Oh. You think I'm going to interview Mickey for a podcast? Have you ever listen to a podcast? No. You can't let us do it. So first you say we have a new guy, which is me media then. And then like if you're having questions about animals, then answered, would you like to say your name and how old you are? Nietzsche. I'm six. I would love to talk about animals. You said animals are a specialty of the things you're interested in talking about.
Yeah. If I were an alien coming to earth before and I've never seen an animal. Could you tell me about some of the animals that are on our planet? She talked about the skull. It's a great animal. I'm just going to talk about tigers. You know, what's a tiger? It's a big cat. I lots of scrapes on it and it sneak in the floor to catch its prey and jump out to eat its prey. And why does dead. So it can eat. What kind of things is it? Eat, eat, eat me and nothing else. So me is inside an animal.
It has a surprising effect. What's the difference between a human and an animal? Well, actually, humans aren't animals, but the difference between humans and animals is like a lot. Just animals are different that way. Way different. I can't talk about all the differences. Humans are pretty weird animals, right? We don't have fur on our skin. We walk on our hind legs. We can't fly in the air like birds. We can't swim in the water like fish. We, we, we. We use invention to do that.
Exactly. Right, right, right. I think everyone knew about inventions. How would you explain to someone who doesn't know anyone who thinks this is someone who makes that? They make it up and they make it real so they can go under water or they can fly in the sky. So humans, even though we can't fly like birds or swim like fish, we can make things that let us do those things. Yeah, there's one thing that humans make up that's maybe the most powerful at all. Do you know what it is? It's stories.
Yeah, stories. Welcome to Episode three of Human Nature Odyssey, a podcast exploring how the stories humans tell shaped the world. I'm Alex Live. This is the third installment in our series on Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. First, a quick recap in the last episode, we learned that Ishmael is a telepathic gorilla who was raised in captivity and observed humanity through the bars of his cage.
Once Ishmael was freed, he set up shop in an unobtrusive office building and put out an ad seeking pupils with an earnest desire to save the world. The book's narrator visits Ishmael, and they begin having some pretty heady conversations about humanity, mythology and civilization. Our narrator learns that Ishmael believes that the world's dominant culture is not unlike a caged animal in a zoo, that we, too, are captives.
And as Ishmael proposes, the thing holding us captive, the bars of our metaphorical cage is a story. And this story has led to disastrous results. In today's episode, we're going to find the story holding us captive. And then by the end of the Ishmael series, will have begun to tell a new one. Before we get any further, I want to make sure covering all my bases here, speaking to the many age demographics with us today.
We started the episode with Mitchie representing the kindergarten demographic. But let me just take a moment to talk specifically with a group of people I haven't given much attention to so far. Babies. Sorry it's taken me so long to address you guys specifically. I know that babies out there didn't choose to listen to this.
It's not your fault your parent and or legal guardian is trying to listen to something on the way to acro yoga or likes to play podcasts in the background while folding sucks. But to the babies stuck listening to this today on behalf of the adults in the world, let me just say I get it. You're just being introduced into the world and it doesn't make any sense. Hungry? You're tired. Too cold. You're too hot. Funny white pants are a little wet. You might have some questions for us.
And that's fair. Why is the sky blue? Why is nighttime dark? If I can put food in my mouth, why can't I put it up my nose? Why don't adults wear diapers? Do they just pee in their pants? All perfectly reasonable questions, but just know the answer. Your questions might change depending on what culture you're raised in. Oh, what's culture? Good question. There's lots of different ways to define culture.
The book I've been talking about, this book called Ishmael, defines culture as, quote, a people who enact a shared story. What does it mean to enact the story? Well, it means to act out a story in real life. Now, a culture doesn't act out just any story, only a very special, important kind of story. A mythology, what's right. A mythology is a story that has to do with really big, important things like humanity, the whole world, and the gods. Pretty soon and it's probably already started.
You'll begin to learn our cultures mythology. Now, the funny thing is, no one tells you this is our mythology. In fact, cultures don't usually think of their mythology as a mythology. They just think of it as the truth. Also, no one's going to sit you down and tell you the story all at once. It doesn't work like that. Your parents will probably give you some answers. Maybe you'll pick some stuff up off an episode of SpongeBob. Green Some wisdom here and there from the Cat in the Hat.
