Ishmael Questions

Ishmael’s two general rules on how to identify people from our culture are “You’ll know you’re among people of your culture if the food is all owned, if it’s all under lock and key.” The second rule is “They perceive themselves to be members of a race that is fundamentally flawed and inherently doomed to suffering and misery.” (Pages 39-40). I do not believe Ishmael when he says that all the world’s people are part of the same culture. I believe culture is something that differs depending on location, resources, people, religion etc. For example, if you lived in Antarctica a long time ago your culture might have been eating fish, fishing for food, building igloos, wearing fur to keep out the cold. When Ishmael says that people from all over the world are part of the same culture it could make sense from a very broad point of view if he meant that we all wear clothes, speak a language, eat food, drink water, and are all influenced by mother culture.

Like Ishmael, I too disagree with mother cultures voice that tells us we are inherently flawed. Ishmael’s whole purpose is to teach a pupil how to save the world and if he thought we were totally flawed then we couldn’t be saved. Ishmael also recognizes the root of all our problems as being how we decided to lock our food away from ourselves and the agricultural revolution. If he and others across the world understand the root or the problem (which is something we caused, and we were not born with) than he knows how to abolish the root and then the rest of the problem at hand. After watching The Story of Stuff, I also realize that there are other ways of helping the human race so we are not doomed. It seems to me that we are not flawed, but its what we are doing that is flawed, and we have been doing it for so long and do not recognize the problem, so we accept it into our lives and believe that is how we were born to be, and will always be.

The takers and leavers are a metaphor for hunter/gathers/foragers compared to farmers. These relate to American culture because the first Americans, the Native American Indians were hunter gathers and foragers until European settlers came from the outside world. The Native Americans were perfectly content with their lifestyle but the Europeans had lived in a world where farming and modern inventions seemed totally necessary, and they told the Native Americans that is how they were supposed to live. If they didn’t comply they would take over the land, but some Indian Tribes liked the new foods they could grow with agriculture and were jealous of the Europeans and so they complied and joined the Europeans and helped them make new modern villages, and converted to a different lifestyle. This has grown into what American culture is today, with agriculture, grocery stores, factories, cars, clothing, money, government and more.