bit of taken mythology.
The irony is Leviathan was writtenduring the European Enlightenment
when long held religious beliefswere supposedly being challenged.
This last quote from ThomasHobbes is a great
example of how the mythology of long ago,even without religious
(25:01):
language, filtersinto so-called secular thought.
And it's not that the oppositeof what Hobbes is saying is really true.
Instead, I'm
definitely not saying Beavers live foreverand playing Nintendo all day.
What Ishmael wants us to examineis when our ideas about the world
are really just taking or mythologyspeaking through us.
(25:22):
So back to Ishmael.
According to our mythology,as the narrator puts it, to live
like an animal is to live, quote,at the mercy of the world
without having any controlover the environment.
Unquote.
I'm going to put on my take your hat againand try to sense
where the story goes next.
(25:42):
Okay.
So the issue with living like an animalis that the world was made for humans.
That's the premise,to take the mythology. Right.
And if the world was made for humans andhumans can't live by the world's rules,
the wolf supposed to live by humans,just like God told Adam and Eve.
If the world was made for humans, humansat the Mastering Mastery.
(26:04):
And how are we supposed to do that?
Well, this is the perfect timefor a quick word from our sponsor.
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(26:25):
First, settlementgives rise to the division of labor.
Then division of laborgives rise to technology.
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You're not meant to liveat the mercy of the gods.
You're supposed to take mattersinto your own hands.
Go ahead, master your environment.
(26:45):
What do you thinkthat big brand of yours is for, anyway?
Fracking. Coconuts. Civilization.
More fun than a pillow fight.
That's right.
And if humanityis the pinnacle of creation or evolution,
I don't pick sides that civilizationis the pinnacle of humanity.
(27:06):
Know what I'm saying?
Besides, the world needed you guys.
You humans. Really?
Why did the world need us?
Well, because without humans,the world is complete chaos.
It's a dog eat dog world out there,almost jungle, total anarchy.
And who's the kind of personwho brings order to anarchy?
I guess some kind of rule.
(27:28):
A dictator or something? That's right.
Humans are supposed to be the kingsof nature, the emperors of the world.
Ah ha.
Okay, then we can add a key detailto our original premise.
The world was made for humans.
Well,add and humans were meant to rule it.
The story is startingto take some shape here.
(27:48):
This brings us
to the middle of your mythology.
Oh, this is a good point.
It gets exciting.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You see, there's a plot twist.
What's that?
Well, sure.
Humans were meant to rule the world, but
(28:09):
it sure seems like Goddidn't tell the world that.
Let's phone a friend againand ask what they're.
Take your head. Tells them.
When humans set out to rule the world.
What happened?
So nature fought back.
Nature used guerrilla tactics,
which is what happens when you're fightingand occupying force.
(28:33):
The worlddidn't know what was good for it.
We came in like the substitute teacher
and the class just wouldn't listen.
And if the people won't submit to theking's rule and what does he have to do?
He has to conquer them.
Ishmael describes it like this.
What man?
Build up the wind and rain tore downthe fields.
(28:56):
He cleared for his crops in his villages.
The jungle fought to reclaim the seedshe sowed.
The birds snatched away, the shootshe nurtured, the insects nibbled,
the harvest he stored, the mice plundered,the animals he bred
and fed the wolves and foxes, stole awaythe mountains.
The riversand the oceans stood in their places
(29:16):
and would not make way for the earthquake,the flood, the hurricane,
the blizzard and the droughtwould not disappear at his command.
In order to make himselfthe ruler of the world,
man first had to conquering
this part of take.
The mythology is constantlybeing acted out around us to this day.
On the peaceful ones, my suburbanchildhood, you could watch
(29:39):
and hear the battlefor human supremacy waging.
Every autumn, the leaves change
to spectacular colorsand gently fall to the ground.
What a precious, miraculous eventwe get to witness every year.
But lost in the take your mindset.
This becomes a grievous threatand great effort
is put into collecting these leaves,stuffing them in the plastic bags
(30:02):
and hauling them awaylike they're trash for the landfill.
And with the invention of the gas poweredleaf blowers from the crack of dawn
till an hour after sunset, you can hearthe nonstop battle with the leaves
and take your culture.
I guess getting these leaves islandsis more important
than getting some peace and quiet.
(30:26):
So we've covered the creation myth,
the beginning and the middle oftake your mythology.
So far it goes the world was made for usand we were meant to rule it.
And when the world doesn'tget with the program,
we've got to enforce our rule.
We've now arrived at the end of
Take Your Mythology.
(30:56):
So has humanity conquered the world yet?
Have we done it?
Did we win?
No, we haven't yet.
I mean, the world'seven harder to control.
The oceans are rising.
Wildfires are worse.
There are more floods.
What's the problem here?
Why haven't we conquered the world yet?
(31:17):
It's like we've grown too strong.
And we're like a kidwho was wrestling with their dad.
But we're too strongto play, wrestle with them
now, and it's like we could actuallyhurt him at this point.
Turns out
our domination of the worldhas also devastated the world.
(31:37):
Oops.
In the last episode,we talked with Professor Keller
about how we're living in a time of massextinction.
And here's the strange thing.
You'd think that for your mythology,
this would be the unraveling of the story.
After all, taken
mythology is about a chosen speciesconquering the world, isn't it?
(31:59):
Wouldn't this ironic destructionof the world kind of ruin the plot?
Well, Ishmael suggests taking mythology.
It was actually anticipating this ending.
How is the story supposed to end?
Take your hat. Oh, me?
Well, I can't see the future,but the way I see it,
I'm speaking on behalf of alltaking mythology here.
(32:20):
Of course, there are two possiblewanderings to the story.
Oh, yeah? Yeah.
All right, so, sure,there's a few serious crises on hand.
Wildfires, droughts, floods, homelessness,
famine, plagues,potential nuclear annihilation.
Yes, and don't worry,these are just more problems to solve.
And hey, I mean, you guys are prettydarn good at solving problems.
(32:42):
Am I right?
When you were too hot,you invented central air.
When you were too cold, you inventedspace heaters and electric blankets.
What I'm saying. Yeah, that's true.