But our culture's mythology. It's kind of subtle. It's the background. And the reason why you won't hear the whole story out loud is because the things we tend to all agree on are the things that get taken for granted. And when things are taken for granted, they rarely have to be mentioned that. Well, you probably notice that some of the smaller details and versions of the story may be a bit different depending who you talk to.
For example, your mom might let you wear shoes in the house and your friend's mom might be a no shoes wearing hippie. But ultimately, they both think we're supposed to live in a house. In fact, because they both agree about this, you're probably never hear them have to say, we're supposed to live in a house. It'll just be the assumption. So then the later you find out that you live in something called a country, and in your country, people think it's good to drive on a certain side of the road.
One day you might go to another country and find that people there believe, No, no, no, no. The other side of the road. Now, that's beside the driver. Again, these differences, ultimately, they're trivial. What they both agree on and therefore don't talk about is that we've got to be driving and it's got to be on a road. But the really big story, the mythology that our culture tells, isn't really about wearing shoes in the house or driving on one side of the road.
It's about something much larger than that, something called civilization. Did this make any sense? Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to go back to talking with the older people, but hey, you're doing great. Keep doing your baby thing. I'm rooting for you. You're working for. Okay. Hey, guys, I'm back. We were just talking about baby stuff. It's all things you already know. So I first read Ishmael when I was 14.
And when I got to the part where Ishmael tells the narrator that civilization is a story, our culture acts out, I immediately understood, Oh, it's an imaginary game and I love the imaginary. Yes, catch me on the playground at animal mentary. I would have been totally immersed in a pokemon battle on the swing set with Mitchell and Elliott, but by the time I hit middle school, I started feeling embarrassed about playing imaginary games. It didn't seem like a very grown up thing to do.
Don't get me wrong, I still totally did secretly in my basement, even all through high school. Like, for example, I made up this country lasagna, which was founded in the year 2000. After a decade long conflict with France over a new piece of land that just formed thanks to volcanic eruptions in the Indian Ocean west of Australia. I would be in that world for hours left. Voting as founding father and first elected president was also named Alex off anyway.
But by 14, when I was first reading Ishmael, I already had way less time for imaginary games than I used to. I was too busy going to school, being taught by teachers who tell us all about the real world they were preparing us for. Just wait until you get to the real world. They say that to you. I always thought that was weird because, like, Mr. Huggins, aren't you here in school with us all day? If this isn't the real world, what are you doing?
So when Ishmael talked about enacting a story, it made total sense to me that this real world I was supposedly being prepared for was some kind of imaginary game for grownups. Instead of Pokemon and Star Wars, it was homework and grades, and then eventually it would be jobs and paychecks, bureaucracies and nation states. It's all the acting out of a really weird, incredibly elaborate and often boring, imaginary game. Yet the consequences are very real, and the stakes are very high.
And it wasn't just my suburban town of Cheltenham that was part of this game. It was being enacted worldwide by a dominant culture that Ishmael calls the takers in. Ishmael. The takers are the ones who are acting out the story that's destroying the world. And this isn't some kind of cult or special group. This is a very broad category at this point in history. Most of the worlds have been roped into the dominant culture of the Tigers.
In the next episode, we're going to really explore who Ishmael considers part of this huge group. But chances are, if you're listening to this, you believe in what Ishmael called tiger civilization and the story. The Tigers act out the story that holds us captive is take your mythology.
Now, as an aside, for those who are familiar with Ishmael and Daniel Quinn's books, the term he uses for this collective mythology is mother culture, which lets him personify this mysterious social force as if it's a person whispering to us these subtle messages that influence our behavior. I find the gendered language of mother culture unnecessary. So instead, I'll be using the term take mythology, which I think is more precise anyway.
Okay. So as I was trying to explain to our baby listeners here, you'll never really hear the mythology spoken out loud. It exists subtly in bits and pieces. Yeah. And what Ishmael does is weave together these fragments into a cohesive narrative. One simple story that if we tell out loud, maybe we'll see that it's just a story on how to stop enacting it and start to act out a new one. According to Ishmael, take your mythology. Like all good mythologies begins with the creation myth.
