Ishamel Ch 9

The beginning paragraph already had a sentence that got me thinking."...I thought I glimpsed a look of wary speculation in his eyes, as if my proximity troubled him as much as his troubled me." I love that idea. Ishmael has as much cause to fear his pupil as his pupil believes he has to fear him. It reminds me of talking to my friend who had recently studied abroad in South Africa, and had spent a small amount of time in Rwanda. In the time she spent there she went gorilla trekking, and she told me the story of it. Apparently, the tour guides were all carrying large guns, and my friend asked if they were to protect them from the gorillas. The guides laughed at her, and responded that the gorillas would never hurt them, the guns were because they were near a war zone. I think that really relates here. That all humans probably would've assumed the same as my friend in that situation--"We're going into the wild, we need to protect ourselves from the wild." When, ironically, the wild that they needed to fear was not the habitat they were entering.

Ishmael goes into great detail about the gods and how they came to rule the world, and put man in it. One of my favorite parts of this section was this:

"'Whatever I can justify doing is good and whatever I cannot justify doing is evil.' But the others scoffed at this, saying, 'This is not the knowledge of good and evil.' 'Of course it's not,' the other replied, 'but how would Adam know this?'"

This book is great at revealing truths of human nature, and this is no exception. For the most part, this is absolutely how we operate. If we can justify it, we must be right. If we can't, then it's wrong. And while the counter argument to this is, "Well, of course, that's how morality works." I can see the problem with this. To think like this puts ourselves at the center of our own universe, and says that all things happen for our own benefit.

The chapter concludes with identifying Adam as the protagonist in the story of the Takers, making the distinction that Adam began the culture we know today, not the race of humanity we know today. I enjoy this point a lot. I look forward to finishing this book!