You've got your greatest minds on it,my friend.
I bet ElonMusk is working on the ultimate anti
mass extinctiondrama contraption as we speak.
So what would the world look likeif takers eventually
(33:04):
fully conquered the world? Oh,that's easy.
The world will be a utopia.
A utopia? That's right.
It would only rain when you say rates.
Crops will grow with the snapyour fingers.
You get more energy from solar and nuclearfusion than you know what to do with.
Picture it.
Chrome highways, Golden Cities
and Oculus Rift for everyonein a way that makes sense.
(33:27):
I mean,
what's the point of conquering the worldif you don't think you're going to create
a better world?
And at the end of a betterworld is a perfect world.
And hey,I don't want to hype you up too much
here, but, uh, well, you know,what are we describing?
US taking over the whole world.
So go ahead.
Well, all I'm saying is,
so the gods made the world for humans,and humans were supposed to rule it.
(33:48):
Right.According to taker mythology. Right.
Well, maybe humans are supposedto become gods themselves.
Yeah, actually, I've heard the author,Yuval Harari, say a similar thing
in his recent and very popular books,Sapiens and Homo Deus.
He arguesthat's exactly what's supposed to happen,
that humanity is supposedto evolve into gods.
(34:10):
Ishmael would say, That's the perfectarticulation of the take or viewpoint.
Geez, again, with the Ishmael book, it'sjust for the Ishmael series.
I'm not going to talk about forever. Sure.
Whatever.
Anyway, Ishmael explains thetake your end goal like this.
Humans, quote,
have to go on conquering ituntil our rule is absolute.
Then when we're in complete control,everything will be fine.
(34:33):
All the life processes of this planetwill be where they belong,
where the gods meant them to be.
In our hands, and we'll manipulate themthe way the programmer
manipulates a computer, unquote.
But I don't know.
Looking at the world today, the wars,the pandemic, mass extinction,
it seems more chaotic than ever before.
(34:55):
Are we really supposed to be gods?
We seem like pretty crappy gods.
Well,maybe you just got to try harder, huh?
Patience. Trust the process.
Just keep advancing and doing your thing.
Don't worry about it.
So take your mythology.
Tells us the natural world was a lawlesschaos that we had to bring order to.
And if humans do what we're meant to do,conquer the world, master the environment,
(35:18):
then we can become like godsand live happily ever after.
Well, not so fast.
Not so fast.
What are you talking about?
I thought you'd agree. This ending.
I told you there's two possible endings.
Okay. What's the other one?
So you see, onone hand, humans could totally crush it
and make the world a perfect utopia.
(35:40):
Or. Or what?
Or you doomed.
You're just going to screw this uplike you always do.
What? Yeah.
You're probably going to destroy yourselfand the whole world, too.
My money's on that one.
So we're not supposed to be gods.
Taking mythology was wrong.
No, no, no. The exact opposite.
(36:01):
You are supposed to be gods.
But in the alternative,you're totally and completely doomed.
Well, why?
Why would we be doomed?
I told you, I can't see the future.
But I will tell you this.
If you screw this up, it won't be taken.
Mythologies fault. It'll be yours.
How is it?
You know the answer.
If you can't rule the worldlike you're supposed to.
(36:22):
It's because humans are too greedyto stupid, too shortsighted.
You're flawed.
You're inherently flawed.
So according to take your mythology,
we're either destined to conquer the worldor we're doomed to destroy it.
Pretty much.
Either the world is our enemyor one of the world's enemy. Yup.
(36:45):
I guess these seemcompletely contradictory,
but they're really two sidesof the same coin.
Both see us in conflict with the world.
Bingo. You got it.
Now, do you still need meor can I get going?
I got to whisper some things in the MarkZuckerberg.
He's about to make a big presentationon the metaverse, huh?
Oh, sure. Yeah.
Thanks to your.
(37:06):
I think that's all we need for today.
Hey, don't mention it.
I'm always happy to help.
Next time you want me to bringthe dandruff shampoo, what do you got?
I know, I know.I'll get some. Thank you. You're welcome.
Ooh. It's tempting to agree
with the second ending of taken mythologythat we're inherently flawed.
Maybe we are doomed to kill each otherand destroy the world.
(37:29):
That's just human nature.
It's like the secular versionof the Christian idea of original sin.
We're all flawed. We're all sinners.
But the takeyour heart isn't on our head anymore.
We can finally take it offand question its wisdom.
So is it a fact that humans are flawed?
Where in our DNA doesit show we're flawed?
(37:50):
Flawed compared to what?
Some ideal we can never live up to.
This isn't a fact. It's mythology.
We're not destined to act this way.
So to summarize,take the mythology that Ishmael outlines.
It's the world was made for us humans,and we're meant to rule it.
But the world is out of our control,so we must conquer it.
(38:13):
Under our rule,the world is supposed to be a paradise.
But if it all goes to hell, it'sbecause humans are flawed.
The world was made for us.
We are meant to rule.
You must conquer. It'll be a paradise.
We are due.
World is made here.And we must conquer. To be a pair.
We are made for us.We are meant to conquer.
It'll be a paradise we are meant to wear.
(38:35):
It'll be a apparent we are doomed.
This story has been playing outfor a long time.
The earliest takers, like the Sumerians
and Egyptians, were enacting this story
when they transformed their regionsinto agricultural superpowers.
(38:57):
The Greeks and Persiansand Romans were enacting this story
when they expanded their empiresover thousands of miles,
and the Western European monarchiesand nation states
were enacting this storywhen they colonized most of the world
and were still enactingthe story to this day.
Even if you don't believe thisstory is true,
(39:17):
we seem to be stuck acting it outall together.
Ishmael describes it like being an animalcaught in the stampede.
So it turns out the real world.
My teachers worked so hardto prepare me for
was born of this ancient mythology.
Back when I first read Ishmael and wasseeing the world, I was raised in a new.
(39:39):
I started to realize that adultsnever really stop playing imaginary games.
The difference?
Maybe unlike children, adultsforget they're playing.
What would happen if we could remember?
If we could kind of snap out of itand more clearly hear the story
rather than brush it offas background noise?