There are many versions of our cultures creation myth. One of the most well-known is a very ancient story passed down orally for countless generations before being transcribed into what is now known as the first book of the Bible. The Book of Genesis. You know the story. It's the story of how God created the world. First God said, Let there be light separated. The heavens from the earth made the oceans. Blah, blah, blah. Over a few days.
Made yielding seeds of every kind, the marijuana and then every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And then finally, by being bloom, God created humankind in God's image. And God told Adam and Eve and I quote To go fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. Wow. So what's the moral of this biblical creation story? What's it telling us about our place in the world?
Because it's not like God created jellyfish last and told jellyfish to have dominion over the earth. I'm kind of getting the vibe that the world was made for us. This is the premise of Take Your Mythology. The fundamental assumption, according to Ishmael, that our entire culture is based on that the world was made for us.
And if the world was made for us, then that would mean Adam and Eve and all their descendants would be within their right to go around treating the world like it was made for us. Damming the world's rivers, plowing its fields, filling its swamps, clearing its forests.
And here's the thing even if this is not a story you believe literally, even if you don't think God really spoke to Adam and Eve telling them they had dominion over the earth, the mythological imprint is still there, and not just in Abrahamic religions, the Judeo-Christian Islamic world, or even the religious world in general. In fact, the same message the core of the take or creation myth can be conveyed even without any religious language.
You can call humans the dominant species or the most evolved form of consciousness. Either way, it's conveying that humans are the pinnacle of creation. All of life was leading to us, which is not actually what science says. It's our mythology, speaking in scientific language. There's a quote by the author and conservationists utterly appalled that I think speaks to this well, writing in 1949, Leopold wrote, It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the origin of Species.
We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations. That man is only fellow voyagers with other creatures. In the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow creatures, a wish to live and let live, a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise. What are we appalled as saying is that even though most of us understand we weren't created separately but evolved with the rest of life.
It seems our old relationship with the world has been maintained. Even if we understand we're one of many creatures on this earth. We still act as if we're the ones made in God's image. The confusing world. I was growing up in the world of suburbs and cities and the looming development of Ashbourne Country Club started to make a bit more sense to me. At least I could start to see why we were acting this way.
As I went about my day, I could see the evidence of our taker culture acting like the world belongs to us. It was playing out not just in large scale epic ways, like the blasting away of million year old mountaintops for an energy source that gets used up in just one human lifetime, but all the way down to even the most mundane things. Here's an example not from Ishmael, but from me of the story. The world belongs to us being acted out. Have you ever gone to some big ass store?
Let's say Home Depot to do your Sunday shopping. You can come with me and my dad while he looks for the right tools to fix our gutter. As we complete the trek from our car across the once forest, now barren asphalt parking lot. You'll notice the big sign welcoming you to Home Depot. The giant letters tower over us like ancient monuments and then the crevices of each massive letter. You notice something despite the welcoming message of the word home.
There are metal spikes like the barbed wire stopping the encroachment of enemy lines. But these are little metal spikes for very little enemies. These metal spikes go by different names like bird deterrent spikes or anti bird nails. And on Amazon, they advertise that these spikes will let you repel flying pests or make any area owning free zone. That's right.
Not only the bird's habitat was cleared for the parking lot and accompanying building, but even the letters of the freakin sign are lined with steel spikes to make sure that no bird could dare make the sign that says Home be their home. And it's not just the signs on buildings. It's on the roofs of parking lots, the sides of bridges, the tops of stadium lights. But what about the birds? Where can they make a nest? As someone who gives a shit, the world was made for us.
So if Ishmael, the gorilla, asks someone why there's all those metal spikes to keep off birds, he'd probably get the answers. Well, you can't have pigeons taking roost on their buildings, or it's more humane than killing them. But what Ishmael would hear deep down in the subtle unsaid message of those reasons is that they believe the world belongs to them. Okay, so we have the creation myth down and an oddly specific bird based example of what it means to act out. The world was made for us.
That's just the prolog of take mythology. That's the opening credits. The movie's just getting started. Ishmael divides the rest of the story into three parts. The beginning, the middle and the end. So let us continue with the beginning way, way, way before we get into the real action. You need to introduce a special tool for us to use on our journey. This isn't from Ishmael. It's a gift from me. I call it the take your mythology hat. It's an imaginary hat.
