The Story of B: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

by Daniel Quinn

“Let’s go back again to the foundation thinkers of our culture—Herodotus, Confucius, Abraham, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Socrates, and any others you can think of. Assemble them all in one room and ask them this question: How long have people been living the way we live? What would be their answer?” “Their answer would be, people have been living this way from the beginning.” “In other words, Man was born living this way.” “That’s right.” “And what does this tell you about the nature of Man?” “It tells me that Man was meant to live this way. Man is meant to live as a totalitarian agriculturalist and a city builder the way bees were meant to live as honey collectors and hive builders.” “So tell me, Jared: What else could this be except the one right way?” “Yes, I see that.” “What was missing from the education of these thinkers? What was forgotten during the Great Forgetting?” “What was forgotten was the fact that Man was not born a totalitarian agriculturalist and a city builder. What was forgotten was the fact that our way was not ordained from the beginning of time. If this hadn’t been forgotten, then we would never have been able to persuade ourselves that ours is the one right way. This is why the Great Forgetting was an ingredient essential to our cultural explosion.”