Abby Kusmin

CAP Research Seminar

9/3/19
Ishmael Journal Entries

Part 1: If You Wish to Find the Bars

The main character is first drawn to the office building because he feels he must reaffirm the

rejection his youthful notion that he needed to save the world. He returns because the

inauspicious nature of the building itself and the completely unexpected nature of the teacher

lead him to believe that Ishmael may be able to help him achieve what the revolutionaries of his

youth failed at. The main character feels a lasting sense of disappointment from the failed

revolution of his youth, and when he sees the ad in the paper, he needs to quell the very thought

that there might still be the possibility of a revolution. When he arrives at the building, he does

not see the tacky, spiritual dwelling he expected, nor does he encounter other mindless followers

of someone promising a revolution. He does not even encounter a human. The main character is

intrigued by Ishmael because he is so different from those who failed to deliver a revolution in

his youth. Ishmael reminds him of why he believed a revolution necessary in the first place, and

with this reminder, he cannot abandon the possibility of finally finding the teacher he hoped for

to teach him why the last revolution failed and how he might bring about a successful one.

Part 2: The Story of a Machine

The Mother Culture is the culture that renders humans cogs in a machine and leaves them with

no option to exit the machine if they want to continue to survive. Everyone is born into a culture

where they are educated to believe that this machine is inevitable—is the culmination of human

evolution, the Second Chapter. Its story is so rigid that it leaves no room for humans to reject its

narrative. It is impossible to be part of Civilized Society without operating within Mother

Culture. Mother Culture gives the illusion of choice, as one may decide to take any place within
this machine, but choice is limited to inside the machine. There are expectations set by Mother

Culture that make certain ways of life seem reasonable and others implausible. Humans are

expected to perform a role that is deemed valuable to their wider society, and to remain

connected to that society. This narrative is kept in place not only by the fact that lifestyles that do

not serve the machine are judged, but by the fact that other options are simply not presented.

Mother Culture enforces itself as not only the best, but the only option.

Part 3: Origin Story

Our story of the history of the planet is a reflection of the Takers’ ingrained belief that humanity

is the end goal of all creation and evolution. In the story the main character recounts, the

beginning of the universe and the evolution of organisms are the inciting and rising action, with

the appearance of humans being the climax. Ishmael makes the main character realize the

meaning of this: that humans believe they are the summation of all creation in the universe, and

that the Earth therefore belongs to them. This story is a justification for the Takers to do as they

please with the planet. If it was made for them and belongs to them, they can exploit and distort

it for their own pleasure and profit. The Takers control the narrative of civilized society. If they

frame themselves as not only the heroes of this narrative, but its only important character, they

can manipulate the rest of the story in whatever way they see fit without guilt or repercussions.

Part 4: Made to Conquer

Agriculture allowed humanity to settle in one place and build a civilization; this set the

foundation for the belief that humans were made to put the world in order. When humans were at

the mercy of their environment, they were not rulers, only pawns in an anarchical game.
Agriculture allowed humans to settle down and begin to build. Once they had modified their

environment to allow them to remain in one place, they began to modify it to their every

convenience. They became the Takers, the implicit masters of the world around them.

Agriculture allowed humanity to tame the natural world, and in doing so, ingrained in them the

belief that this world belonged to them and they were fated to rule over it. Agriculture is the

foundation of human civilization as it is currently known, and the base that allows humans to

believe in their ability and right to create order from chaos and manipulate the world to their

desires.

Part 5: The Edge of the World

Our thoughts and approach to thinking are bound to some extent by our culture, but it is

inevitable that any walls imposed by culture will be breached. When Ishmael tries to make the

main character see the mythology present in his society, he is initially resistant to these ideas

because they are outside the realm of thought of his society. However, with encouragement, he

does succeed in seeing it and his thinking expands beyond the stories told to him by Mother

Culture. A narrative that is taken for granted will inevitably be challenged. Humans believed the

Earth to be flat, and operated as if the Earth were flat, until someone dared to think it might not

be. This expanded the realm of thought of society, but it took an initial breach to come to this

conclusion. Our society imposes walls on our thinking, but we continue to break these walls and

expand upon what we are capable of thinking.

Part 6: Free-Falling
Humans did not begin civilization with a clear end goal or plan; the shortsightedness of human

civilization is what will doom it to come to a catastrophic end if humans do not abide by the law

that allows species to continue to exist. When humans invented agriculture, they did not plan for

the growth that would occur as a result. When humans industrialized, they did not look at the

resources they would need to sustain this way of life. Human civilization is improvised, and

humans are beginning to realize that they do not have the resources to sustain this act. The

airman Ishmael describes decides what he wants- to fly- and creates a contraption that will, to the

best of his knowledge, fly. Humans decided they wanted to build a civilization, and, to the best

of their knowledge, did so. The airman, however, did not know what it took to fly, and mistook

being airbound for flight. Humans did not know what civilization looked like, and mistook the

one they had created for one capable of perpetual success. Because the vehicle through which

humans exist is inherently flawed-- because they do not know how to exist-- they are bound to

crash and burn.

Part 7: Our Own Laws

Humans view the natural world as chaotic and savage because it is some ways an inverse of their

own world. Whereas humans live in superficial order with a destructive chaos beneath, the

natural world appears to be destructive chaos on a superficial level, while it is in fact far more

ordered underneath. What is balance in the natural world is portrayed as “eat or be eaten” by

humans. Humans distance themselves from their prey- they do not connect the meat they buy in

supermarkets to the slaughtered animals it came from. They themselves have managed to avoid

being prey. When they see specials on nature channels of the gory kills that Ishmael describes,

they take this to be all there is to the natural world. They do not appreciate the cognitive
dissonance that comes with acknowledging that their own diets are comprised of dead animals,

or that there is competition for resources within their own species much like there is in the

natural world. Humans consider themselves above the rest of the animal kingdom, and pretend

that the superficial order of their own civilization is superior to the superficial chaos of the

natural world.