Ishmael: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

After the latest lesson, the narrator leaves Ishmael to find Ishmael’s owner. He tells the owner, a man named Art Owens, that he’s interested in buying Ishmael. Owens says that he’ll sell Ishmael for three thousand dollars. Together, they haggle the price down to two thousand. The narrator says he’ll think about it.

On Friday night, the narrator returns to the carnival. After bribing the bribee, he greets Ishmael, eager for another lesson. Ishmael asks the narrator to come back tomorrow, but the narrator says that tomorrow is Saturday—the carnival will surely be too crowded. With this in mind, Ishmael reluctantly agrees to proceed.

Ishmael asks the narrator how the Leavers live. When the narrator is unsure how to respond, Ishmael asks him, for the second time, how man became man. The narrator responds, a little too quickly, that man become man the same way that birds became birds and horses became horses. Ishmael agrees with this enthusiastically, and then asks the narrator to tease out what he’s just said. The narrator suggests that man became man by evolving from older life forms: Homo erectus, homo habilis, etc. Because they live in the hands of the gods, Leavers are subject to the effects of evolution, like natural selection and competition for finite resources. Takers, by contrast, have tried to halt the processes of natural selection. There is no competition for finite resources, they believe, because there are enough resources for everyone. Thus, there is no “survival of the fittest”—instead, everyone survives together.

Ishmael asks the narrator to sum up the story of the Leavers. After some thought, the narrator says that the Takers believe that the world belongs to man, and the Leavers believe that man belongs to the world. Only when species “belong to the world” do they change and evolve. Ishmael asks the narrator which alternative he prefers: no more creation, or an endless pattern of creation. The narrator says that the latter, the way of the Leavers, “has my vote.”

Ishmael and the narrator turn to the problem of how to live like a Leaver in the 20th century. The narrator suggests that the problem is how to be a Leaver and also be “civilized.” As soon as the narrator brings up this word, however, Ishmael becomes angry. He says that humans wrongly believe that to be civilized is to be a Taker, and vice versa. This is false. It’s perfectly possible to be intelligent, enlightened, and civilized without believing that man needs to conquer the world and defy the gods.

Ishmael suggests that aspiring Leavers like the narrator have a powerful source of inspiration: the collapse of the Soviet Union. This event proves that sometimes, people do relinquish their power voluntarily.

The narrator is not satisfied with the example of the Soviet Union. He asks Ishmael for a “program” for how to be a Leaver. Ishmael tells the narrator that Leavers must try to ensure that Cain stops killing Abel. They must also reject the idea that man’s purpose is to dominate the planet. This project, Ishmael acknowledges, is incredibly difficult. And yet modern-day Leavers have some advantages that their predecessors did not: for example, they have access to mass media. Indeed, the narrator himself is a writer, who can potentially reach millions with his work. The narrator asks Ishmael what he should say when people ask him if the Leavers want to return to being hunter-gatherers. Ishmael stresses that he doesn’t support being a hunter-gatherer unconditionally. On the contrary, it’s perfectly possible to be an agriculturalist without destroying the planet or making more food than one needs. Most of all, the Leavers have a responsibility to experiment with new strategies for living well—they must “invent.”

Ishmael brings up a small point he’s been neglecting. One of his former pupils was an ex-convict. From this pupil, Ishmael learned that the world of prison, like the human world itself, is stratified: there are wealthy prisoners, poor prisoners, strong prisoners, and weak prisoners. In a sense, the entire Taker world is a prison. Like a prison, this world has a prison industry, whose job is to keep the prisoners occupied. The nature of this industry, the narrator correctly guesses, is to consume the world.

Ishmael continues discussing prisons. The prison of Taker culture, he argues, cannot be escaped by anyone, even the rich and powerful. Within the prison, some people have more power—for example, men have more power than women, and whites have more power than blacks. The most important task for Leavers, he says, is not to make sure that blacks are as powerful as whites within the prison—rather, it’s to destroy the prison itself. The narrator agrees, but thinks that this will never happen. Women don’t want to destroy the prison of Taker culture itself, he believes—they only want to gain some of the same rights and powers as men. Ishmael points out that, as always, the narrator is being pessimistic.

Ishmael sighs and stares at the narrator. He tells the narrator that he’s finished with him, and the lessons are over. He tells the narrator that he’s proud of his progress, and would be glad to count him a friend. The narrator is crushed by the news that his lessons are over, but promises Ishmael that he’ll return the next day. Ishmael nods.