“They were sure they’d be able to replace what they destroyed with something just as good, and they’ve been at it ever since, trying one thing after another, giving the people anything they can think of that might fill the void. Archaeology and history tell a tale five thousand years long of one Taker society after another groping for something to placate and inspire, something to amuse and distract, something to make people forget a misery that for some strange reason simply will not go away. Festivals, revels, pageants, temple solemnities, pomp and circumstance, bread and circuses, the ever-present hope of attaining power, riches, and luxury, games, dramas, contests, sports, wars, crusades, political intrigue, knightly quests, world exploration, honors, titles, alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution, opera, theater, the arts, government, politics, careers, political advantage, mountain climbing, radio, television, movies, show business, video games, computers, the information superhighway, money, pornography, the conquest of space—something here for everyone, surely, something to make life seem worth living, something to fill the vacancy, something to inspire and console. And of course it did fill the vacancy for many of you. But only a fraction of you could hope to attain the good things that were available at any one time, as today only a small percentage of you can hope to live like people who must (surely must!) have a life worth living—billionaires and movie stars and sports heroes and supermodels. Always the vast majority of you have been relative have-nots. Is this expression familiar to you?”
“Have-nots? Yes.”
“The tribal life wasn’t an arrangement of haves and have-nots. Why would people put up with such an arrangement unless they were forced to? And until you put food under lock and key, there was no way to force people to put up with it. But the Taker life has always been an arrangement of haves and have-nots. The have-nots have always been the majority, and how were they supposed to discover the source of their misery? Who were they going to ask to explain why the world is ordered as it is, in a way that favors a handful, leaving the vast majority toiling just in order to be hungry, naked, and homeless? Were they going to ask their rulers? Their slave masters? Their bosses? Certainly not.
“About twenty-five hundred years ago, four distinct explanatory theories began to evolve. Probably the oldest theory was this, that the world is the work of two eternally warring gods, one a god of goodness and light, the other a god of evil and darkness. Certainly this made sense of a world that seemed to be forever divided between those who live in the light and those who live in the darkness; this theory was embodied in Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and other religions. Another theory had it that the world was the work of a community of gods who, absorbed in their own affairs, ran it to suit themselves, and when humans came into it, they might be befriended, used, destroyed, ravished, or ignored, entirely at the gods’ whim; this, of course, was the theory embraced by classical Greece and Rome. Another theory had it that suffering is intrinsic to life, that it’s the inevitable fate of those who live, and that peace can only be attained by those who relinquish desire of every kind. This was the theory given to the world by Gautama Buddha. Another theory had it that the very first man, Adam, living back there in Mesopotamia a few thousand years ago, had disobeyed God, fallen from grace, and been driven from paradise to live forevermore by the sweat of his brow, miserable, alienated from God, and prone to sin. Christianity built on this Hebraic base, providing a messiah who taught that in the Kingdom of God the first will be last and the last first—meaning that the haves and the have-nots will change places. During Christ’s lifetime and in the decades following, most thought the Kingdom of God would be an earthly kingdom ruled by God directly. When this failed to materialize, however, it came to be understood that the Kingdom of God was heaven, accessible only after death. Islam too built on the Hebraic base, rejecting Jesus as a messiah but affirming that good works will be rewarded in the afterlife.
“But, as you well know, these theories have never entirely satisfied you, especially in recent centuries, and perhaps even more especially in recent decades, when the vast emptiness at the center of your lives swallows down an endless outpouring of religions, spiritual fads, gurus, prophets, cults, therapies, and mystical healings—without ever being satisfied.”
“That’s for sure,” I told him.
Ishmael gave me a long, somber look. “Perhaps you now understand why so many people of your culture look into the sky, yearning for contact with gods and angels and prophets and alien spacemen and spirits of the dead. Perhaps you now understand why so many people in your culture have daydreams like the one you described to me during your first visit.”
“I do understand it.”
“Now you know where the main road leads. Though of course it doesn’t end here.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that at least,” I said.
A Goddamned Pride Thing
I hope you know I have a million questions,” I told him when I arrived on Saturday, two days later.
“I expected a few, yes,” Ishmael said.
“A lot of people, hearing what you’ve taught me so far, would say, ‘Oh my God, then there’s no hope at all for us!’ ”
“Why is that?”
“Well, we can’t go back to living in caves, can we?”
“Very few tribal peoples lived in caves, Julie.”
“You know what I mean. We can’t go back to living tribally.”
Ishmael frowned. “Actually, I’m not sure that is what you mean.”
“Okay. What I mean is, we can’t go back and start over. We can’t go back to living the way we lived before we became Takers.”
“But what do you mean by that, Julie? Do you mean that you can’t go back to living in a way that works for people?”
“No. I guess I mean we can’t go back to being hunter-gatherers.”
“Of course you can’t. Have you ever heard me make such a proposal? Have you heard me make even the slightest beginning of the slightest hint of such a proposal?”
“No.”
“And you never will. A dozen planets this size couldn’t accommodate the six billion of you as hunter-gatherers. The idea is completely absurd.”
“Then what?” I asked.
“You’ve forgotten what you came to me for, Julie. You came to me to learn how people elsewhere in the universe manage to live without devouring their worlds.”
“That’s right.”
“Now you know how that’s done, don’t you? You just didn’t have to board a spaceship to learn it. The aliens you were seeking were merely your own ancestors, who managed very nicely to live here for hundreds of thousands of years without devouring the world—your ancestors and their cultural descendants, tribal peoples who are still extant here today. What’s confusing you is that you imagine I’ve shown you what the answers are, when in fact I’ve shown you only where to look for answers. You think I’m saying, ‘Adopt the Hulla lifestyle,’ when in fact I’m saying, ‘Understand why the Hulla lifestyle work
ed—and continues to work as well as ever wherever it still exists.’ As Takers, you’ve been struggling for ten thousand years to invent a lifestyle that works, and have failed utterly so far. You’ve invented millions of things that have worked—airplanes and toasters and computers and pipe organs and steamships and videocassette recorders and clocks and atom bombs and carousels and water pumps and electric lights and toenail clippers and ballpoint pens—but a lifestyle that works has always eluded you. And the more people you have, the more manifest, widespread, and painful this failure becomes. You’re having a hard time building enough prisons to hold all your criminals. The nuclear family is staggering into oblivion. The incidence of drug addiction, suicide, mental illness, divorce, child abuse, rape, and serial murder continues to climb.