(40:02):
This story has become a reality.
We're locked in its cage,but at least now we can see the bars.
And from the bars of our cage,
we might start to noticewhat slips through the cracks.
Ishmael believes the reasonwhy we can't control
the world isn't because there'sa fundamental problem with us
(40:22):
that we're inherently greedyor innately selfish and destructive.
The problem is not that we're doinga bad job of enacting the story.
Enacting the story is the problem.
Okay.
We've been captives behind the barsof our cage for long enough.
Are you ready?
Careful now.
Let's make sure no one's watching.
(40:43):
And let's peerbeyond the bars of our cage.
Wait, wait, wait.
What do you do in that bus? Oh, hey.
What are you still doing here?
Killing time. I Uber's late.
So what were you saying?
I was saying that it's time for usto peer out beyond the bars of our cage.
Yeah, yeah. Listen.
Whatever you do, do not do that.
Why not? There's nothing to see there.
(41:05):
So if there's nothing to see,then there shouldn't be a problem.
No, no, no, no. Go, go. Take over
the takers.
Imagine the land beyondour cage is a virgin wilderness.
But there are other people hereand they're not takers.
(41:29):
They live very different livesbecause they enact a very different story.
Ishmael has a name for them too.
He calls them weavers.
And in the next episodewe're going to meet them.
Thanks for listening.
Today on the next episode of Human NatureOdyssey, we'll spend time
(41:52):
with the two groups.
Ishmael dividesthe world into the Takers and the Weavers
and explorethe clash as old as civilization itself.
Until next time.
Maybe you'll start to notice our culture'sdominant story.
Take your mythologyplaying out around you.
Can you see this story being acted out
like an imaginary game?
(42:14):
Talk to you soon.
Thank you.
To Mitchie, Juneau,Josie, Brian, Nora, Mark, Dana,
Dad, Joe and Haninfor helping create this episode.
The theme music you were listening towas Celestial Soda Pop by Ray Lynch,
and if you'd like to support Human
Nature Odyssey, please subscribewherever you enjoy your podcasts.
(42:36):
We have a review and basic humannature odyssey outcome.
Also, we do have a patriot where you'llfind additional materials just for you.
Each month there'll be bonusaudio episodes that dove deeper into
specific subjects writings, mini essays,and my recommendations for reading,
watching and listening on these topicswith my notes and commentary.
(42:56):
Your support makes this endeavor possible,and I'd love to hear what you think.
So leave a message on The Patriotand be a part of the conversation.
Oh. You think I'm going to interviewMickey for a podcast?
Have you ever listen to a podcast?
No. You can't let us do it.
So first you say we have a new guy,which is me media then.
And then like if you're having questionsabout animals, then
answered, would you like to say your nameand how old you are?
(00:21):
Nietzsche. I'm six.
I would love to talk about animals.
You said animals are a specialty of thethings you're interested in talking about.
Yeah.
If I were an alien coming to earth beforeand I've never seen an animal.
Could you tell me about some ofthe animals that are on our planet?
She talked about the skull.
(00:44):
It's a great animal.
I'm just going to talk about tigers.
You know, what's a tiger?
It's a big cat.
I lots of scrapes on itand it sneak in the floor
to catch its preyand jump out to eat its prey.
And why does dead.
(01:06):
So it can eat.
What kind of things is it?
Eat, eat, eat me
and nothing else.
So me is inside an animal.
It has a surprising effect.
What's the differencebetween a human and an animal?
(01:27):
Well, actually, humans aren't animals,but the difference
between humans and animals is like a lot.
Just animals are different that way.
Way different.
I can't talk about all the differences.
Humans are pretty weird animals, right?
(01:47):
We don't have fur on our skin.
We walk on our hind legs.
We can't fly in the air like birds.
We can't swim in the water like fish.
We, we, we.
We use invention to do that.
Exactly. Right, right, right.
I think everyone knew about inventions.
(02:08):
How would you explain to someonewho doesn't know anyone
who thinks this is someone who makes that?
They make it up and they make it real
so they can go under wateror they can fly in the sky.
So humans, even though we can't flylike birds or swim
like fish, we can make things thatlet us do those things.
(02:30):
Yeah,there's one thing that humans make up
that's maybe the most powerful at all.
Do you know what it is?
It's stories.
Yeah, stories.
Welcome to Episodethree of Human Nature Odyssey,
(02:52):
a podcast exploring how the storieshumans tell shaped the world.
I'm Alex Live.
(03:14):
This is the third installment
in our series on Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.
First, a quick recap in the last episode,we learned that Ishmael is a telepathic
gorilla who was raised in captivityand observed humanity
through the bars of his cage.
Once Ishmael was freed, he set up shopin an unobtrusive office building
(03:34):
and put out an ad seeking pupilswith an earnest desire to save the world.
The book's narrator visits Ishmael,and they begin having some pretty heady
conversations about humanity, mythologyand civilization.
Our narrator learns that Ishmael believesthat the world's dominant culture
is not unlike a caged animal in a zoo,
(03:56):
that we, too, are captives.
And as Ishmael proposes,the thing holding us captive,
the bars of ourmetaphorical cage is a story.
And this story
has led to disastrous results.
In today's episode, we're going to findthe story holding us captive.
And then by the end of the Ishmael series,
(04:19):
will have begun to tell a new one.
Before we get any further,I want to make sure covering all my bases
here, speaking to the many agedemographics with us today.
We started the episode with Mitchierepresenting the kindergarten demographic.
But let me just take a moment to talkspecifically with a group of people
I haven't given much attention to so far.
(04:40):
Babies.
Sorry it's taken me so long to addressyou guys specifically.
I know that babies out theredidn't choose to listen to this.
It's not your faultyour parent and or legal guardian
is trying to listento something on the way
to acro yoga or likes to play podcastsin the background while folding sucks.
But to the babies stucklistening to this today
(05:01):
on behalf of the adults in the world,let me just say I get it.
You'rejust being introduced into the world
and it doesn't make any sense. Hungry?
You're tired. Too cold. You're too hot.
Funny white pants are a little wet.
You might have some questions for us.
And that's fair.
Why is the sky blue?
