Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure

by Daniel Quinn

  In the first place, there's no need for global change. Those who insist on having nothing less than global change will wait a long time, probably forever. There's no need for everyone in the world to go to bed one night living one way and wake up the next morning living another way. This isn't going to happen, and it's pointless to try to make it happen.

  There is likewise no need for change across the board—for everything to suddenly begin to be done differently. It's unnecessary for this to happen, and nothing in the world can make it happen. Always keep in mind that there is no one right way for people to live. There never has been and never will be.

  Finally, we don't want the ruling class to disappear overnight. We're not ready to see the infrastructure of civilization disappear (and may never be). At least for the time being, we want our rulers and leaders to continue to supervise civilization's drudgery for us—keeping the potholes filled, the sewage and water treatment plants running, and so on.

  No one right way

  People often imagine that it would be wonderful if all six billion of us started living a new way tomorrow. It's one of our most deep-rooted and misguided memes, that there absolutely must be some one right way for everyone to live.

  I admire the Gebusi of New Guinea, but (trust me) not everyone in the world should live the way they do. I admire the Gypsies, but not everyone in the world should live the way they do—and (oddly enough) if they did, their way of life would fail. I admire the Jalali—nomadic peddlers and performers of Afghanistan—but not everyone in the world should live the way they do. I admire the Tuposa of the Sudan, the Rendille of Kenya, and the Kariera of Western Australia, but not everyone in the world should live the way they do. This isn't sociological thinking, this is ecological thinking. Macaws have a good life, but their habitats would fail if all birds lived like macaws. Giraffes have a good life, but their habitats would fail if all mammals lived like giraffes. Beavers have a good life, but their habitats would fail if all rodents lived like beavers.

  Diversity, not uniformity, is what works. Our problem is not that people are living a bad way but rather that they're all living the same way. The earth can accommodate many people living in a voraciously wasteful and pollutive way, it just can't accommodate all of us living that way.

  No heavenly choir

  We don't need to have all six billion of us living like environmental saints tomorrow—or ever, for that matter. To take such a thing as our objective would merely assure failure. This is precisely the strength of the strategy I'm proposing here. We don't need to achieve the impossible dreams of global enlightenment, unity, and resolve that people like Mikhail Gorbachev and Al Gore describe as humanity's only hope. We simply can't, as Gorbachev suggests, wait for “all members of the world community” to “resolutely discard old stereotypes.” We can't wait for all members of the world community to do anything, because if we know anything at all, we know that all members of the world community will never, ever do anything as a body. “The time has come,” Gorbachev says, “to choose a new direction of global development.” But who's going to do this choosing? Everyone? And how many decades (or even centuries) will have to pass before that happens? Where on earth is Al Gore's “New Common Purpose” to come from? When have the people of earth ever been able to agree on a common anything? These are will-o-the-wisps, vain expectations that keep us rooted in hopelessness, year after year, decade after decade.

  We can't wait for our national leaders to save us. When all we demand from them (or even tolerate from them) are instant, short-term gains, why would they suddenly begin thinking like global visionaries?

  Those who would wait

  Because we don't expect to overthrow governments, abolish world capitalism, make civilization vanish, or turn everyone in the world into walking buddhas, we don't have to wait for anything. But I have to warn you that many people will tell you the opposite, that we have to wait until we have a world that is already perfect. They feel absolutely nothing should happen until we've banished social inequality, racism, sexism, poverty, and every other bad thing you can think of.

  I've had people tell me we have to wait till everyone “respects” everyone else. I've had people tell me we can't do anything till everyone's “consciousness” has been raised. People who think like this would wait for the cut to heal before applying a bandage, would wait till daybreak to light a candle, would wait for the sinking ship to rise before getting in the lifeboat. They're way past my comprehension, and beyond offering the opinion that they're going to have an awful long wait, I can't think of a thing to say to them.

  Fighters of the good fight

  A friend recently sent me a copy of Deep Democracy, a periodical published by the Alliance for Democracy, whose mission is “to free all people from corporate domination of politics, economics, the environment, culture, and information; to establish true democracy; and to create a just society with a sustainable equitable economy.” The cover featured an illustration in political-cartoon style of the organization's self-perception: a diminutive David facing a Goliath armed with the sword of money politics and the spear of greed, wearing the armor of multinational corporations, and shielded by a mainstream media monopoly. The title of the cartoon couldn't have been more apt: “Déjá Vu (All Over Again).” Indeed. Over and over and over and over.

  I had to explain to my friend that, while I wish the Alliance the best of luck, I don't perceive myself to be a participant in this struggle. We can't afford to wait for David to finish off Goliath, because obviously David never finishes off Goliath. The two of them have been standing there toe to toe for thousands of years—and they'll still be standing there a thousand years from now.

  We don't need to defeat Goliath. We need to change the way he thinks.