But as we're seeing, imaginary games taken seriously have real power. We each wear our own imaginary. Take your hat. Your hat can look any way you want. Maybe some feathers, pearls and diamonds. Maybe it's that kind of hat with a little spinning fan thing on top, you know? My take your hat is a black top hat because I think top hats on Reddit. It also has googly eyes. So what's the point of this hat?
Well, we're all opinionated critical thinkers here, we think for ourselves, and that's very important. But what this hat does is temporarily turn off our own ideas so we can tap into a more general cultural sense of things. The conventional wisdom when we wear the take your mythology hat, we're able to ask not what we think, but what our overall culture thinks. The hive mind, you know. So with the help of our new Take Your Hat, let's get to the beginning of take your mythology.
In the beginning of Take Your Mythology, Ishmael points out, the world may have been made for humans, but humans didn't realize this right away. Picture Adam and Eve running around naked in the Garden of Eden. Just a little leaf covering them up. Okay. Sorry, Adam. The leaf wasn't that little, but back then, humanity lived like any other animal. What does it mean to live like an animal? Okay, this is where I take your mythology hat comes in putting mine on.
If I listen closely, I can hear it starting to talk to me. Hey, how you doing? Always a pleasure to be up here on your head. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Take your mythology hat. We were hoping we could ask you some questions today. And, you know, I love giving advice. First, I'm going to give a free to it, my friend. Dandruff shampoo. Okay. Thanks for that. Remember, we're not trying to argue with the take your hat here.
It's valuable information for us to just listen to what he says for now. So take your mythology hat. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, what's the general sense our culture has of what it means to live like an animal? What do you picture? Hmm? Okay. Okay. To live like an animal. So is it like a Disney movie where all the woodland creatures spend their time dancing and singing with each other? Yeah. No, I'm not buying that. Life was terrible back then for you humans. You guys are barely scraping by.
Ah, I see. I actually sent some of these hats to a few friends of mine as well and asked them what their take your hat tells them about what living like an animal was like back then. Okay, I'm going to put on my tiger mythology hat here. My head is telling me that when humans were living like animals, they're probably hiding a lot and everything was out of our control. Hmm. Yeah. My hat, as we were just, like, wasting our time and didn't have tools then just. We weren't advancing.
Okay, so my hat is saying that to live like an animal is to be constantly afraid. So do those other take your hat sound right to you? Yeah. I mean, imagine a pack of wild wolves tearing you to shreds. The terror of becoming someone's meal at any moment. Every step you take could be your last. You ever heard that poem Nature Red in Tooth and Claw? You wouldn't like that tooth and claw, my friend. Yeah. It doesn't sound great. Well, thanks. Take your head. You've disturbed me greatly. Any time.
Let me take you out for a minute. This reminds me of that old line that humanity's origins were nasty, brutish and short. And when Thomas Hobbes, the English philosopher, wrote that line back during the Enlightenment, he wasn't saying anything that controversial. He was just articulating the general cultural viewpoint at that time. The 17th century European version of Take Your Mythology. The full quote of the nasty, brutish and short line is in Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan, written in 1651.
He's describing what life for humans was like back in the day, what he calls the state of nature. Here's the full quote. In such condition, the state of nature, there is no place for industry because the fruit thereof is uncertain and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation, no use of the commodities that may be imported by sea. No commodious building.
No instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society. And which is worst of all, continual fear and danger. A violent death and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Where did Hobbs get this idea that this is what it's like to live as an animal in the state of nature?
Sure. I mean, the beaver is not sitting down to write anyone a letter, but is it living in continual fear? And who are we to call a nasty? Was this idea coming from some pure place within the logic of Thomas Hobbes mind, or was he wearing his own? Take your head and regurgitating a bit of taken mythology. The irony is Leviathan was written during the European Enlightenment when long held religious beliefs were supposedly being challenged.
This last quote from Thomas Hobbes is a great example of how the mythology of long ago, even without religious language, filters into so-called secular thought. And it's not that the opposite of what Hobbes is saying is really true. Instead, I'm definitely not saying Beavers live forever and playing Nintendo all day. What Ishmael wants us to examine is when our ideas about the world are really just taking or mythology speaking through us. So back to Ishmael.