(05:22):
Why is nighttime dark?
If I can put food in my mouth,why can't I put it up my nose?
Why don't adults wear diapers?
Do they just pee in their pants?
All perfectly reasonable questions,but just know the answer.
Your questions might change dependingon what culture you're raised in.
Oh, what's culture?
Good question.
(05:42):
There's lots of different waysto define culture.
The book I've been talking about,this book called Ishmael, defines
culture as, quote,a people who enact a shared story.
What does it mean to enact the story?
Well,it means to act out a story in real life.
Now, a culture doesn't act outjust any story,
(06:04):
only a very special, importantkind of story.
A mythology, what's right.
A mythology
is a story that has to do with really big,important
things like humanity, the whole world,and the gods.
Pretty soonand it's probably already started.
(06:25):
You'll begin to learn our culturesmythology.
Now, the funny thing is, no one tells youthis is our mythology.
In fact, cultures don't usually thinkof their mythology as a mythology.
They just think of it as the truth.
Also, no one's going to sit you downand tell you the story all at once.
It doesn't work like that.
(06:46):
Your parentswill probably give you some answers.
Maybe you'll pick some stuff up offan episode of SpongeBob.
Green Some wisdom hereand there from the Cat in the Hat.
But our culture's mythology.
It's kind of subtle. It's the background.
And the reason why you won't hearthe whole story out loud is because
the things we tend to all agree onare the things that get taken for granted.
(07:08):
And when things are taken for granted,they rarely have to be mentioned that.
Well, you probably noticethat some of the smaller details
and versions of the story may be a bitdifferent depending who you talk to.
For example, your mom might letyou wear shoes in the house
and your friend's mom might be a no shoeswearing hippie.
But ultimately, they both thinkwe're supposed to live in a house.
(07:31):
In fact,because they both agree about this,
you're probably never hear them have tosay, we're supposed to live in a house.
It'll just be the assumption.
So then the lateryou find out that you live in
something called a country,and in your country,
people think it's good to driveon a certain side of the road.
One day you might go to another countryand find that people there
(07:52):
believe, No, no, no, no.
The other side of the road.
Now, that's beside the driver.
Again, these differences, ultimately,they're trivial.
What they both agree onand therefore don't talk about
is that we've got to be drivingand it's got to be on a road.
But the really big story, the mythologythat our culture tells, isn't
really about wearing shoes in the houseor driving on one side of the road.
(08:15):
It's about something much largerthan that, something called civilization.
Did this make any sense?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I'm going to go back to talking
with the older people,but hey, you're doing great.
Keep doing your baby thing.
I'm rooting for you.
You're working for.
Okay. Hey, guys, I'm back.
(08:36):
We were just talking about baby stuff.
It's all things you already know.
So I first read Ishmael when I was 14.
And when I got to the partwhere Ishmael tells
the narrator that civilization is a story,our culture acts out, I immediately
understood, Oh, it's an imaginary gameand I love the imaginary.
Yes, catch me on the playgroundat animal mentary.
(08:58):
I would have been totally immersedin a pokemon battle on the swing
set with Mitchell and Elliott,but by the time I hit middle school,
I started feeling embarrassedabout playing imaginary games.
It didn't seem like a very grownup thing to do.
Don't get me wrong, I still totally didsecretly in my basement,
even all through high school.
Like, for example,
I made up this country lasagna,which was founded in the year 2000.
(09:21):
After a decade long conflict with Franceover a new piece of land that just formed
thanks to volcanic eruptionsin the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
I would be in that world for hours
left.
Voting as
founding father and first electedpresident was also named Alex off anyway.
But by 14,when I was first reading Ishmael,
I already had way less timefor imaginary games than I used to.
(09:45):
I was too busy going to school,being taught by teachers
who tell us all about the real worldthey were preparing us for.
Just wait until you get to the real world.
They say that to you.
I always thought that was weirdbecause, like, Mr.
Huggins, aren'tyou here in school with us all day?
If this isn't the real world,what are you doing?
So when Ishmael talkedabout enacting a story, it made total
(10:07):
sense to me that this real worldI was supposedly being prepared
for was some kind of imaginary gamefor grownups.
Instead of Pokemon and Star Wars,it was homework and grades,
and then eventually it would be jobsand paychecks,
bureaucracies and nation states.
It's all the acting out of a really weird,
(10:29):
incredibly elaborateand often boring, imaginary game.
Yet the consequences are very real,and the stakes are very high.
And it wasn't just my suburban townof Cheltenham that was part of this game.
It was being enacted worldwide by a dominant culture that Ishmael calls the takers
in. Ishmael.
(10:49):
The takers are the ones who are acting outthe story that's destroying the world.
And this isn't some kind of cultor special group.
This is a very broad categoryat this point in history.
Most of the worlds have been ropedinto the dominant culture of the Tigers.
In the next episode,
we're going to really explore who Ishmaelconsiders part of this huge group.
But chances are, if you're listeningto this, you believe in what Ishmael
(11:11):
called tiger civilization
and the story.
The Tigers act out the story that holds uscaptive
is take your mythology.
Now, as an aside, for thosewho are familiar
(11:32):
with Ishmael and Daniel Quinn's books,the term he uses for this collective
mythology is mother culture,which lets him personify
this mysterious social forceas if it's a person whispering to us
these subtle messagesthat influence our behavior.
I find the gendered languageof mother culture unnecessary.
(11:52):
So instead, I'll be using the term
take mythology,which I think is more precise anyway.
Okay.
So as I was trying to explain to our babylisteners
here, you'll never really hearthe mythology spoken out loud.
It exists subtly in bits and pieces.
Yeah.
And what Ishmael does is weave together
these fragments into a cohesive narrative.
(12:16):
One simple story that if we tell out loud,maybe we'll see that it's just a story
on how to stop enacting itand start to act out a
new one.
(12:36):
According to Ishmael, take your mythology.
Like all goodmythologies begins with the creation myth.
There are many versions of our culturescreation myth.
One of the most well-knownis a very ancient story
passed downorally for countless generations
before being transcribed into what is nowknown as the first book of the Bible.
