Compare And Contrast Ishmael's Version Of The Story Of Cain And Noel

D. Parts Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen

1. What is the student’s nightmare vision of how our ancestors lived? Where did he get such an image?

The student envisions that our ancestors lived a stressful life. He imagines us always running from predators and desperately trying to get food. He sees us struggling to stay alive. The image, though proved wrong by anthropologist, is conditioned in him to believe by Mother Culture.

2. Explain what Ishmael was trying to teach Bwana about the control of food. What does this have to do with the fact that leavers “live in the hands of the gods”?

Ishmael was trying to teach the student why we control food, and why we want to do it. He shows him that the Takers in the beginning wanted to control food

What do these interpretations of the Old Testament Bible have to do with agriculture?

Ishmael’s version of the story of Adam and Eve and of Cain and Abel are more like stories on the first fights between Takers and Leavers. The first real battle between man. He uses his interpretations to show how agriculture split apart Abel and Cain and to show how Eve offered agriculture to Adam, which also split up Man.

Why is it so hard for people to give up a story? Why is it that even the worst off in our society would just assume continuing to enact a story in which they are miserable?

It’s hard for people to give up a story because they don’t even realize there is one. Like the narrator in the beginning was oblivious to even a creation myth, but was acting out the principles it taught without even realizing where he got these principles. Even the worst off in our society would continue enacting this story because they have been conditioned to believe that any other life out there is worst. They have been conditioned, whether they realize it or not, that it’s better to live in the hands of Man than in the hands of