According to our mythology, as the narrator puts it, to live like an animal is to live, quote, at the mercy of the world without having any control over the environment. Unquote. I'm going to put on my take your hat again and try to sense where the story goes next. Okay. So the issue with living like an animal is that the world was made for humans. That's the premise, to take the mythology. Right.
And if the world was made for humans and humans can't live by the world's rules, the wolf supposed to live by humans, just like God told Adam and Eve. If the world was made for humans, humans at the Mastering Mastery. And how are we supposed to do that? Well, this is the perfect time for a quick word from our sponsor. We have a sponsor. Are you tired of always being afraid of not knowing where your next meal will come from or if you'll be the one on the menu? Well, do I have the thing for you?
It's time you tried the agricultural revolution. It's easy. First, settlement gives rise to the division of labor. Then division of labor gives rise to technology. Follow these simple steps, and before you know it, you'll be a part of civilization. You're not meant to live at the mercy of the gods. You're supposed to take matters into your own hands. Go ahead, master your environment. What do you think that big brand of yours is for, anyway?
Fracking. Coconuts. Civilization. More fun than a pillow fight. That's right. And if humanity is the pinnacle of creation or evolution, I don't pick sides that civilization is the pinnacle of humanity. Know what I'm saying? Besides, the world needed you guys. You humans. Really? Why did the world need us? Well, because without humans, the world is complete chaos. It's a dog eat dog world out there, almost jungle, total anarchy. And who's the kind of person who brings order to anarchy?
I guess some kind of rule. A dictator or something? That's right. Humans are supposed to be the kings of nature, the emperors of the world. Ah ha. Okay, then we can add a key detail to our original premise. The world was made for humans. Well, add and humans were meant to rule it. The story is starting to take some shape here. This brings us to the middle of your mythology. Oh, this is a good point. It gets exciting. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You see, there's a plot twist. What's that? Well, sure.
Humans were meant to rule the world, but it sure seems like God didn't tell the world that. Let's phone a friend again and ask what they're. Take your head. Tells them. When humans set out to rule the world. What happened? So nature fought back. Nature used guerrilla tactics, which is what happens when you're fighting and occupying force. The world didn't know what was good for it. We came in like the substitute teacher and the class just wouldn't listen.
And if the people won't submit to the king's rule and what does he have to do? He has to conquer them. Ishmael describes it like this. What man? Build up the wind and rain tore down the fields. He cleared for his crops in his villages. The jungle fought to reclaim the seeds he sowed. The birds snatched away, the shoots he nurtured, the insects nibbled, the harvest he stored, the mice plundered, the animals he bred and fed the wolves and foxes, stole away the mountains.
The rivers and the oceans stood in their places and would not make way for the earthquake, the flood, the hurricane, the blizzard and the drought would not disappear at his command. In order to make himself the ruler of the world, man first had to conquering this part of take. The mythology is constantly being acted out around us to this day. On the peaceful ones, my suburban childhood, you could watch and hear the battle for human supremacy waging.
Every autumn, the leaves change to spectacular colors and gently fall to the ground. What a precious, miraculous event we get to witness every year. But lost in the take your mindset. This becomes a grievous threat and great effort is put into collecting these leaves, stuffing them in the plastic bags and hauling them away like they're trash for the landfill.
And with the invention of the gas powered leaf blowers from the crack of dawn till an hour after sunset, you can hear the nonstop battle with the leaves and take your culture. I guess getting these leaves islands is more important than getting some peace and quiet. So we've covered the creation myth, the beginning and the middle of take your mythology. So far it goes the world was made for us and we were meant to rule it.
And when the world doesn't get with the program, we've got to enforce our rule. We've now arrived at the end of Take Your Mythology. So has humanity conquered the world yet? Have we done it? Did we win? No, we haven't yet. I mean, the world's even harder to control. The oceans are rising. Wildfires are worse. There are more floods. What's the problem here? Why haven't we conquered the world yet? It's like we've grown too strong. And we're like a kid who was wrestling with their dad.