(12:57):
The Book of Genesis.
You know the story.
It's the storyof how God created the world.
FirstGod said, Let there be light separated.
The heavens from the earthmade the oceans.
Blah, blah, blah.
Over a few days.
Made yieldingseeds of every kind, the marijuana
and then every creeping thingthat creepeth upon the earth.
(13:19):
And then finally, by being bloom,God created humankind in God's image.
And God told Adam and Eve and I quote
To go fill the earth and subdue it
and have dominion over the fish of the seaand over the birds of the air,
and over every living thingthat moves upon the earth. Wow.
(13:41):
So what's the moral of thisbiblical creation story?
What's it telling usabout our place in the world?
Because it's not like God createdjellyfish
last and told jellyfishto have dominion over the earth.
I'm kind of getting the vibethat the world was made for us.
This is the premiseof Take Your Mythology.
(14:03):
The fundamental assumption, according toIshmael, that our entire culture
is based on thatthe world was made for us.
And if the world was made for us,then that would mean Adam and Eve
and all their descendantswould be within their right
to go around treating the worldlike it was made for us.
Dammingthe world's rivers, plowing its fields,
(14:25):
filling its swamps, clearing its forests.
And here's the thing
even if this is not a story you believeliterally, even if you don't think God
really spoke to Adam and Eve telling themthey had dominion over the earth,
the mythological imprint is still there,and not just in Abrahamic religions,
the Judeo-Christian Islamic world,or even the religious world in general.
(14:47):
In fact, the same messagethe core of the take or creation
myth can be conveyedeven without any religious language.
You can call humans the dominant speciesor the most evolved form of consciousness.
Either way, it's conveyingthat humans are the pinnacle of creation.
All of life was leading to us,
which is not actually what science says.
(15:10):
It's our mythology,speaking in scientific language.
There's a quote by the authorand conservationists utterly appalled
that I think speaks to this well,writing in 1949, Leopold wrote,
It is a century now
since Darwin gave us the first glimpseof the origin of Species.
We know now what was unknown toall the preceding caravan of generations.
(15:32):
That man is only fellow voyagerswith other creatures.
In the odyssey of evolution.
This new
knowledge should have given usby this time,
a sense of kinship with fellow creatures,a wish to live and let live,
a sense of wonder over the magnitudeand duration of the biotic enterprise.
What are we appalled as sayingis that even though most of us understand
(15:55):
we weren't created separatelybut evolved with the rest of life.
It seems our old relationship withthe world has been maintained.
Even if we understandwe're one of many creatures on this earth.
We still actas if we're the ones made in God's image.
The confusing world.
I was growing up in the world of suburbsand cities and the looming development
(16:17):
of Ashbourne Country Clubstarted to make a bit more sense to me.
At least I could start to seewhy we were acting this way.
As I went about my day,I could see the evidence of our taker
cultureacting like the world belongs to us.
It was playing out not just in large scale
epic ways, like the blasting awayof million year old mountaintops
(16:40):
for an energy source that gets used upin just one human lifetime,
but all the way downto even the most mundane things.
Here's an example not from Ishmael,but from me of the story.
The world belongs to us being acted out.
Have you ever gone to some big ass store?
Let's say HomeDepot to do your Sunday shopping.
You can come with me and my dad
(17:00):
while he looks for the right toolsto fix our gutter.
As we complete the trek from our car
across the once forest,now barren asphalt parking lot.
You'll notice the big signwelcoming you to Home Depot.
The giant letters tower over uslike ancient monuments
and then the crevicesof each massive letter.
You notice something despitethe welcoming message of the word home.
(17:23):
There are metal spikeslike the barbed wire
stopping the encroachment of enemy lines.
But these are little metal spikesfor very little enemies.
These metal spikes go by different nameslike bird
deterrent spikes or anti bird nails.
And on Amazon, they advertisethat these spikes will let you repel
(17:44):
flying pestsor make any area owning free zone.
That's right.
Not only the bird's habitat was clearedfor the parking lot
and accompanying building,
but even the letters of the freakin signare lined with steel spikes
to make sure that no bird could dare makethe sign that says Home be their home.
And it's not just the signs on buildings.
It's on the roofs of parking
(18:05):
lots, the sides of bridges,the tops of stadium lights.
But what about the birds?
Where can they make a nest?
As someone who gives a shit,the world was made for us.
So if Ishmael, the gorilla, askssomeone why
there's all those metal spikes to keep offbirds, he'd probably get the answers.
Well, you can't have pigeons
taking roost on their buildings,or it's more humane than killing them.
(18:26):
But what Ishmael would hear deep downin the subtle unsaid message
of those reasons is that they believethe world belongs to them.
Okay, so we have the creation myth down
and an oddly specific bird based exampleof what it means to act out.
The world was made for us.
That's just the prolog of take mythology.
(18:47):
That's the opening credits.
The movie's just getting started.
Ishmael dividesthe rest of the story into three parts.
The beginning, the middle and the end.
So let us continue with
the beginning
way, way,way before we get into the real action.
You need to introduce a special toolfor us to use on our journey.
(19:10):
This isn't from Ishmael.
It's a gift from me.
I call it the take your mythology hat.
It's an imaginary hat.
But as we're seeing, imaginary games takenseriously have real power.
We each wear our own imaginary.
Take your hat.Your hat can look any way you want.
Maybe some feathers, pearls and diamonds.
(19:30):
Maybe it's that kind of hat with a littlespinning fan thing on top, you know?
My take your hat is a black top hatbecause I think top hats on Reddit.
It also has googly eyes.
So what's the point of this hat?
Well, we're all opinionatedcritical thinkers here,
we think for ourselves,and that's very important.
But what this hat does is temporarilyturn off our own ideas
(19:52):
so we can tap into a more general culturalsense of things.
The conventional wisdomwhen we wear the take your mythology hat,
we're able to ask not what we think,but what our overall culture thinks.
The hive mind, you know.
So with the help of our newTake Your Hat, let's get to
the beginning of take your mythology.
(20:15):
In the beginning of Take Your Mythology,Ishmael points out,
the world may have been made for humans,but humans didn't realize this right away.
