If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways (15 page)

Elaine
. They were behaving as if the world belonged to them.

Daniel
. Yes... But I'm trying to understand the explanation the Semites provided. According to them, these people had eaten the fruit of a tree of knowledge that was forbidden to Adam — to Man. What
knowledge would God naturally want to protect, to put off limits to Man?

Elaine
. His own knowledge. The knowledge he uses to rule the world.

Daniel
. And why would this be the knowledge of good and evil?

Elaine
. Because — and at this point I'm basically just reciting — in ruling the world, everything God does is good for one but evil for another — of necessity. As you put it, if the hunting fox gets the quail, then this is good for the fox but evil for the quail. But if the quail escapes the fox, then this is good for the quail and evil for the fox.

Daniel
. And only God knows whether the fox should catch the quail or the quail should escape.

Elaine
. Yes. Only God knows who should live and who should die.

Daniel
. But what about those who practice agriculture the way we do?

Elaine
. They act as if they've eaten at God's own tree of wisdom and know who should live and who
should die. If wolves are attacking your cattle, then the wolves should die and the cattle should live. If foxes are eating your chickens, then the foxes should die and the chickens should live.

Daniel
. And having taken this knowledge into their own hands, it made sense that God would condemn
them to live by the sweat of their brows. They'd formerly lived an easy life, simply letting God rule the
world and taking what he gave them. If they weren't content with that and wanted to rule the world
themselves, then they were going to have to do all the work that God had formerly done for them.
Formerly, they'd just taken whatever God planted for them. Now, having displaced God as the ruler of
the world, they were going to have to plant their own food. To Cain, the tillers of the soil, planting their own food seemed like a blessing, just as it does to us. To Abel it seemed like a punishment. To us, the
Agricultural Revolution seems like a technological event and a triumph. To the Semites, it seemed like a
spiritual event and a catastrophe.

Elaine
. Yes.

Daniel
. I might add this as a footnote. I believe it was in his autobiography — though it may have been in one of his speeches — that Malcolm X identified the white race as Satan. I knew at the time I read it
that this was the wrong mythological connection. Only later did I realize it would be much more
appropriate to identify the white race as Cain, sweeping across the world to water his fields with the
blood of his brothers.

Elaine
. Well, this
has
largely been the occupation of the white race.

Daniel
[
after a pause
]. So what do you think? Was this a useful exercise for you?

Elaine
. Yes. It was useful to me to see the "method" being applied to a large, complex problem like this.

Daniel
. I'm still inclined to think it will be more illuminating for readers to see you struggling to apply it right now in living color than for them to see me talking about applying it twenty years ago.

Daniel
. Here's a question I've received in many different forms: "Mr. Quinn, I'd like to know if you walk or ride a bicycle to work, if you use electricity, if you have central heating and air-conditioning."

Elaine
. Uh-huh.

Daniel
. What do you think this person is really getting at?

Elaine
. I'd say he wants to know whether you practice what you preach.

Daniel
. He suspects I may be a hypocrite.

Elaine
. Yes.

Daniel
. What assumption is at the base of all this?

Elaine
. That what you preach is... He has his own assumptions about how to go about saving the world.
We need to give up driving automobiles and walk to work. We need to turn off the electricity. Things
like that.

Daniel
. He has his own assumptions, and...

Elaine
. And he figures that, if you want to save the world, then you must share them. You must be
advocating the same things he advocates.

Daniel
. And have I ever advocated such things?

Elaine
. Not that I know of.

Daniel
. I haven't. It isn't that such things would be useless, I just haven't anywhere prescribed them, because most people are already aware of them. So really his question boils down to, "Mr. Quinn, do
you practice what I
expect
you to preach?"

Elaine
. That's right.

Daniel
. And what
do
I preach?

Elaine
. Well... again, I'm just reciting. I think the clearest statement of it is this: If there are still people here in two hundred years, they won't be thinking the way we think, because if people go on thinking the
way we think, then they'll go on
living
the way we live — and if people go on living the way we live, there won't
be
any people here in two hundred years.

Daniel
. In other words, my books don't contain lists of do's and don'ts. My books are about changing minds.

Elaine
. Yes.

Daniel
. A lot of people find this hard to stomach. They put it this way: "I know things are screwed up, but changing minds just isn't enough."

Elaine
. What do
they
think would be enough?

Daniel
. That's a question for you to answer, of course.

Elaine
. I'd say they want to see some
action
. Changing minds doesn't seem like action to them.

Daniel
. And what likely seems like action to them?

Elaine
. Well... passing new laws would probably count as action.

Daniel
. I'd think so. What laws?

Elaine
. That I don't know. Stricter environmental laws.

Daniel
. In the case of the US, which branch of the government enforces the laws?

Elaine
. The executive.

Daniel
. And if you happen to have a chief executive like George W. Bush who doesn't give a damn
about the environment?

Elaine
. Then stricter laws are going to be ignored or repealed.

Daniel
. And who put George Bush in office?

Elaine
. People who don't give a damn about the environment. People with unchanged minds.

Daniel
. So...

Elaine
. That's the general rule. Passing new laws only helps if the electorate really wants to see them enforced.

