I Now Pronounce You Immature and Innocent

For this chapter to start, our narrator was forced to explain why he wanted to know about human life without agriculture. With this task completed, the life class began again.
After some reiteration, Ishmael and the narrator made a great exercise, which consisted of Ishmael being a Leaver and the narrator a Taker named Bwana. The Taker basically tried to persuade the Leaver, to change his hunting and gathering habit, to agriculture.
“And this is why we lead shameful lives, Bwana? This is why we should set aside a life we love and go to work in one of your factories? Because we eat rabbits when it happens that no deer is present itself to us?” (pg.224)
Ishmael made a splendid job convincing the narrator and the reader. He was so transparent and innocent, that we understand he’s point and why he wouldn’t change his hunting life. Nevertheless, it is very hard to accept this idea, because Mother Nature has done a good job washing our brains.
“That’s exactly the point. The gods plant only what you need. You will plant more than you need.” (pg. 227)
“All the same, Bwana, what are we to do with this food if we don’t need it?”
“You save it! You save it to thwart the gods when they decide it’s your turn to go hungry. You save it so that when they send a drought, you can say, “Not me, goddamn it! I’m going hungry, and there’s nothing you can do about it, because my life is in my own hands now!” (pg.227)
For a victim of Mother Culture such as the narrator and the reader, this makes perfect sense. You should be the owner of yourself, and you should control your own food. However, I was impressed of how much I related the narrator’s arguments, to a teenager’s argument. Both of the disputes are asking for more liberty, but they are not responsible and mature enough to handle them.
“So you think this is what’s at the root of your revolution. You wanted and still want to have your lives in your own hands.”
“Yes. Absolutely. To me, living any other way is almost inconceivable. I can only think that hunter-gatherers live in a state of utter and unending anxiety over what tomorrow’s going to bring.”
“Yet they don’t. Any anthropologist will tell you that. They are far less anxiety-ridden than you are. They have no jobs to lose. No one can say to them, ‘Show me your money or you don’t get fed, don’t get clothed, don’t get sheltered.’” (pg.229)
Overall, I stand firm with the Leavers, and I think Takers were immature while taking a decision. Also, the two characters made an update in their discussion, and changed the meaning of Leavers and Takers. Now Leavers are those who live in the hands of the gods, and Takers are those who know good and evil.