Picture Adam and Eve running aroundnaked in the Garden of Eden.
Just a little leaf covering them up.
Okay.
Sorry, Adam. The leaf wasn't that little,
but back then, humanity livedlike any other animal.
(20:36):
What does it mean to live like an animal?
Okay, this is where I take your mythology
hat comes in putting mine on.
If I listen closely,I can hear it starting to talk to me.
Hey, how you doing?
Always a pleasure to be up hereon your head.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for being here.Take your mythology hat.
We were hoping we could ask yousome questions today.
(20:58):
And, you know, I love giving advice.
First,I'm going to give a free to it, my friend.
Dandruff shampoo.
Okay.
Thanks for that.
Remember, we're not trying to arguewith the take your hat here.
It's valuable information for usto just listen to what he says for now.
So take your mythology hat.
(21:18):
Yeah.
I wanted to ask you,what's the general sense
our culture has of what it means to livelike an animal?
What do you picture?
Hmm? Okay. Okay.
To live like an animal.
So is it like a Disney moviewhere all the woodland creatures
spend their time dancingand singing with each other?
Yeah. No, I'm not buying that.
(21:39):
Life was terrible backthen for you humans.
You guys are barely scraping by.
Ah, I see.
I actually sent some of these hatsto a few friends of mine as well
and asked them what their takeyour hat tells them about what
living like an animal was like back then.
Okay, I'm
going to put on my tigermythology hat here.
(22:02):
My head is telling methat when humans were living like animals,
they're probably hiding a lotand everything was out of our control.
Hmm. Yeah.
My hat, as we were just, like, wastingour time and didn't have tools then just.
We weren't advancing.
Okay, so my hat is saying that to live
(22:24):
like an animal is to be constantly afraid.
So do those othertake your hat sound right to you?
Yeah.
I mean, imagine a pack of wild wolvestearing you to shreds.
The terrorof becoming someone's meal at any moment.
Every step you take could be your last.
You ever heard that poem NatureRed in Tooth and Claw?
You wouldn't like thattooth and claw, my friend.
(22:46):
Yeah. It doesn't sound great.Well, thanks.
Take your head.
You've disturbed me greatly. Any time.
Let me take you out for a minute.
This reminds me of that old linethat humanity's origins were
nasty, brutish and short.
And when Thomas Hobbes, the Englishphilosopher, wrote that line back
(23:07):
during the Enlightenment, he wasn't sayinganything that controversial.
He was just articulating the generalcultural viewpoint at that time.
The 17th centuryEuropean version of Take Your Mythology.
The full quote of the nasty,brutish and short line is in Thomas Hobbes
book Leviathan, written in 1651.
(23:28):
He's describingwhat life for humans was like back
in the day,what he calls the state of nature.
Here's the full quote.
In such condition, the state of nature,there is no place for industry
because the fruit thereof is uncertainand consequently no culture of the earth,
no navigation, no use of the commoditiesthat may be imported by sea.
(23:51):
No commodious building.
No instruments of moving and removingsuch things as require much force,
no knowledge of the face of the earth,
no account of time,no arts, no letters, no society.
And which is worst of all, continual fearand danger.
A violent deathand the life of man, solitary, poor,
(24:16):
nasty, brutish and short.
Where did Hobbs get this idea
that this is what it's like to liveas an animal in the state of nature?
Sure.
I mean, the beaver is not sitting down
to write anyone a letter,but is it living in continual fear?
And who are we to call a nasty?
Was this idea coming from some pure place
(24:37):
within the logic of Thomas Hobbes mind,or was he wearing his own?
Take your head and regurgitatinga bit of taken mythology.
The irony is Leviathan was writtenduring the European Enlightenment
when long held religious beliefswere supposedly being challenged.
This last quote from ThomasHobbes is a great
example of how the mythology of long ago,even without religious
(25:01):
language, filtersinto so-called secular thought.
And it's not that the oppositeof what Hobbes is saying is really true.
Instead, I'm
definitely not saying Beavers live foreverand playing Nintendo all day.
What Ishmael wants us to examineis when our ideas about the world
are really just taking or mythologyspeaking through us.
(25:22):
So back to Ishmael.
According to our mythology,as the narrator puts it, to live
like an animal is to live, quote,at the mercy of the world
without having any controlover the environment.
Unquote.
I'm going to put on my take your hat againand try to sense
where the story goes next.
(25:42):
Okay.
So the issue with living like an animalis that the world was made for humans.
That's the premise,to take the mythology. Right.
And if the world was made for humans andhumans can't live by the world's rules,
the wolf supposed to live by humans,just like God told Adam and Eve.
If the world was made for humans, humansat the Mastering Mastery.
(26:04):
And how are we supposed to do that?
Well, this is the perfect timefor a quick word from our sponsor.
We have a sponsor.
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It's easy.
(26:25):
First, settlementgives rise to the division of labor.
Then division of laborgives rise to technology.
Follow these simple steps,and before you know it,
you'll be a part of civilization.
You're not meant to liveat the mercy of the gods.
You're supposed to take mattersinto your own hands.
Go ahead, master your environment.
(26:45):
What do you thinkthat big brand of yours is for, anyway?
Fracking. Coconuts. Civilization.
More fun than a pillow fight.
That's right.
And if humanityis the pinnacle of creation or evolution,
I don't pick sides that civilizationis the pinnacle of humanity.
(27:06):
Know what I'm saying?
Besides, the world needed you guys.
You humans. Really?
Why did the world need us?
Well, because without humans,the world is complete chaos.
It's a dog eat dog world out there,almost jungle, total anarchy.
And who's the kind of personwho brings order to anarchy?
I guess some kind of rule.
(27:28):
A dictator or something? That's right.
Humans are supposed to be the kingsof nature, the emperors of the world.
Ah ha.
Okay, then we can add a key detailto our original premise.
The world was made for humans.
Well,add and humans were meant to rule it.
The story is startingto take some shape here.
(27:48):
This brings us
to the middle of your mythology.
Oh, this is a good point.
It gets exciting.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You see, there's a plot twist.
What's that?
Well, sure.
