What does Ishmael mean by saying takers and leavers in the book Ishmael by Danie

Question:

What does Ishmael mean by saying takers and leavers in the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn?

Thanks for your answers

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: As Quinn says in the book:

"The premise of the Takers' story is 'The world belongs to man.' ...The premise of the Leavers' story is 'Man belongs to the world.'"

"For three million years, man belonged to the world and because he belonged to the world, he grew and developed and became brighter and more dexterous until one day, he was so bright and so dexterous that we had to call him Homo sapiens sapiens-- which means he was us."

"The Leavers' story is 'the gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows for the world. This seems to have worked well so far so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods'."

In other words, 'Takers' are the Westernised, civilised, industrialised, academically astute people, whereas 'Leavers' are the people of all other cultures - sometimes referred to as 'primitive.'

Quinn's novel is told from the perspective of a telepathic gorilla (Ishmael) who is trying to warn 'civilised' man that, far from being the superior being he assumes he is, civilised man is the natural enemy of the world.

I've provided a link to the Amazon.com web page for this book. If you scroll down you will find both editorial and customer reviews, which will give you a feel for the theme.
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