But we're too strong to play, wrestle with them now, and it's like we could actually hurt him at this point. Turns out our domination of the world has also devastated the world. Oops. In the last episode, we talked with Professor Keller about how we're living in a time of mass extinction. And here's the strange thing. You'd think that for your mythology, this would be the unraveling of the story. After all, taken mythology is about a chosen species conquering the world, isn't it?
Wouldn't this ironic destruction of the world kind of ruin the plot? Well, Ishmael suggests taking mythology. It was actually anticipating this ending. How is the story supposed to end? Take your hat. Oh, me? Well, I can't see the future, but the way I see it, I'm speaking on behalf of all taking mythology here. Of course, there are two possible wanderings to the story. Oh, yeah? Yeah. All right, so, sure, there's a few serious crises on hand.
Wildfires, droughts, floods, homelessness, famine, plagues, potential nuclear annihilation. Yes, and don't worry, these are just more problems to solve. And hey, I mean, you guys are pretty darn good at solving problems. Am I right? When you were too hot, you invented central air. When you were too cold, you invented space heaters and electric blankets. What I'm saying. Yeah, that's true. You've got your greatest minds on it, my friend.
I bet Elon Musk is working on the ultimate anti mass extinction drama contraption as we speak. So what would the world look like if takers eventually fully conquered the world? Oh, that's easy. The world will be a utopia. A utopia? That's right. It would only rain when you say rates. Crops will grow with the snap your fingers. You get more energy from solar and nuclear fusion than you know what to do with.
Picture it. Chrome highways, Golden Cities and Oculus Rift for everyone in a way that makes sense. I mean, what's the point of conquering the world if you don't think you're going to create a better world? And at the end of a better world is a perfect world. And hey, I don't want to hype you up too much here, but, uh, well, you know, what are we describing? US taking over the whole world. So go ahead.
Well, all I'm saying is, so the gods made the world for humans, and humans were supposed to rule it. Right. According to taker mythology. Right. Well, maybe humans are supposed to become gods themselves. Yeah, actually, I've heard the author, Yuval Harari, say a similar thing in his recent and very popular books, Sapiens and Homo Deus. He argues that's exactly what's supposed to happen, that humanity is supposed to evolve into gods.
Ishmael would say, That's the perfect articulation of the take or viewpoint. Geez, again, with the Ishmael book, it's just for the Ishmael series. I'm not going to talk about forever. Sure. Whatever. Anyway, Ishmael explains the take your end goal like this. Humans, quote, have to go on conquering it until our rule is absolute. Then when we're in complete control, everything will be fine. All the life processes of this planet will be where they belong, where the gods meant them to be.
In our hands, and we'll manipulate them the way the programmer manipulates a computer, unquote. But I don't know. Looking at the world today, the wars, the pandemic, mass extinction, it seems more chaotic than ever before. Are we really supposed to be gods? We seem like pretty crappy gods. Well, maybe you just got to try harder, huh? Patience. Trust the process. Just keep advancing and doing your thing. Don't worry about it. So take your mythology.
Tells us the natural world was a lawless chaos that we had to bring order to. And if humans do what we're meant to do, conquer the world, master the environment, then we can become like gods and live happily ever after. Well, not so fast. Not so fast. What are you talking about? I thought you'd agree. This ending. I told you there's two possible endings. Okay. What's the other one? So you see, on one hand, humans could totally crush it and make the world a perfect utopia. Or. Or what?
Or you doomed. You're just going to screw this up like you always do. What? Yeah. You're probably going to destroy yourself and the whole world, too. My money's on that one. So we're not supposed to be gods. Taking mythology was wrong. No, no, no. The exact opposite. You are supposed to be gods. But in the alternative, you're totally and completely doomed. Well, why? Why would we be doomed? I told you, I can't see the future. But I will tell you this. If you screw this up, it won't be taken.
Mythologies fault. It'll be yours. How is it? You know the answer. If you can't rule the world like you're supposed to. It's because humans are too greedy to stupid, too shortsighted. You're flawed. You're inherently flawed. So according to take your mythology, we're either destined to conquer the world or we're doomed to destroy it. Pretty much. Either the world is our enemy or one of the world's enemy. Yup.