Humans were meant to rule the world, but
(28:09):
it sure seems like Goddidn't tell the world that.
Let's phone a friend againand ask what they're.
Take your head. Tells them.
When humans set out to rule the world.
What happened?
So nature fought back.
Nature used guerrilla tactics,
which is what happens when you're fightingand occupying force.
(28:33):
The worlddidn't know what was good for it.
We came in like the substitute teacher
and the class just wouldn't listen.
And if the people won't submit to theking's rule and what does he have to do?
He has to conquer them.
Ishmael describes it like this.
What man?
Build up the wind and rain tore downthe fields.
(28:56):
He cleared for his crops in his villages.
The jungle fought to reclaim the seedshe sowed.
The birds snatched away, the shootshe nurtured, the insects nibbled,
the harvest he stored, the mice plundered,the animals he bred
and fed the wolves and foxes, stole awaythe mountains.
The riversand the oceans stood in their places
(29:16):
and would not make way for the earthquake,the flood, the hurricane,
the blizzard and the droughtwould not disappear at his command.
In order to make himselfthe ruler of the world,
man first had to conquering
this part of take.
The mythology is constantlybeing acted out around us to this day.
On the peaceful ones, my suburbanchildhood, you could watch
(29:39):
and hear the battlefor human supremacy waging.
Every autumn, the leaves change
to spectacular colorsand gently fall to the ground.
What a precious, miraculous eventwe get to witness every year.
But lost in the take your mindset.
This becomes a grievous threatand great effort
is put into collecting these leaves,stuffing them in the plastic bags
(30:02):
and hauling them awaylike they're trash for the landfill.
And with the invention of the gas poweredleaf blowers from the crack of dawn
till an hour after sunset, you can hearthe nonstop battle with the leaves
and take your culture.
I guess getting these leaves islandsis more important
than getting some peace and quiet.
(30:26):
So we've covered the creation myth,
the beginning and the middle oftake your mythology.
So far it goes the world was made for usand we were meant to rule it.
And when the world doesn'tget with the program,
we've got to enforce our rule.
We've now arrived at the end of
Take Your Mythology.
(30:56):
So has humanity conquered the world yet?
Have we done it?
Did we win?
No, we haven't yet.
I mean, the world'seven harder to control.
The oceans are rising.
Wildfires are worse.
There are more floods.
What's the problem here?
Why haven't we conquered the world yet?
(31:17):
It's like we've grown too strong.
And we're like a kidwho was wrestling with their dad.
But we're too strongto play, wrestle with them
now, and it's like we could actuallyhurt him at this point.
Turns out
our domination of the worldhas also devastated the world.
(31:37):
Oops.
In the last episode,we talked with Professor Keller
about how we're living in a time of massextinction.
And here's the strange thing.
You'd think that for your mythology,
this would be the unraveling of the story.
After all, taken
mythology is about a chosen speciesconquering the world, isn't it?
(31:59):
Wouldn't this ironic destructionof the world kind of ruin the plot?
Well, Ishmael suggests taking mythology.
It was actually anticipating this ending.
How is the story supposed to end?
Take your hat. Oh, me?
Well, I can't see the future,but the way I see it,
I'm speaking on behalf of alltaking mythology here.
(32:20):
Of course, there are two possiblewanderings to the story.
Oh, yeah? Yeah.
All right, so, sure,there's a few serious crises on hand.
Wildfires, droughts, floods, homelessness,
famine, plagues,potential nuclear annihilation.
Yes, and don't worry,these are just more problems to solve.
And hey, I mean, you guys are prettydarn good at solving problems.
(32:42):
Am I right?
When you were too hot,you invented central air.
When you were too cold, you inventedspace heaters and electric blankets.
What I'm saying. Yeah, that's true.
You've got your greatest minds on it,my friend.
I bet ElonMusk is working on the ultimate anti
mass extinctiondrama contraption as we speak.
So what would the world look likeif takers eventually
(33:04):
fully conquered the world? Oh,that's easy.
The world will be a utopia.
A utopia? That's right.
It would only rain when you say rates.
Crops will grow with the snapyour fingers.
You get more energy from solar and nuclearfusion than you know what to do with.
Picture it.
Chrome highways, Golden Cities
and Oculus Rift for everyonein a way that makes sense.
(33:27):
I mean,
what's the point of conquering the worldif you don't think you're going to create
a better world?
And at the end of a betterworld is a perfect world.
And hey,I don't want to hype you up too much
here, but, uh, well, you know,what are we describing?
US taking over the whole world.
So go ahead.
Well, all I'm saying is,
so the gods made the world for humans,and humans were supposed to rule it.
(33:48):
Right.According to taker mythology. Right.
Well, maybe humans are supposedto become gods themselves.
Yeah, actually, I've heard the author,Yuval Harari, say a similar thing
in his recent and very popular books,Sapiens and Homo Deus.
He arguesthat's exactly what's supposed to happen,
that humanity is supposedto evolve into gods.
(34:10):
Ishmael would say, That's the perfectarticulation of the take or viewpoint.
Geez, again, with the Ishmael book, it'sjust for the Ishmael series.
I'm not going to talk about forever. Sure.
Whatever.
Anyway, Ishmael explains thetake your end goal like this.
Humans, quote,
have to go on conquering ituntil our rule is absolute.
Then when we're in complete control,everything will be fine.
(34:33):
All the life processes of this planetwill be where they belong,
where the gods meant them to be.
In our hands, and we'll manipulate themthe way the programmer
manipulates a computer, unquote.
But I don't know.
Looking at the world today, the wars,the pandemic, mass extinction,
it seems more chaotic than ever before.
(34:55):
Are we really supposed to be gods?
We seem like pretty crappy gods.
Well,maybe you just got to try harder, huh?
Patience. Trust the process.
Just keep advancing and doing your thing.
Don't worry about it.
So take your mythology.
Tells us the natural world was a lawlesschaos that we had to bring order to.
And if humans do what we're meant to do,conquer the world, master the environment,
(35:18):
then we can become like godsand live happily ever after.
Well, not so fast.
Not so fast.
What are you talking about?
I thought you'd agree. This ending.
I told you there's two possible endings.