  Goliath with a new mind

  Once upon a time in the commercial carpeting industry there was a Goliath named Ray C. Anderson who had taken his company, Interface, Inc., from a modest beginning to a position of global leadership in about twenty years, becoming one of those wicked billionaire multinational corporations you hear about. This Goliath had always made a point of being in compliance with government regulations, but these didn't stop the business from being a highly pollutive one—petroleum based and contributing heavily to landfill.

  But in 1994 he read two books that changed his mind about what he was doing. One was Paul Hawken's book, The Ecology of Commerce, the other was Ishmael. After reading these books, Ray Anderson saw that being in compliance is not nearly enough. He immediately initiated action to end his dependence on petroleum and to begin making one hundred percent recyclable carpeting made from one hundred percent recycled materials, thus reducing his company's contribution to landfill to zero. It's important to note that these changes didn't affect just his corporation. Suddenly all his competitors were compelled to adopt his standards in order to remain competitive. This Goliath didn't just reform a business, he reformed an entire industry—not because any plucky little David defeated him, but because two books made him think a different way about the world and his place in it.

  If people will willingly reform an industry when their minds are changed, why spend billions to enact and enforce laws to compel them to do it?

  The incremental revolution

  I say again that, because we don't expect to overthrow governments, abolish world capitalism, make civilization vanish, turn everyone in the world into walking buddhas, or cure all social and economic ills, we don't have to wait for anything. If ten people walk beyond civilization and build a new sort of life for themselves, then those ten are already living in the next paradigm, from the first day. They don't need the support of an organization. They don't need to belong to a party or a movement. They don't need new laws to be passed. They don't need permits. They don't need a constitution. They don't need taxexempt status.

  For those ten, the revolution will already have succeeded.

  They probably should be prepared, however, for the outrage of their neighb
ors.

  Ethnic tribalism won't work for us

  The tribes we grew up with during the first three or four million years of human life were ethnic groups, extended families having a common language, common laws and customs, and so on. Their social borders were generally (but not absolutely) closed to members of other tribes. Captives of war were an obvious exception, but a member of the Sioux, for example, couldn't ordinarily just decide to become a Navajo. It might happen under extraordinary circumstances, to be sure, but tribal integrity would have suffered if it became a general rule.

  Rennie and I have links to the Quinn clan and to the MacKay clan (hers), but like most modern clan members, we go our way and they go theirs. Very occasionally what might be considered a tribal action will take place in these clans, but in the modern world no one is surprised when people turn out to be closer to friends and colleagues than to families.

  But there's nothing specially sacrosanct about ethnic tribalism. The sort of tribalism we see at work in the circus evolved in the same way as ethnic tribalism. It too is the product of natural selection, works as well (in its own way) as ethnic tribalism, and provides us with a model that is perfectly adapted to the urban circumstances most of us find ourselves in.

  Jeffrey

  In My Ishmael I recounted the life of a young man named Jeffrey, loosely based on Paul Eppinger, whose journal was published by his father under the title Restless Mind Quiet Thoughts. Jeffrey was attractive, intelligent, personable, and multitalented, but he couldn't find anything he wanted to do, other than hang out with friends, write in his journal, and play the guitar. His friends were forever urging him to find a direction, get some ambition, and care about something, but of course none of these things can be done at will. He came to believe his friends when they told him he was unusual— peculiar, even—in his aimlessness. In the end, despairing of finding the purposefulness that seems to come so easily to others, he quietly and without fuss took his own life.

  I wasn't surprised to hear from many youngsters who feel exactly like Jeffrey, who know the world is full of things they should want to do—and who imagine that there must be something dreadfully wrong with them for failing to want it. Because I've taken the trouble to study cultures different from our own, I know there's nothing innately human about wanting to “make something” of yourself or to “get ahead” or to have a career, a profession, or a vocation. Notions like these are foreign to most aboriginal peoples, who seem perfectly content to live just the way Jeffrey wanted to live—and why shouldn't they be?

  The open tribe

  Jeffrey died for lack of a tribe—but not, of course, for lack of an ethnic tribe. Youngsters often tell me they long to run off to join the Yanomami of Brazil or the Alawa of Australia, and I have to explain that tribes like these aren't open to them. Though famously hospitable, they can't afford to take in wideeyed kids who show up on their doorsteps completely devoid of the skills needed to help the tribe survive.

  Throughout his wanderings, Jeffrey stayed with people who were making a living of one kind or another—family friends, ex-college chums, their parents, and so on. But, not surprisingly, none of them were making a living tribally; they had jobs, professions, and careers, but these were held individually, so there was no room for Jeffrey in them. They weren't making a living as a collaborative effort, so there was no way to extend their living to him. He was forever a guest, and guests (however charming) inevitably wear out their welcome.

