If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways (6 page)

Elaine
. If you're living in the hands of the gods.

Daniel
[
after some thought
]. What causes pneumonia?

Elaine
. I think it can be caused either by bacteria or viruses.

Daniel
. And what would a modern doctor's treatment be?

Elaine
. I assume the treatment would be to attack the bacteria or virus, probably with antibiotics.

Daniel
. And this attack — do you think this is what's bothering this reader? All the attacks that medicine provides against the hosts of organisms that are hostile to human life?

Elaine
. That sounds like a good guess.

Daniel
. Tell me what's going on in her mind. That's part of the anthropologist's job, to understand what's going on in the minds of his subjects. See if you can speak her thoughts.

Elaine
. Wow. Let's see. I think it's something like this. "In general, Leaver peoples live at peace with the world. They've got plenty of competitors in the world. Other animals compete for the game, but they
don't hunt down these animals to wipe them out. They've got competitors for everything they eat, but
they don't try to wipe them out."

Daniel
. Whereas we Takers do. As far as possible, we wipe out the wolves and the foxes and the coyotes that prey on our livestock. As far as possible, we try to wipe out all the creatures that feed on our crops.

Elaine
. We're at war with the world of life around us.

Daniel
. So maybe medicine is part of the same war.

Elaine
. Yes, that's it.

Daniel
. That's what's troubling this reader.

Elaine
. I think so.

Daniel
. Does it trouble you? Are you going to refuse treatment if you get pneumonia?

Elaine
. No, I'm afraid not.

Daniel
. You think maybe you should, but you won't.

Elaine
. Something like that.

Daniel
. You're still trapped in this woman's circle of thought. You have to pull back farther and see the whole.

Elaine
shakes her head, discouraged.

Daniel
. Let's call it a day. See if you can use the rest of the day to figure out how to pull back far enough to see the answer we're looking for.

Elaine
. Okay.

Daniel
. Try jumping the track this woman's question has you on. She's presented you with some lined paper. Stop trying to write on the next line provided. Turn the paper sideways.

Elaine
. What is the track?

Daniel
. Think about it. I'm sure you can answer that yourself.

[
After some thought
] It occurs to me that this may help.

[
Changing the subject
] You understand that this is a process of discovery for me as well. I'm
trying to figure out and articulate what I do when presented with a question like this one — or any
question.

Elaine
. Yes... ?

Daniel
. This woman was unable to answer her own question because she's wearing blinders. I'm not
sure if horses on the street still wear blinders, but you know what they are.

Elaine
. They're... objects... I suppose squares of leather... put at the side of a horse's head to keep its eyes on the path ahead.

Daniel
. To block out distracting things it might see if it had a wider view of its surroundings.

Elaine
. Exactly.

Daniel
. Most people, in trying to deal with this woman's question, will adopt her blinders, will keep their eyes on the path she sees and agree to block out any wider view of the matter.

Elaine
. Yes, I see that.

Daniel
. So your job tonight is to take off the blinders and see what else there is to think about. This is
another — and probably better — way of talking about jumping the track she has us on. We can't see
another track to jump to until we take off the blinders she's offered us to wear.

Elaine
. Got it.

Daniel
. So. Any progress?

Elaine
. I think so.

Daniel
. Did you figure out what track this reader had us on, wearing her blinders?

Elaine
. The track was medicine.

Daniel
. As possibly in conflict with the notion of living in the hands of the gods. And what happened when you took off the blinders she provided for you?

Elaine
. I saw everything else.

Daniel
. You were able to pull back and achieve a wider vision than she has.

Elaine
. That's right.

Daniel
. Go ahead.

Elaine
. What I saw was that disease — or at least most diseases — represent an attack by other living creatures. What I saw was that every creature has a right to defend itself from attack any way it can, and that includes us.

Daniel
. Attacked by a lion, we're going to use any weapon that's available to defend ourselves.

Elaine
. That's right. And medicine provides us with weapons with which to defend ourselves against
viruses and bacteria, among other things.

Daniel
. And living in the hands of the gods?

Elaine
. Living in the hands of the gods has nothing to do with it. Living in the hands of the gods doesn't mean standing there and letting the lion rip your head off.

Daniel
. Well done. What do you think? Was it hard to get to the answer?

Elaine
[
ponders this for a bit
]. I guess I have to say it was... Maybe it's like learning to ride a bicycle. At first it seems completely impossible, then somehow, suddenly, you've got it.

Daniel
. Yes. Of course, being able to move forward without falling down is just the basic skill, the beginning of confidence that leads to more advanced feats.

Elaine
. Of course... I have a question of my own. It's probably been asked many times.

Daniel
. Go ahead.

Elaine
. We've been talking about living in the hands of the gods.

Daniel
. Yes?

Elaine
. But you never make it quite clear whether you believe in these gods, or any god.

Daniel
. When Ishmael talks about the gods... Let me start that a different way. The subject of
Ishmael
is the unrecognized and unacknowledged mythology of our culture, which Ishmael formulates as a story
that spells out the relationships among Man, the world, and the gods. In this context the gods are
mythological, which is not to say that they're unreal but rather that their reality is irrelevant. The world was made for Man to conquer and rule, and Man was made to conquer and rule it — according to our
mythology. It goes without saying that this is a divinely appointed mission. The Europeans who drove
the Indians off their lands and put that land to the plow sincerely believed they were doing God's work.

