“We’ve taken a small side trip here to show you how to recognize members of your culture. Now let’s see if we can get back to the main road we left.… I was saying that it’s your culture’s deep-seated perception that wisdom is not to be found among you, and that this perception has been extant in your culture for millennia.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Do you understand why I’m bringing this up?”
“No, not really.”
“Your daydream takes it for granted that wisdom must be found elsewhere—billions of miles away from this planet. This is why it was necessary for you to construct a daydream in the first place. You know in your bones that the secret you’re looking for is not to be found here.”
“Yeah, that’s right. I see what you’re saying.”
“What I’d like you to see next is that the loss of this secret was an event in your history. It isn’t something missing from your genes. Humanity wasn’t born deficient. This was something that happened uniquely among the people of your culture.”
“Okay. But why do you want me to see that?”
“Because … Have you ever lost anything? A key, a book, a tool, a letter?”
“Sure.”
“Can you remember how you went about trying to find it?”
“I tried to remember where I was when I had it last.”
“Of course. If you know where you lost something, then you know where to look for it, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“This is what I want to show you now: where and when you lost the secret that is known to every other species on this planet—and to every other intelligent species in th
e universe, if there are such.”
“Wow,” I told him. “We must really be special, if every other species in the universe knows something we don’t.”
“You are indeed special, Julie. On this point, your Mother Culture and I are in complete agreement.”
The History of Man in 17 Seconds
Ishmael said, “There’s only one place to begin with any pupil, Julie, and that place is where the pupil is. Do you see what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“For the most part, the only way I can know where you are is if you tell me. And that’s what you must do now. I need you to tell me what you know of human history.”
I groaned, and Ishmael asked me why. “History is not my favorite subject,” I told him.
“I can understand that,” he said, “knowing how the teachers in your schools are forced to teach it. But I’m not asking you to recite what you’ve learned (or failed to learn) in school. Even if you’d never spent a single day in school, you would have a general impression of what’s happened here, just by having your eyes and ears open in this culture for twelve years. Even someone who has done nothing but read the Sunday funnies has that.”
“Okay,” I said, and then made a connection. “Is this Mother Culture’s version of human history? Is that what you’re asking for?”
Ishmael nodded. “That’s what I’m asking for. I need to know how much of it you’ve taken in. Even more to the point, you need to know how much of it you’ve taken in.”
“I see,” I told him, and started to work on it. After about three minutes he started to squirm, which in his size made an impressive sight. I gave him an inquiring look.
“Keep it simple, Julie. This isn’t a term paper on which you’re going to be graded. Just give me the general outline that everyone understands. I don’t want a thousand words or even five hundred. Fifty words will do it.”
“I guess I’m trying to figure out how to work in the Pyramids and World War Two.”
“Let’s begin with the framework. Once we have that, we can ‘work in’ anything we please.”