In The Story of B, Daniel Quinn continues the teachings first layed out in Ishmael. Through B, he furthers his criticism of Civilization by continuing to attack agriculture as its base, and expounding a great deal on religion. Indeed, the majority of the book is devoted to religious issues. Quinn classifies the major religions of the East and West – Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – all as salvationist religions, meaning that they’re all of the opinion that man needs to be saved. He shows this as a result of the development of agriculture and a demonstration that collapse is coming, and has been coming for quite a while.
It is certainly a book that fans of Ishmael will enjoy and, if you haven’t read Ishmael yet, what are you doing wasting your time here?
This is it, here it is. The book that pushes away all others as the most significant book of recent times. It’s been a strong influence on me since before I heard it’s name. Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael is the originator of the primitive movement – the so-called New Tribal Revolution. By allowing one to hear the myth that bombards us every day, Ishmael calls into question the basis of our society and forces one to look at the world in a different way.
There’s little to say, other than read this book.
Last night I completed Dennis Tedlock’s translation of the Popul Vuh. Often referred to as the Mayan’s Genesis, this is the Quiché people’s creation myth. It tells of the gods’ creation of the earth-sky, their attempts to create humans, the exploits of the trickster‘s Hunahpu and Xbalanque, and the times of the first humans. Unlike most sacred texts, I found this one to be quite accessible. It’s written in a way that, even in translation, flows and is easy to understand. I did have trouble pronouncing many of the names, but for that just ask your friendly neighborhood Guatemalan.
When the first humans were created (on the gods’ third attempt), they had perfect sight. The gods were worried that, being able to see “the four sides, the four corners in the sky, on the earth,” these humans’ deeds would rival their own, so they took the sight away. The name Popul Vuh translates to Council Book. It is said that the Quiché lords would sit with the this book in council and, using the original hieroglyphic version (which is now either lost or hiding) as a celestial guide, could regain the lost sight.
They knew whether war would occur; everything they saw was clear to them. Whether there would be death, or whether there would be famine, or whether quarrels would occur, they knew it for certain, since there was a place to see it, there was a book. "Council Book" was their name for it.
Mel Gibson’s upcoming film Apocalypto is supposed to be partially based on these myths. Hopefully the book will gain more attention because of it.
Rudy Wurlitzer‘s Hard Travel to Sacred Places takes us to the depths of depression caused by death, amplified by the depression of middle-class travel and expensive hotels in S.E. Asia. A kind of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but take out the drugs and toss in Buddhism. Although it’s billed as travel writing, I found the actual locations and travelling to take a back seat to the author’s attempt to reconcile the loss of his step-son with his spiritual beliefs. Indeed, if one were to take out all the Buddhist quotes, the book would probably be halved in length.
I was first introduced to Jeff Vail (former Intelligence Officer for the US Air Force) last Winter by Anthropik – which will probably give you an idea of what he’s all about. His book, A Theory of Power, has been called “the most innovative approach to anarchist theory in a generation”. It has received praise from both John Zerzan and Noam Chomsky, and includes people such as Hakim Bey, Aldous Huxley, and Robert Anton Wilson in the bibliography. Impressed? I was. And I was right to be. It’s excellent.
The book is based, not surprisingly, on Vail’s theory of power, that “connections, not the parties connected, may best represent our world.” By analyzing the connections between genes and organisms, furthering this to the connections between memes and society, he “unravels the functioning of our world” and shows us the inevitable downfall of Civilization – but then he goes further.
Hakim Bey gives us the T.A.Z.. Jeff Vail gives us the Rhizome, a way to operate outside – and inside – of the T.A.Z.’s space in time.
Rhizome acts as a web-like structure of connected but independent nodes, borrowing its name from the structures of plants such as bamboo and other grasses. By its very nature, rhizome exhibits incompatibility with such critical hierarchal structures as domestication, monoculture-agriculture, division of labor and centralized government. Unlike hierarchy, rhizome cannot suffer exploitation from within because its structure remains incompatible with centralization of power. It provides a structural framework for our conscious organization of memes. Each node in a rhizome stands autonomous from the larger structure, but the nodes work together in a larger network that extends benefits to the node without creating dependence. The critical element of a world that focuses power at the level of the individual, that can meet the demands of our genome while providing the flexibility and potential to achieve greater goals, remains the small, connected and relatively self-sufficient node of this rhizome structure. In human terms, such a node represents an economic and a cultural unit at the size preferred by our genome: the household and the tribe. Functionally self-sufficient but not isolated, cooperating but not controlled, the rhizome economy, combined with a self-awareness of control structures, provides the real-world foundation of stability and freedom.
At only 50 pages, and freely available online, there is little excuse not to read this book. Go now. Forward, to Rhizome.
Robert Young Pelton’s The Wold’s Most Dangerous Places is worthy of being added to the “books that will make you a better human being” list. Different from RYP’s autobiography, DP is adrenaline-filled and hard-hitting. That I read its 1057 pages in little over a week is probably the highest praise I can give.
The bulk of DP acts as a guidebook to the countries profiled, but there are other sections included. When people asked me what I was reading, I found it great fun to read off a couple chapter titles to them: Bribes, Drugs, Getting Arrested, Guns, Kidnapping, Land Mines, and Mercenaries are just some of the more interesting ones.
This 5th edition, published in 2003, can at times feel extremely dated. For instance, the Iraq chapter is pre invasion of Baghdad. The Mercenaries chapter doesn’t mention Blackwater, I think one of the most prominent merc groups, but I guess few knew of them before Fallujah. Pre Ariel Sharon coma, pre Hamas victory. The U.S. chapter even has profiles of Powell and Ashcroft (and, of course, the profile of Cheney mentions nothing of his marksmanship).
The political analysis and history is single-minded and the humor dark, but that’s to be expected from someone who has experienced all that RYP and his contributors have. At times his more compassionate side comes through, making it evident that he’s still part human under that large, bushy mustache.
Despite its shortcomings, DP includes detailed information on locations that you’ll never hear about it in school or the news. Where journalists fear for their lives, RYP is admired and respected by rebel groups, dictators, and special forces groups alike.
Hard-core readers of DP... seek the stone-heavy truth of experience and the wisdom-inducing perspective of intense emotional experience, tempered by the cool intellectual framework of research.
Welcome to DP: No walls, no barriers, no bull.
Tamarack Song‘s Journey to the Ancestral Self is an attempt to lay out a life philosophy that encompasses believes of all Native people. (It’s always strange, learning about stuff like this from a white guy.) I think the book fails in its goal, but succeeds in describing Tamarack’s own ideas – heavily influenced by Native thinking.
Much of the book is very similar to Hawkeen Training. I enjoyed it a good bit, and will probably continue reading more of his books (and reread this one).