>just some comments related to the issue that candi chruchill brought up
>recently:
>
>this summer i read a book entitled ISHMAEL by daniel quinn which i
>recommend to everyone, and there was a story in it about how the gods
>acquired the knowledge they needed to rule the world. it goes something
>like this:
>one day the gods were administrating the world in the usual way, when one
>of them said "here's a spot i've been thinking about for a while -- a
>wide, pleasant savannah. let's send a great multitude of locusts into
>this land. then the fire of life will grow prodigiously in them and in
>the birds and lizards that will feed on them, and that will be very fine."
>the others thought about this and one said "...the fire of life will blaze
>in the locusts and the creatures that feed on them, but at the expense of
>all the other creatures that live there." and they decided not to do it
>so things went on as before. but then another god said "surely this would
>be as great a crime as the other. for don't the locusts and the birds and
>the liszards live in our hands as well as the rest? is it never to be
>their time to flourish greatly, as others do?" the gods looked down and
>saw a quail stalking a grasshopper and a fox stalking the quail. they
>realized that if they let the fox get the quail, both the fox and the
>grasshopper would bless the gods, but the quail would curse them. this
>was a situation with no easy answer. well, time went on, and the gods
>were sinking right into the slough of despond when one said "say, didn't
>we make for the garden a certain tree whose fruit is the knowledge of good
>and evil?" "yes!" cried the others, "let's find that tree and eat of it
>and see what this knowledge is!" so they did. soon, a lion went out to
>hunt, and the gods said to themselves, "today is the lion's day to go
>hungry, and the deer it would have taken may live another day." and so
>the lion missed it's kill, and as it was returning hungry to its den it
>began to curse the gods. but they said, "be at peace, for we know how to
>rule the world, and today is your day to go hungry." and the lion was at
>peace. the next day the gods allowed the lion to catch the deer, and the
>deer was at peace since the gods told him that yesterday was his day to
>live,and today his day to die. so the gods acquired the knowledge of who
>shall live and who shall die. the story goes on by one god giving a
>"hypothetical" situation of what would happen if adam ate from the tree of
>good and evil. now, in reality, the fruit of this tree would not have any
>effect on adam, him being a mere mortal, but this is what would happen if
>he IMAGINED he had acquired the knowledge of good and evil:
>in his arrogance he (adam) might look around the garden and say to himself
>"this is all wrong. why should i have to share the fire of life with all
>these creatures? look here, the lions and the wolves take the game i would
>have for myself. this is evil. i will kill all these creatures, and this
>will be good. and look here, the gods have set a limit on my growth just
>as they've set a limit on the growth of all others. this is evil. i will
>grow without limit, taking all the fire of life that flows through this
>garden into myself and that will be good." "if this should happen," said
>the other gods, "adam would devour the world in a single day, and at the
>end of that day he would devour himself." "this is true," said the
>god,"but then would he not go on to escape from this world and devour the
>entire universe?" "but might he not be tempted by his yearning for growth
>to take the fire of life into his own hands even without deluding himself
>that this was good?" protested the other gods. "he might. but what would
>be the result? he would become a criminal, and a murderer of the creatures
>around him. without the delusion that what he is doing is good, and
>therefore done at any cost, he would soon tire of the criminal's life.
>but because he has eaten of the tree of knowledge, he will say, 'i know
>good and evil, and this way of living is good. therefore i must live this
>way even though i'm weary unto death, even though i destroy the world and
>even myself. the gods wrote in the world a law for all to follow, but it
>cannot apply to me because i am their equal. therefore i will live
>outside this law and grow without limit. to be limited is evil. i will
>steal the fire of life from the hands of the gods and heap it up for my
>growth, and that will be good. i will destroy those kinds that do not
>serve my growth, and that will be good. i will wrest the garden from the
>hands of the gods and order it anew so that it serves only my growth, and
>that will be good. and because these things are good, they must be done
>at any cost. it may be that i will destroy the garden and make a ruin of
>it. it may be that my progeny will teem over the earth like locusts,
>stripping it bare, until they drown in their own filth and hate the very
>sight of one another and go mad. still they must go on, becuse to grow
>without limit is good and to accept the limits of the law is evil. and
>when at last all the garden has been subjugated to my use and all kinds
>that do not serve my growth have been cast aside and all the fire of life
>in the world flows through my progeny, still i must grow. and when they
>can grow no more, the people of this land will fall upon the poeple of the
>next to murder them, so that they may grow still more, and when the groans
>of my progeny fill the air throughout the world, i will say to them, "your
>sufferings must be borne, for you suffer in the cause of good. see how
>great we have become! wielding the knowledge of good and evil, we have
>made ourselves the masters of the world, and the gods have no power over
>us. though your groans fill the air, isn't it sweeter to live in our own
>hands than in the hands of the gods?....."'"
>
>something to think on.....
>
>
I really enjoyed this story, thankyou. I think it really shows what
capitalism and blind market force can do.
Kylie
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