Elaine
. Yes, I understand that. But I don't see how it answers my question.

Daniel
. Which is, do I believe in God.

Elaine
. Yes, I guess so.

Daniel
. Being a Martian anthropologist, I have to pull back from your question, have to take off the blinders you're asking me to wear. Believing in things that may not exist — or disbelieving in things that
may
exist — is a peculiarity of your culture, not a universal human activity. Because it's universal among you, you assume it's universal among humans in general.

Elaine
. That's true. It never occurred to me that it might not be universal among humans.

Daniel
. You variously believe in God, though God may not exist, or you disbelieve in God, though God may exist. You variously believe in angels, though angels may not exist, or you disbelieve in angels,
though angels may exist. You variously believe in extraterrestrial spacecraft that have the world under
surveillance, though these spacecraft may not exist, or disbelieve in them, though they may exist. You
variously believe in ghosts, though ghosts may not exist, or you disbelieve in ghosts, though ghosts may
exist.

Elaine
. Yes, that's all true.

Daniel
. Tell me, do you believe in supermodels?

Elaine
[
laughing
]. Supermodels? I don't
believe
in them. That isn't the word I would use.

Daniel
. For you, the existence of supermodels doesn't require you to exercise the faculty of belief.

Elaine
. That's true. Though I've never thought of belief as a faculty.

Daniel
. Oh, it definitely is. It's the faculty you must call upon in the face of the absurd. As William of Occam put it,
Credo quia absurdum
: "I believe because it is absurd." A thing whose reality doesn't seem to you absurd doesn't require belief.

Elaine
. Yes, I suppose that's true. But the existence of God doesn't strike me as absurd.

Daniel
. It's absurd in the sense that no one can produce even the slightest evidence of God's existence.
They can produce
proofs
, but these are only valid if you accept the premises on which they're based. If you don't accept those premises, then they're just empty exercises in logic.

Elaine
. I suppose I'm dimly aware that such things exist.

Daniel
. Another faculty exists that is a kind of cousin of the faculty of belief. This is the faculty that comes into play with regard to supermodels. You
people the world
with supermodels. Fifty years ago
there were no supermodels, but in the last few decades you have peopled your world with them. A
hundred years ago there were no movie stars, but since then you've peopled your world with hundreds of
them. Europe in the Middle Ages was peopled with saints.

Elaine
. Yes, I see what you mean.

Daniel
. The Gebusi of New Guinea consort with spirits on a daily basis. Their world is peopled with spirits, and if you were to ask them if they
believe
in spirits, they would react just the way you did when I asked you if you believe in supermodels... But to return to your original question, I have to say that the faculty of belief is completely atrophied in me. It strikes me as foolish to believe in things that may not exist — or to deny the existence of things that may exist. Nonetheless, I've peopled my own personal
universe with gods who have a care for all living things. I don't pray to these gods or build shrines to
them or expect favors from them or perform rituals for them. Nor do I expect other people to "believe"
in these gods or to people their own universes with them.

Elaine
. I understand. This resolves a question that was very much on my mind — and is probably on the minds of many of your readers.

Daniel
. What question is that?

Elaine
. I imagine a great many of your readers consider you a nonbeliever.

Daniel
. I assume you mean a nonbeliever in the Judeo-Christian God.

Elaine
. In any kind of god.

Daniel
. I'm afraid I don't know whether that's true or not. But I'm not sure why this is relevant. Or what question I've resolved for you.

Elaine
. You've explained how it was possible for you to write a book like
Tales of Adam
, in which the gods figure so prominently.

Daniel
. Yes... ?

Elaine
. Some readers must wonder if you were writing from the heart or if it was just a sort of... poetic re-creation of the animist worldview.

Daniel
. Someone might imagine that I'd merely adopted an animist persona — a false or alien persona
— for literary purposes, as James Hogg did in writing his
Confessions of a Justified Sinner
.

Elaine
. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that.

Daniel
. It's a classic that enjoys a sort of cult status. To write it, Hogg had to adopt a persona
diametrically opposed to his own, that of an extreme predestinarian, one who believes that one's
salvation or damnation was ordained unalterably by God from the beginning of time. Believing himself
to be of the elect, regardless of any sin he might commit, the narrator considered himself "justified"
even as he murdered his brother, his mother, and others, and allowed others to be hanged for his crimes.
The book, written in the early 1820s, decades ahead of its time, was received with scorn and fell into
obscurity until being rediscovered by authors like Robert Louis Stevenson and André Gide... In any
case, you can be sure that the
Tales
were definitely written "from my heart," to use your phrase.

Elaine
. I didn't doubt it.

Daniel
. So... Where are we? I take it we've disposed of the question of my personal beliefs.

Elaine
. Yes.

Daniel
. Let's see... On the same general subject, how would you answer this question, which I've
received in many different forms: "Do you think God recognizes the danger we pose to the world and
therefore sends such things as AIDS, cancer, plagues, and natural disasters to keep our population in
check?"

Elaine
[
after thinking about it
]. It strikes me as a pretty silly question.

Daniel
. Yes, perhaps it is. But when an anthropologist sees people doing or saying something that seems silly, he asks himself two questions: "Why does this seem silly to me?" and "Why doesn't it seem silly to
them
?"