Leavers vs Takers-chapter 11

The last chapter we read, chapter ten, was one that described the story the Takers are enacting. The story we are enacting together. This chapter, eleven is similar; Ishmael in his cage, at the circus act, cold and tired gives his pupil the next lesson. The story the Leavers are enacting. The Takers were the agriculturists, farmers after the Neolithic revolution and the Leavers are the hunter gatherers. The pupil begins to put himself in his ancestor’s shoes. “He’s running in place, trapped, going nowhere.”(p.220) He has his enemies behind him and his prey in front. He can neither escape from his enemies nor catch his prey. The pupil believes this life to be a terrible, harsh way to live and would not wish to live in those times. He says they have no control of their food if it is there when they need it or not, whereas we have our plants that will be there the next day if we plant it the day before. We have stores, if we want something we can go select it whenever we choose to. The pupil says that instead of trusting our lives to the gods we should instead “trust yourselves with your lives” (p.225) “In the hands of the gods you’re no more important than lions or lizards or fleas.” (p.226) The pupil wants to be out of the control of the gods and we will not be safe until “we’ve taken the whole world out of the hands of the gods.”(p.228) So the pupil and Ishmael come to their conclusion, “The Takers are those who know good and evil”, “The Leavers are those who live in the hands of the gods.”(p.229)