“What makes it so striking is the fact that there is absolutely nothing like this among the Leavers—unless it occurs as a response to some devastating contact with Taker culture, as in the case of Wovoka and the Ghost Dance or John Frumm and the Cargo Cults of the South Pacific. Aside from these, there is no tradition whatever of prophets rising up among the Leavers to straighten out their lives and give them new sets of laws or principles to live by.”
“I was sort of vaguely aware of that. I suppose everyone is. I think it’s … I don’t know.”
“Go on.”
“I think the feeling is, what the hell, who cares about these people? I mean, it’s no great surprise that savages have no prophets. God didn’t really get interested in mankind until those nice white neolithic farmers came along.”
“Yes, that’s well perceived. But what I want to look at right now is not the absence of prophets among the Leavers but the enormous influence of prophets among the Takers. Millions have been willing to back their choice of prophet with their very lives. What makes them so important?”
“It’s a hell of a good question, but I don’t think I know the answer.”
“All right, try this. What were the prophets trying to accomplish here? What were they here to do?”
“You said it yourself a minute ago. They were here to straighten us out and tell us how we ought to live.”
“Vital information. Worth dying for, evidently.”
“Evidently.”
“But why? Why do you need prophets to tell you how you ought to live? Why do you need anyone to tell you how you ought to live?”
“Ah. Okay, I see what you’re getting at. We need prophets to tell us how we ought to live, because otherwise we wouldn’t know.”
“Of course. Questions about how people ought to live always end up becoming religious questions among the Takers—always end up being arguments among the prophets. For example, when abortion began to be legalized in this country, it was initially treated as a purely civil matter. But when people began to have second thoughts about it, they turned to their prophets, and it soon became a religious squabble, with both sides lining up clergy to back them. In the same way, the question of legalizing drugs like heroin and cocaine is now being debated in primarily practical terms—but if it ever becomes a serious possibility, people of a certain turn of mind will undoubtedly begin combing scriptures to see what their prophets have to say on the subject.”
“Yes, that’s so. This is such an automatic response that people just take it for granted.”
“A minute ago you said, ‘We need prophets to tell us how we ought to live, because otherwise we wouldn’t know.’ Why is that? Why wouldn’t you know how to live without your prophets?”
“That’s a good question. I’d say it’s because … Look at the case of abortion. We can argue about it for a thousand years, but there’s never going to be an argument powerful enough to end the argument, becaus
e every argument has a counterargument. So it’s impossible to know what we should do. That’s why we need the prophet. The prophet knows.”
“Yes, I think that’s it. But the question remains: Why don’t you know?”
“I think the question remains because I can’t answer it.”
“You know how to split atoms, how to send explorers to the moon, how to splice genes, but you don’t know how people ought to live.”
“That’s right.”
“Why is that? What does Mother Culture have to say?”
“Ah,” I said, and closed my eyes. And after a minute or two: “Mother Culture says it’s possible to have certain knowledge about things like atoms and space travel and genes, but there’s no such thing as certain knowledge about how people should live. It’s just not available, and that’s why we don’t have it.”
“I see. And having listened to Mother Culture, what do you say?”
“In this case, I have to say that I agree. Certain knowledge about how people ought to live is just not out there.”
“In other words, the best you can do—since there’s nothing ‘out there’—is to consult the insides of your heads. That’s what’s being done in the debate about legalizing drugs. Each side is preparing a case based on what’s reasonable, and whichever way you actually jump you still won’t know whether you did the right thing.”
“That’s absolutely right. It won’t be a question of doing what ought to be done, because there’s no way of finding that out. It’ll just be a question of taking a vote.”
“You’re quite sure about all this. There’s simply no way to obtain any certain knowledge about how people ought to live.”
“Absolutely sure.”
“How do you come by this assurance?”