Daniel Quinn: Ishmael

“Oddly enough,” he said, “it was my benefactor who awakened my interest in the subject of captivity and not my own condition. As I may have indicated in yesterday’s narrative, he was obsessed by the events then taking place in Nazi Germany.”

“Yes, that’s what I gathered.”

“From your story about Kurt and Hans yesterday, I take it that you’re a student of the life and times of the German people under Adolf Hitler.”

“A student? No, I wouldn’t go as far as that. I’ve read some of the well–known books—Speer’s memoirs, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and so on—and a few studies of Hitler.”

“In that case, I’m sure you understand what Mr. Sokolow was at pains to show me: that it was not only the Jews who were captives under Hitler. The entire German nation was a captive, including his enthusiastic supporters. Some detested what he was doing, some just shambled on as best they could, and some positively thrived on it—but they were all his captives.”

“I think I see what you mean.”

“What was it that held them captive?”

“Well… terror, I suppose.”

Ishmael shook his head. “You must have seen films of the prewar rallies, with hundreds of thousands of them singing and cheering as one. It wasn’t terror that brought them to those feasts of unity and power.”

“True. Then I’d have to say it was Hitler’s charisma.”

“He certainly had that. But charisma only wins people’s attention. Once you have their attention, you have to have something to tell them. And what did Hitler have to tell the German people?”

I pondered this for a few moments without any real conviction. “Apart from the Jewish business, I don’t think I could answer that question.”

“What he had to tell them was a story.”

“A story.”

“A story in which the Aryan race and the people of Germany in particular had been deprived of their rightful place in the world, bound, spat upon, raped, and ground into the dirt under the heels of mongrel races, Communists, and Jews. A story in which, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the Aryan race would burst its bonds, wreak vengeance on its oppressors, purify mankind of its defilements, and assume its rightful place as the master of all races.”

“True.”

“It may seem incredible to you now that any people could have been captivated by such nonsense, but after nearly two decades of degradation and suffering following World War I, it had an almost overwhelming appeal to the people of Germany, and it was reinforced not only through the ordinary means of propaganda but by an intensive program of education of the young and reeducation of the old.”

“True.”

“As I say, there were many in Germany who recognized this story as rank mythology. They were nevertheless held captive by it simply because the vast majority around them thought it sounded wonderful and were willing to give their lives to make it a reality. Do you see what I mean?”

“I think so. Even if you weren’t personally captivated by the story, you were a captive all the same, because the people around you made you a captive. You were like an animal being swept along in the middle of a stampede.”

“That’s right. Even if you privately thought the whole thing was madness, you had to play your part, you had to take your place in the story. The only way to avoid that was to escape from Germany entirely.”

“True.”

“Do you understand why I’m telling you this?”

“I think so, but I’m not sure.”

“I’m telling you this because the people of your culture are in much the same situation. Like the people of Nazi Germany, they are the captives of a story.”

I sat there blinking for a while. “I know of no such story,” I told him at last.

“You mean you’ve never heard of it?”

“That’s right.”

Ishmael nodded. “That’s because there’s no need to hear of it. There’s no need to name it or discuss it. Every one of you knows it by heart by the time you’re six or seven. Black and white, male and female, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, American and Russian, Norwegian and Chinese, you all hear it. And you hear it incessantly, because every medium of propaganda, every medium of education pours it out incessantly. And hearing it incessantly, you don’t listen to it. There’s no need to listen to it. It’s always there humming away in the background, so there’s no need to attend to it at all. In fact, you’ll find—at least initially—that it’s hard to attend to it. It’s like the humming of a distant motor that never stops; it becomes a sound that’s no longer heard at all.”

“This is very interesting,” I told him. “But it’s also a little hard to believe.”

Ishmael’s eyes closed gently in an indulgent smile. “Belief is not required. Once you know this story, you’ll hear it everywhere in your culture, and you’ll be astonished that the people around you don’t hear it as well but merely take it in.”

“Yesterday you told me you have the impression of being a captive. You have this impression because there is enormous pressure on you to take a place in the story your culture is enacting in the world—any place at all. This pressure is exerted in all sorts of ways, on all sorts of levels, but it’s exerted most basically this way: Those who refuse to take a place do not get fed.”

“Yes, that’s so.”

“A German who couldn’t bring himself to take a place in Hitler’s story had an option: He could leave Germany. You don’t have that option. Anywhere you go in the world, you’ll find the same story being enacted, and if you don’t take a place in it you won’t get fed.”

“True.”

“Mother Culture teaches you that this is as it should be. Except for a few thousand savages scattered here and there, all the peoples of the earth are now enacting this story. This is the story man was born to enact, and to depart from it is to resign from the human race itself, is to venture into oblivion. Your place is here , participating in this story, putting your shoulder to the wheel, and as a reward, being fed. There is no ‘something else.’ To step out of this story is to fall off the edge of the world. There’s no way out of it except through death.”

“Yes, that’s the way it seems.”

Ishmael paused to think for a bit. “All this is just a preface to our work. I wanted you to hear it because I wanted you to have at least a vague idea of what you’re getting into here. Once you learn to discern the voice of Mother Culture humming in the background, telling her story over and over again to the people of your culture, you’ll never stop being conscious of it. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’ll be tempted to say to the people around you, ‘How can you listen to this stuff and not recognize it for what it is?’ And if you do this, people will look at you oddly and wonder what the devil you’re talking about. In other words, if you take this educational journey with me, you’re going to find yourself alienated from the people around you—friends, family, past associates, and so on.”

“That I can stand,” I told him, and let it go at that.

“It is my most heartfelt and unattainable fantasy to travel once in your world as you do, freely and unobtrusively—to step out onto a street and flag down a taxi to take me to the airport, where I would board a flight to New York or London or Florence. Much of this fantasy is spent in making delicious preparations for the journey, in pondering what must accompany me in my luggage and what may be safely left behind. (You understand that I would of course be traveling in human disguise.) If I take too much, dragging it from place to place will be tiresome; on the other hand, if I take too little, I will forever be having to break my journey to pick up things along the way—and that will be even more tiresome.”