I guess these seem completely contradictory, but they're really two sides of the same coin. Both see us in conflict with the world. Bingo. You got it. Now, do you still need me or can I get going? I got to whisper some things in the Mark Zuckerberg. He's about to make a big presentation on the metaverse, huh? Oh, sure. Yeah. Thanks to your. I think that's all we need for today. Hey, don't mention it. I'm always happy to help. Next time you want me to bring the dandruff shampoo, what do you got?
I know, I know. I'll get some. Thank you. You're welcome. Ooh. It's tempting to agree with the second ending of taken mythology that we're inherently flawed. Maybe we are doomed to kill each other and destroy the world. That's just human nature. It's like the secular version of the Christian idea of original sin. We're all flawed. We're all sinners. But the take your heart isn't on our head anymore. We can finally take it off and question its wisdom. So is it a fact that humans are flawed?
Where in our DNA does it show we're flawed? Flawed compared to what? Some ideal we can never live up to. This isn't a fact. It's mythology. We're not destined to act this way. So to summarize, take the mythology that Ishmael outlines. It's the world was made for us humans, and we're meant to rule it. But the world is out of our control, so we must conquer it. Under our rule, the world is supposed to be a paradise. But if it all goes to hell, it's because humans are flawed.
The world was made for us. We are meant to rule. You must conquer. It'll be a paradise. We are due. World is made here. And we must conquer. To be a pair. We are made for us. We are meant to conquer. It'll be a paradise we are meant to wear. It'll be a apparent we are doomed. This story has been playing out for a long time. The earliest takers, like the Sumerians and Egyptians, were enacting this story when they transformed their regions into agricultural superpowers.
The Greeks and Persians and Romans were enacting this story when they expanded their empires over thousands of miles, and the Western European monarchies and nation states were enacting this story when they colonized most of the world and were still enacting the story to this day. Even if you don't believe this story is true, we seem to be stuck acting it out all together. Ishmael describes it like being an animal caught in the stampede. So it turns out the real world.
My teachers worked so hard to prepare me for was born of this ancient mythology. Back when I first read Ishmael and was seeing the world, I was raised in a new. I started to realize that adults never really stop playing imaginary games. The difference? Maybe unlike children, adults forget they're playing. What would happen if we could remember? If we could kind of snap out of it and more clearly hear the story rather than brush it off as background noise? This story has become a reality.
We're locked in its cage, but at least now we can see the bars. And from the bars of our cage, we might start to notice what slips through the cracks. Ishmael believes the reason why we can't control the world isn't because there's a fundamental problem with us that we're inherently greedy or innately selfish and destructive. The problem is not that we're doing a bad job of enacting the story. Enacting the story is the problem.
Okay. We've been captives behind the bars of our cage for long enough. Are you ready? Careful now. Let's make sure no one's watching. And let's peer beyond the bars of our cage. Wait, wait, wait. What do you do in that bus? Oh, hey. What are you still doing here? Killing time. I Uber's late. So what were you saying? I was saying that it's time for us to peer out beyond the bars of our cage. Yeah, yeah. Listen. Whatever you do, do not do that. Why not? There's nothing to see there.
So if there's nothing to see, then there shouldn't be a problem. No, no, no, no. Go, go. Take over the takers. Imagine the land beyond our cage is a virgin wilderness. But there are other people here and they're not takers. They live very different lives because they enact a very different story. Ishmael has a name for them too. He calls them weavers. And in the next episode we're going to meet them. Thanks for listening.
Today on the next episode of Human Nature Odyssey, we'll spend time with the two groups. Ishmael divides the world into the Takers and the Weavers and explore the clash as old as civilization itself. Until next time. Maybe you'll start to notice our culture's dominant story. Take your mythology playing out around you. Can you see this story being acted out like an imaginary game? Talk to you soon.
Thank you. To Mitchie, Juneau, Josie, Brian, Nora, Mark, Dana, Dad, Joe and Hanin for helping create this episode. The theme music you were listening to was Celestial Soda Pop by Ray Lynch, and if you'd like to support Human Nature Odyssey, please subscribe wherever you enjoy your podcasts. We have a review and basic human nature odyssey outcome. Also, we do have a patriot where you'll find additional materials just for you.
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