Daniel
. So sending letters to your legislators demanding change — which can also be counted as action
— isn't going to do much good, either.

Elaine
. No.

Daniel
. What are some other things that count as action?

Elaine
[
after some thought
]. There's protest.

Daniel
. And what exactly is there to protest?

Elaine
. The World Trade Organization is pretty popular.

Daniel
. Do you think these questioners would consider protesting the World Trade Organization to be
"enough"?

Elaine
. Enough to do what?

Daniel
. Well, since they're writing to me, what do you think they mean by "enough"?

Elaine
. I guess I'd have to say... saving the human future.

Daniel
. I'd agree.

Elaine
. And protesting the WTO isn't going to do that.

Daniel
. So how do you protest the things that put the human future in doubt? Who do you protest
to
?

Elaine
. I don't know. The people around you. People in general.

Daniel
. How do you organize a protest like that?

Elaine
. I have no idea.

Daniel
. I know of one recent instance in which protest was effective — the protest against the war in Vietnam. But what made that effective?

Elaine
. I'm afraid I don't know that period very well.

Daniel
. At the foundation of the movement to end the war were "teach-ins" designed to change the way people thought about the war — as opposed to the way the government wanted them to think about it.
The heart of the movement was changing minds.

Elaine
. And also the target was very well defined. They knew who to protest to and about what in a very exact way.

Daniel
. That's right. What are some other forms of action?

Elaine
. There's the Greenpeace style of action. And Earth First.

Daniel
. Yes. Fighting the existing reality... One of the things that people often complain about changing minds is that it takes too long. Greenpeace has been at its work for thirty years, and they've certainly
achieved some good results, but all the things they work against are still going on. But no one complains
that what they're doing "takes too long."

Elaine
. Because it's perceived to be
action
. Action doesn't have to
work
.

Daniel
. That's a very astute observation — the observation
of a Martian anthropologist. Expand on that.

Elaine
. Well... the War on Drugs doesn't work — everybody knows that. We've spent billions on it,
maybe trillions, but that's okay. It's action.

Daniel
. In a speech I made to the Minnesota Social Investment Forum in 1993 I proposed passing
legislation that would temporarily suspend present drug laws, say for three years. If we didn't like the
results, we wouldn't have to do anything. The drug laws would automatically go back into effect.

Elaine
. That makes sense.

Daniel
. What do you think would be the result of that action?

Elaine
. It wouldn't end drug use.

Daniel
. Neither has the War on Drugs.

Elaine
. True... Let's see... The illegal drug trade would end almost immediately, as soon as the legitimate drug companies were ready to take it over... You'd have to have age limits, of course.

Daniel
. So some illegal trade would continue, just as it does with alcohol and tobacco.

Elaine
. It probably wouldn't be as organized as it is now. I mean, kids manage to get cigarettes and booze pretty easily if they want them.

Daniel
. In any case, we'd have three years to study the results. If things got worse, we'd just let the drug laws automatically go back into effect. Or if things seemed to be getting better, we could extend the
suspension for another three years and see what happens.

Elaine
. It makes too much sense ever to be adopted.

Daniel
. On the other hand, Prohibition — the War on Alcohol — was eventually abandoned.

Elaine
. True... But drinking was always more... mainstream. I mean, drinking itself wasn't criminalized, was it?

Daniel
. No, I never heard of anyone doing hard time for having a drink. It was just illegal to
manufacture, sell, transport, or import the stuff.

Elaine
. Uh-huh.

Daniel
. Despite its long history of failure, this belief in the effectiveness of action runs deep in our culture. Enacting the Eighteenth Amendment, the amendment that instituted Prohibition, was
action
, and it was cheered by tens of millions. The fact that it not only failed to produce a sober nation but gave
drinking a new cachet and encouraged the rise of a vast new criminal enterprise didn't dampen anyone's
enthusiasm for action. After World War Two, Communism came to be perceived as the greatest threat
ever faced by this nation. This called for action. The public loved the witch hunt instigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, especially when it produced a Hollywood blacklist of famous
actors, directors, and writers whose films were in fact no more subversive of "American" values than any others.

Elaine
. I've heard of it, though it was before my time, obviously.

Daniel
. But of course that was very minor action compared with the trillions of dollars the government spent to thwart the spread of Communism and hopefully bring down the Soviet Union. Forty-odd years
of action, action, action. Then, suddenly, the Soviet Union simply dissolved — not because of any action
undertaken by our government, but because the minds of the Soviet people had changed. They were fed
up with the lives their government had given them. The greatest Communist experiment of all time had
failed, and the spread of Communism ceased to seem like much of a threat — again, through no action
taken by our government.

Elaine
. Then came the War on Drugs.

Daniel
. More trillions spent, and no sign of victory anywhere. But plenty of action.

Elaine
. I'd say that some environmental legislation produced good results.

Daniel
. Yet we've reelected a president who's made it clear that he doesn't give a damn about protecting the environment. What's this mean?

Elaine
. That the voters who put him in office don't give a damn, either.

Daniel
. When will they start giving a damn?

Elaine
. When they starting thinking a new way.