This book, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, from 1992 totally amazed me. Both by what I learned, and by how how I learned it.
I’m not going to tell you much about what it said. You must read it yourself!
The learner in the story responds to an ad saying “Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.”
Suffice it to say that it’s a powerful lesson about the predicament we’re in. And it complements our understanding of what Susan Sontag told us about the white race being the cancer of human history.
But what really grabbed me was the relationship between the learner, and how her guide helped her learn how to think.
The teacher proceeds by asking questions like:
- “Why was the world incomplete without man?”
- “Why did the world need man?”
- “So when the people of your culture concluded that there’s something fundamentally wrong with humans, what evidence were they looking at?”
And encourages her on by saying things like “You’re really not thinking, I’m afraid. You’ve recited a story you’ve heard a thousand times”!
How I’d love to learn this way of encouraging people to do their own thinking!