Quinn Quote of The Week

“The people of your culture are in the process of rendering this planet uninhabitable to yourselves and millions of other species. If you succeed in doing this, life will certainly continue, but at levels you (in your lofty way) would undoubtedly consider more primitive.”

“When you and I speak of saving the world, we mean saving the world roughly as we know it now- a world populated by elephants, gorillas, kangaroos, bison, elk, eagles, seals, whales, and so on…”

“There are only two ways to save the world in this sense. One of them is to destroy you immediately- not to wait for you to render the world uninhabitable for yourselves…”

“The only other way to save the world is to save you. Is to show you how to get the things you so desperately need- instead of destroying the world.”

“…the people of your culture are destroying the world not because they’re vicious or stupid, as Mother Culture teaches, but because they’re terribly, terribly deprived- of things that humans absolutely must have, simply cannot go on living without year after year and generation after generation…”

“…given a choice between destroying the world and having the things they really, deeply want, they’ll choose the latter. But before they can make that choice, they must see that choice.”

-Ishmael, from My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn