Ishmael Chapters 5-8

     I am in love with this book. It describes our society so well in so many ways and how it came to be. It is applicable to all of our lives though some may not be so receptive to what it tells us because it is jarring and provocative in relation to what we believe as true and moral. I have brought this book up in many situations already, especially my WeSustain internship because we are constantly coming to the problem of "why is society so messed up?"
     There are so many amazing quotes in this book that I will just have to put some in here. Daniel Quinn, through Ishmael, slowly brings us to some conclusions about life in a very effective manor, in my opinion. He addresses that we have never really sought out the knowledge of how to live as humans though for three million years we were fine.
      In my internship we discussed that yes this was a good time but we can not go back to it because of Globalization and the amount of people on the Earth. Hundreds of years ago we weren't able to see if people were starving in other countries so we did nothing about it and we let nature run its course. All of the humans on the planet now can not be subsisted in the places where humans are readily adapted to, like the tropics. We can't all move to the tropics and be gatherer/hunters, a lot of us would die, probably due to war on resources.
      "Obviously Mother Culture must be finished off if you're going to survive, and that's something the people of your culture can do. She has no existence outside your minds. Once you stop listening to her, she ceases to exist." This has to do with a lot of things but especially the way people interact with the world around them.
        Since reading this book I have noticed myself ignoring mother culture, and this isn't a change I have made because of the book, just an observation. Today, for example, I asked a friend for a tampon and she was trying to be discreet and I just blatantly said, "don't be ashamed of feminine products!" and proceeded to grab them in front of the whole class and walk back to my seat, tossing them all on my desk.
        As I am looking for outside research or pictures I am finding people trying to convince others to be themselves but Mother Culture doesn't allow that. There are laws that everyone has to obey and that's it, if you feel like grabbing your tampons and not having to hide them and not having to feel ashamed that it is there, hidden in your hand, it doesn't matter, Mother Culture has told you that you should feel this way.