#22 - Ishmael’s Mother Culture: The Takers And Leavers

by KC Johnson

Have Humans Become A Virus On The Land?

For anyone dedicated to changing the course of our environmental future Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is a good place to start exploring. At a fundamental level as humans we are enmeshed in a mythical view of our place in life’s journey.

It’s as though humans were dropped into a world that operated through a natural order of every living form struggling to survive while not over-consuming other forms of life.

At some point humans became the alien species no longer honoring the natural order and slowly destroying the survivability for all.

And perhaps we were transplanted from elsewhere. We seem to be the alien force that assumes the lifeforms around us are there for our use in any way we choose to use them.

For cultures that still adhere to living in harmony with the land the so called ‘advanced human cultures’ look upon them as primitive. Ishmael calls them The Leavers, those able to remain in balance with nature and not over-populating the land in any area.

The Takers see themselves as rightful heirs to all lands and resources as long as it meets the Takers needs in some way. However the Taker mind developed, it destroyed the balance our natural world needs for sustained survival. Once agriculture began developing, the need for more and more land ownership evolved into a desire to accumulate more wealth. Cities began developing, the imbalance challenged the land’s ability to naturally supply enough food to sustain the people.

We were, and still are, a cancer on the land …

but because there was so much land to explore and the environmental consequences of our destructive actions built up so gradually, we were able to believe that we could do whatever we wanted to the land for as long as we wanted.

We continue to live out the Manifest Destiny early explorers adopted as they claimed ownership to lands they ‘found’ and proceeded to steal from the Leavers who were living in balance with the natural order.

Little heed was paid to the original inhabitants who lived in harmony with the land. The new explorers claimed everything and because they were ruthless they were able to overwhelm the original peoples, animals, and any life-form that brought perceived wealth.

The Taker mindset became the dominant method for educating their young passing on the cancerous behaviors to succeeding generations. This cycle continues today and is at the root of our severely damaged social and emotional fabric.

Fresh Banana Leaves by Dr. Jessica Hernandez describes a similar transition like Ishmael’s Takers where the transnational Europeans first invaded their lands and then the following generations of Caucasian US corporations moved Indigenous Leaver peoples off their ancestral lands in the name of greed and power.

Now the environmental movement and tourist trade are covers for continued abuse of these original cultures who lived in balance for many centuries. The ‘advanced’ cultures ignore the fact that they are living on another peoples land, that they should respect the boundaries, and need to seek permission to live as guests.

The Takers are in power because of their willingness to use force to get their dysfunctional needs met. The strong, silent, dominant male-type of the Manifest Destiny era has been passed down to every generation of males and females resulting in young males trained not to learn about the balance between their human emotions and social duties.

Female young were indoctrinated to accept male dominance and fulfill the roles the male culture wanted them to live.

All healthy societies need balance. Vigorous debate about the needs of the citizens, vibrant micro-efforts to create solutions, respect for diversity on all levels, and an appreciation for our connections to our inner worlds of soul and universal energies within all things, these are critically important for survival.

The female brain may provide a counter-balance to dominant male attitudes towards Manifest Destiny. Functional differences suggest that women are better than men at human relations, multi-tasking, and managing aggression providing alternative perspectives to domination and control.

We desperately need women to play a much more significant role in our floundering societies. Male brains for the most part seem unable to comprehend how out-of-balance their ‘dominance brain’ approach to society has distorted the health of the overall community.

Only a small percentage of our human male species seems strong enough to discard these artificial roles and follow their more self-directed, more humane, and more universally connected paths that need to serve as the human conscience.

New technologies allow us to share instantly consciousness ideas that have been around for centuries and can now give greater impact to these holistic minority beliefs. We have at our fingertips a wealth of information helping us explore our inner mind and the universal energies within and around us.

These ‘new’ beliefs our present generations are discovering were the foundational beliefs of the sustainable Leaver societies. Maybe the circle can be closed.

Now the Takers have to resort to even more subtle, yet just as effective, actions to maintain their control. That alien mind has only grown more manipulative and powerful, but less obvious and less approachable. Dark male-brain forces are probably behind every world government enforcing measures to continue their greed and lust for power.

Their inadequately nurtured childhoods have distorted their true selves into manipulators par excellence. And on down the line less powerful men can be found at all levels of society, following their distorted power-hungry selves.

What is especially disturbing is that the disintegration of our social fabric of caring for others is a direct result of the greed and power these damaged males continue to inflict on our infrastructure. Because so much of the resources a society needs to care for at-risk peoples and every day folks is being drained away by the super-wealthy, we have our humanity being stolen from us.

We no longer have enough resources for our mental health needs, or enough food for far too many families, or housing at reasonable costs, or enough environmental solutions being implemented, or adequate health care, and on and on. It has been soaked up by the greedy, the most emotionally dysfunctional among us.

A revolution needs to happen, one that creates healthy children and re-orients our values to instill compassion, caring, healing, inner searching for our own truths, and learning to love every moment. We need to return to fully nurturing our children like the Leavers did.

The Manifest Destiny approach to society has proven to bring disastrous results: over-population, environmental degradation, huge segments of our people being discarded, and innovative ideas too often being discarded to protect the interests of calcified business practices and greedy returns. My thoughts sounds dystopian, but creative, well-nurtured minds find ways to heal us all if given the chance to do so.

Complete nurturing of our young including appropriate touch, holding, non-judgmental tolerance for self-discovery, and open honest communication could change this destructive dynamic, yet we seem blind to the basic healing needs our young children most desperately need.

None of this will happen quickly. Going back to the hunter-gatherer Leaver consciousness may no longer be realistic, but we can alter our views about sustainability and the sharing of resources that we generate. We need the female brain to balance the society and teach us how to nurture our young.

After all, the mindset of male dominance, the Manifest Destiny, and our acceptance of the manipulators has had centuries to get firmly rooted in our psyches. But we can create the changes within ourselves and that will impact many people who have not become fully indoctrinated to the dysfunctional archaic ways too many of us are living within now. - kc