Daniel Quinn - Beyond Civilization: Humanitys Next Great Adventure

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Other Books by Daniel Quinn

Ishmael

My Ishmael: A Sequel

The Story of B

Providence: The Story of a Fifty-Year Vision Quest

BEYOND

CIVILIZATION

HUMANITYS NEXT

GREAT ADVENTURE

DANIEL QUINN

What would happen if we

intentionally forged our social solutions

in the fires of creative chaos?

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John Briggs and F. David Peat

THREE RIVERS PRESS NEW YORK

Copyright 1999 by Daniel Quinn

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following: The Providence Journal Company for excerpts from

The Circus Atmosphere at Ninigret Park (Providence Journal-Bulletin, July 12, 1994). Reprinted by permission. Anthony Weir for lines from The Transcendental Hotel. Reprinted by permission. Joseph Chassler for LS of TP&D from Addicts Damn. Reprinted by permission.

Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York.

Member of the Crown Publishing Group.

Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland www.randomhouse.com

THREE RIVERS PRESS is a registered trademark and the Three Rivers Press colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in hardcover by Harmony Books in 1999.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Quinn, Daniel.

Beyond civilization: humanitys next great adventure/Daniel Quinn.

1. CivilizationPhilosophy. 2. Human ecology. 3. Social change.

4. Forecasting. I. Title.

CB19.Q56 1999

901dc21 99-22636

ISBN 0-609-80536-3

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Paperback Edition

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For Rennie

and for Hap Veerkamp and C.J. Harper,

with special thanks to the members of the 1998 Houston Seminar, who played such a crucial role in the development of this book, and to Scott Valentine and Sara Walsh in particular

you kept us going and you kept me sane.

The homeless and the young are rapidly converging on the

socioeconomic territory I identify in this book as beyond

civilization. The homeless have for the most part been thrust into it involuntarily, while many of the young unknowingly

yearn for it, as anyone does who wants more from life than

just a chance to feed at the trough where the world is

being devoured. It is to them and their hopes that

this book is particularly dedicated.

P A R T O N E

Closing In on the Problem

I heard this, naturally, from my grandfather, he from his grandfather, he from his own grandfather, and so on, back many hundreds of years. That means this tale is very old. But it wont disappear, because I offer it to my children, and my children will tell it to their children, and so on.

Gypsy storyteller Lazaros Harisiadis, quoted by Diane Tong inGypsy Folk Tales A fable to start with

Once upon a time life evolved on a certain planet, bringing forth many different social organizationspacks, pods, flocks, troops, herds, and so on. One species whose members were unusually intelligent developed a unique social organization called a tribe. Tribalism worked well for them for millions of years, but there came a time when they decided to experiment with a new social organization (called civilization) that was hierarchal rather than tribal. Before long, those at the top of the hierarchy were living in great luxury, enjoying perfect leisure and having the best of everything. A larger class of people below them lived very well and had nothing to complain about. But the masses living at the bottom of the hierarchy didnt like it at all. They worked and lived like pack animals, struggling just to stay alive.

This isnt working, the masses said. The tribal way was better. We should return to that way. But the ruler of the hierarchy told them, Weve put that primitive life behind us forever. We cant go back to it.

If we cant go back, the masses said, then lets go forwardon to something different.

That cant be done, the ruler said, because nothing different is possible. Nothing can be beyond civilization. Civilization is a final, unsurpassable invention.

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But no invention is ever unsurpassable. The steam engine was surpassed by the gas engine. The radio was surpassed by television. The calculator was surpassed by the computer. Why should civilization be different?

I dont know why its different, the ruler said, It just is .

But the masses didnt believe thisand neither do I.

A Manual of Change

My first concept of this book was reflected in its original title: The Manual of Change. I thought of this because theres nothing the people of our culture want more than change. They desperately want to change themselves and the world around them. The reason isnt hard to find. They know somethings wrongwrong with themselves and wrong with the world.

In Ishmael and my other books, I gave people a new way of understanding whats gone wrong here. I had the rather naive idea this would be enough. Usually it is enough. If you know whats wrong with somethingyour car or your computer or your refrigerator or your television setthen the rest is relatively easy. I assumed it would be the same here, but of course it isnt. Over and over again, literally thousands of times, people have said to me or written to me, I understand what youre sayingyouve changed the way I see the world and our place in itbut what are we supposed to DO about it?

I might have said, Isnt it obvious? But obviously it isnt obviousor anything remotely like obvious.

In this book I hope to make it obvious.

Humanitys future is whats at stake.

Who are the people of our culture?

Its easy to pick out the people who belong to our culture. If you go somewhereanywhere in the worldwhere the food is under lock and key, youll know youre among people of our culture. They may differ wildly in relatively superficial mattersin the way they dress, in their marriage customs, in the holidays they observe, and so on. But when it comes to the most fundamental thing of all, getting the food they need to stay alive, theyre all alike. In these places, the food is all owned by someone, and if you want some, youll have to buy it. This is expected in these places; the people of our culture know no other way.

Making food a commodity to be owned was one of the great innovations of our culture. No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and keyand putting it there is the cornerstone of our Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

economy, for if the food wasnt under lock and key, who would work?