[MikeSchurman]

Ishmael or My Ishmael touches on this subject. Thank you for reminding me.

I forget exactly, but, the basic idea is primitive people didn't have all these laws about what to do. They expected you to behave, and if you did not, the tribe did not necessarily punish you, they taught you and made it right somehow (justice).

Any MY description does not give this idea justice, so I need to go back and find the reference in the books.

[nativeit]

Do you remember the guy who took hostages at the Discovery Channel offices in Washington DC, and tried to force them to promote his Ishmael-based manifesto on television? He was part of a MySpace group that I frequented where we discussed Quinn’s work. I remember having pretty strong disagreements with him in the forums, before he took up arms anyway…

[MikeSchurman]

I don't remember that happening, I think I wasn't watching the news much during that period in my life. But I did hear about it in past year after reading Quinn's books and following some mental threads afterwards. Wild that you had conversations with him!

Unfortunate people take ideas so far... we are so sure we are right.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

That works at the scale of a tribe. We do the same thing with kids in a family: punishment (should) only happens after multiple attempts at "teaching" have failed and it's clear that what's happening is disobedience.

[nativeit]

Good pull. I used to obsess over Daniel Quinn’s novels. They’re kind of perfect for the college kid finding philosophy for the first time.