After
reading Ishmael I felt that I had learned hardly anything new. I instead viewed
what I already knew in a different light. I knew that humans were destroying
the planet, I knew that religions aren't exactly accurate, and I knew that in
order to teach someone a new idea that is so ridiculously out there, you have
to let them have their own experiences with that idea and let them ponder it
for a while. I knew all of that; Ishmael just changed some of my viewpoints on
those issues. The one thing the book did teach me to do was to question what I
have been taught and to open my eyes to what is happening with our current
situation on the planet.
A
perfect example of what I have learned can be compared to the movie “Oblivion.”
In this movie, humans are a nearly extinct species after a nuclear war that
they had supposedly won against an alien species looking to suck the water from
earth. Even though they had won the war, half of the planet had been destroyed.
The aliens can be compared to the takers from Ishmael because of their impact
on the planet, and the humans can be compared to the leavers because of their
little influence on the planet’s resources. Oblivion is also a perfect example
of the death of a society idea from what Ishmael said. The way that I interpreted
this concept was that when humans are forced to restart civilization, to
rebuild and repopulate, they do this as a leaver society. As time goes on and
things become more advanced, humans slowly turn into a taker society. This is a
repeating cycle that I believe will happen forever just like when it happened
when we were cave men. This cycle happened towards the end of the movie WALL-E
when the grotesque humans came back to earth to restart and rebuild. The movie
Oblivion not only provides an example of this cycle but also tricks you into
believing that the humans are actually the aliens and the aliens are the
humans. This is done not only as a plot twist but also because it seems
realistic that humans would end up destroying the planet. You should always
question what you have been taught.
Further exploring my point on
takers and leavers, I think that a society will, for the most part, start out
as a leaver society and will eventually turn into a taker society when things
get to big. We see this today with earth’s exponential growth of the human population.
There is a certain point in civilization where we get so advanced that we don’t
fully understand what we are actually doing. Nature wasn't made to hold the
unreal amount of bodies on this planet. It just doesn't seem natural. We think
we know what we are getting into but actually we don’t. This applies to the
rapid increase of advancements in technology. Although it may be used for a
greater purpose, there is always a negative effect such as cancer or global
warming. As civilized people, we think that our society is “different” so we
won’t fall like other societies have before us. The truth is it’s only a matter
of time until we all hit the ground.