  In a sense, Jeffrey was unable to find anyone who knew how to give him as little as he wanted. Many youngsters want as little, and if they'll work together tribally, they can get it quite easily. Every tribe has the standard of living its members are willing to support.

  People like Jeffrey need to live in a world of tribes, and a world of open tribes. And they aren't alone in this. Far from it, I think.

  The limits of openness

  The circus is the very model of an open tribe. Things like nationality, language, race, ethnic background, age, gender, sexual orientation, political opinions, and religious beliefs won't exclude anyone who can contribute to the living of the circus, but its openness isn't absolute, of course. It isn't a refuge for the homeless, for example; it doesn't take in people altruistically. This isn't to say that there's a prohibition against altruism. The circus must take good care of its members or they'll defect to circuses that are more open-handed and bountiful. It's a question of survival. A species that can't hold onto its members becomes extinct, and the same is true of a tribe.

  On the other hand, a circus that is too altruistic (for example, that takes in people who don't contribute to its success) soon has difficulty making ends meet; it begins cutting salaries, lowering the general living standard, skimping on quality across the board—and begins to lose its most talented members to other circuses.

  Circuses that find a workable balance between economic success and community needs stay in business. Circuses that don't find that balance disappear.

  Nontribal businesses

  Ordinary businesses don't burden themselves with tribal obligations. Most obviously, they don't “take care” of their workers; to do so would introduce them to a whole suite of problems in which there's no profit whatever. Instead, they pay salaries and expect workers to take care of themselves. One worker may thrive on a given salary, while another languishes on it. From the company's point of view, there's no injustice in this if the salary is fair in the first place. It's not the company's fault that the second worker has a large family to support or an ailing parent to take care of—or is just a bad manager of money. The company can afford to be hard-nosed about this; it doesn't risk losing this second worker to a competitor, because its competitors are equally hard-nosed about it.

  This unspoken agreement among businesses to limit their obligation to issuing a paycheck is precisely what gives our society its prison ambience. Workers have “no way out.” Whether they move from company to company or from nation to nation, their employers' obligation ends with the paycheck (an arrangement that obviously suits employers very well). Prisons are always arranged to suit the warders. That's the anticipated order of things. No one thinks that prisons are built to suit the needs of prisoners or that businesses are built to suit the needs of workers.

  Stepping into a tribe means stepping out of the prison.

  But how does it render us harmless?

  Having read this far, a student said to me, “I love what you're saying, but I don't see how just walking away from civilization helps us live 'as harmlessly as sharks and tarantulas and rattlesnakes,' which is the benchmark for success you established in Ishmael. ”

  I think that, like many people, this person is more at ease with the idea of giving up things than getting things. He worries that people enjoying themselves may not be living as blamelessly as people denying themselves. Well-intentioned people often want to feel they're giving up something, which is only to be expected in a culture where all ethical and religious systems commend self-denial. In hierarchical societies it's always a good idea to make poverty sound like a blessing (and the rich are always especially vain about their austerities).

  If you think this is something that no longer holds true, try this. Find me a single elementary or secondary textbook that promotes being rich as a value. Being rich is never held up to schoolchildren as an ideal. Look all you want, you won't find a single text that says: “Make lots of money so you can have the best of everything—exotic cars, luxurious mansions, yachts, servants, designer clothes, extravagant jewelry, endless firstclass travel, and so on.” Our official classroom mythology is as prissy about wealth as it is about sex.

  “The culture of maximum harm”

  People have lived many different ways on this planet, but about ten thousand years ago there appeared one people who believed everyone in the world should live a single way—their way, which they considered the only “right” way. After ten thousand years of hard work, this one people, whom I've called the Tak
ers, had conquered every continent on the planet and dominated the world completely. In the course of their conquest, the Takers overran, swallowed up, displaced, or eliminated every other culture and civilization in their path. Once the civilizations of the New World were destroyed, there was only one civilization left in the entire world—that of the Takers: ours. From that point on, civilization was synonymous with our civilization.

  At the present time, the United States represents the high point of maximum affluence that our civilization has reached. There's no place on earth where people have more, use more, or waste more than the United States. Though other nations haven't as yet reached this high point, they yearn to reach it. They have no other goal. There's only one right way for people to live, and the people of the United States epitomize it. Everyone in the world should have a house, a car, a computer, a television set, a telephone, and so on—at least one of each, preferably several.

  This I call “the culture of maximum harm,” a culture in which all members are dedicated to attaining the high point of maximum affluence (and to forever raising the high point of maximum affluence).

  But how can we contain their expansion?

  I've been asked, “If we don't crush the Taker way entirely, won't it rebound and begin expanding again?”

  The Middle Ages could only remain the Age of Faith for as long as Christian mythology dominated people's minds, all the way from serfs to kings. After that mythology was abased and superceded during the Renaissance, it was inconceivable that such an Age of Faith could recur. Never again will a whole civilization embrace the vision that dominated the Middle Ages.