Okay. What's the other one?
So you see, onone hand, humans could totally crush it
and make the world a perfect utopia.
(35:40):
Or. Or what?
Or you doomed.
You're just going to screw this uplike you always do.
What? Yeah.
You're probably going to destroy yourselfand the whole world, too.
My money's on that one.
So we're not supposed to be gods.
Taking mythology was wrong.
No, no, no. The exact opposite.
(36:01):
You are supposed to be gods.
But in the alternative,you're totally and completely doomed.
Well, why?
Why would we be doomed?
I told you, I can't see the future.
But I will tell you this.
If you screw this up, it won't be taken.
Mythologies fault. It'll be yours.
How is it?
You know the answer.
If you can't rule the worldlike you're supposed to.
(36:22):
It's because humans are too greedyto stupid, too shortsighted.
You're flawed.
You're inherently flawed.
So according to take your mythology,
we're either destined to conquer the worldor we're doomed to destroy it.
Pretty much.
Either the world is our enemyor one of the world's enemy. Yup.
(36:45):
I guess these seemcompletely contradictory,
but they're really two sidesof the same coin.
Both see us in conflict with the world.
Bingo. You got it.
Now, do you still need meor can I get going?
I got to whisper some things in the MarkZuckerberg.
He's about to make a big presentationon the metaverse, huh?
Oh, sure. Yeah.
Thanks to your.
(37:06):
I think that's all we need for today.
Hey, don't mention it.
I'm always happy to help.
Next time you want me to bringthe dandruff shampoo, what do you got?
I know, I know.I'll get some. Thank you. You're welcome.
Ooh. It's tempting to agree
with the second ending of taken mythologythat we're inherently flawed.
Maybe we are doomed to kill each otherand destroy the world.
(37:29):
That's just human nature.
It's like the secular versionof the Christian idea of original sin.
We're all flawed. We're all sinners.
But the takeyour heart isn't on our head anymore.
We can finally take it offand question its wisdom.
So is it a fact that humans are flawed?
Where in our DNA doesit show we're flawed?
(37:50):
Flawed compared to what?
Some ideal we can never live up to.
This isn't a fact. It's mythology.
We're not destined to act this way.
So to summarize,take the mythology that Ishmael outlines.
It's the world was made for us humans,and we're meant to rule it.
But the world is out of our control,so we must conquer it.
(38:13):
Under our rule,the world is supposed to be a paradise.
But if it all goes to hell, it'sbecause humans are flawed.
The world was made for us.
We are meant to rule.
You must conquer. It'll be a paradise.
We are due.
World is made here.And we must conquer. To be a pair.
We are made for us.We are meant to conquer.
It'll be a paradise we are meant to wear.
(38:35):
It'll be a apparent we are doomed.
This story has been playing outfor a long time.
The earliest takers, like the Sumerians
and Egyptians, were enacting this story
when they transformed their regionsinto agricultural superpowers.
(38:57):
The Greeks and Persiansand Romans were enacting this story
when they expanded their empiresover thousands of miles,
and the Western European monarchiesand nation states
were enacting this storywhen they colonized most of the world
and were still enactingthe story to this day.
Even if you don't believe thisstory is true,
(39:17):
we seem to be stuck acting it outall together.
Ishmael describes it like being an animalcaught in the stampede.
So it turns out the real world.
My teachers worked so hardto prepare me for
was born of this ancient mythology.
Back when I first read Ishmael and wasseeing the world, I was raised in a new.
(39:39):
I started to realize that adultsnever really stop playing imaginary games.
The difference?
Maybe unlike children, adultsforget they're playing.
What would happen if we could remember?
If we could kind of snap out of itand more clearly hear the story
rather than brush it offas background noise?
(40:02):
This story has become a reality.
We're locked in its cage,but at least now we can see the bars.
And from the bars of our cage,
we might start to noticewhat slips through the cracks.
Ishmael believes the reasonwhy we can't control
the world isn't because there'sa fundamental problem with us
(40:22):
that we're inherently greedyor innately selfish and destructive.
The problem is not that we're doinga bad job of enacting the story.
Enacting the story is the problem.
Okay.
We've been captives behind the barsof our cage for long enough.
Are you ready?
Careful now.
Let's make sure no one's watching.
(40:43):
And let's peerbeyond the bars of our cage.
Wait, wait, wait.
What do you do in that bus? Oh, hey.
What are you still doing here?
Killing time. I Uber's late.
So what were you saying?
I was saying that it's time for usto peer out beyond the bars of our cage.
Yeah, yeah. Listen.
Whatever you do, do not do that.
Why not? There's nothing to see there.
(41:05):
So if there's nothing to see,then there shouldn't be a problem.
No, no, no, no. Go, go. Take over
the takers.
Imagine the land beyondour cage is a virgin wilderness.
But there are other people hereand they're not takers.
(41:29):
They live very different livesbecause they enact a very different story.
Ishmael has a name for them too.
He calls them weavers.
And in the next episodewe're going to meet them.
Thanks for listening.
Today on the next episode of Human NatureOdyssey, we'll spend time
(41:52):
with the two groups.
Ishmael dividesthe world into the Takers and the Weavers
and explorethe clash as old as civilization itself.
Until next time.
Maybe you'll start to notice our culture'sdominant story.
Take your mythologyplaying out around you.
Can you see this story being acted out
like an imaginary game?
(42:14):
Talk to you soon.
Thank you.
To Mitchie, Juneau,Josie, Brian, Nora, Mark, Dana,
Dad, Joe and Haninfor helping create this episode.
The theme music you were listening towas Celestial Soda Pop by Ray Lynch,
and if you'd like to support Human
Nature Odyssey, please subscribewherever you enjoy your podcasts.
(42:36):
We have a review and basic humannature odyssey outcome.
Also, we do have a patriot where you'llfind additional materials just for you.
Each month there'll be bonusaudio episodes that dove deeper into
specific subjects writings, mini essays,and my recommendations for reading,
watching and listening on these topicswith my notes and commentary.
(42:56):
Your support makes this endeavor possible,and I'd love to hear what you think.
So leave a message on The Patriotand be a part of the conversation.
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