Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael taught me a lot within the perspective of others and their opinions regarding mankind. This book talked a lot about humans as being “takers” and basically using up all of the world’s resources as if it were disposable.

The narrator of this book is a gorilla that is telling his pupil of the way that humans are. Not only did this book contain a lot of these ideas but it also prompted a lot of discussion about humans as animalistic, within our class. I recall our class discussions talking about how wasteful humans are and I found myself agreeing with this. I could definitely relate to the classmate who spoke about how industrialization made us the “takers” that Daniel Quinn wrote about because it does seem that humans are the ultimate mortality for our resources. I might have been too shy to raise my hand and share this, but although I agree with the parallels that were being drawn, relating us as the “takers”, I personally believe that this is the inevitable. By this I mean that, no I do not think it is right for humans to be as wasteful, selfish and greedy as we are, but I think that we were created by God, and in his perfect image and that we were made to rule the earth.

One huge stipulation to my belief is that I firmly believe that humans were made to rule the earth but in no way, shape or form do I believe that we were made to trash the earth. A lot of the resources that we are seen as “taking”, we are in some way using to survive which is what maintains our own species. I really appreciated the comment that was made in class about how we as humans should be accountable for the resources that we use and I connect this with my personal idea that we should recognize the huge blessings that we were bestowed with and not to take these in vain. Ultimately this class discussion really opened up my eyes to a deeper level of thinking that really questioned what I actually deemed acceptable as humans and what is simply, not.

The class discussion assisted me in uncovering how I truly perceived mankind and the disgrace that I am ashamed of us giving off while we live too much as if the resources that we are taking from are disposable. I think that my final conclusion that I took from our class discussion on Ishmael, is that if we are not being fragile with our resources out of respect for this earth and our Creator, then we should at least think about our children and try to take only what we need and salvage the rest for our future.