Daniel Quinn(born 1935 in
Omaha, NebraskaOmaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
) is an American
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
described as environmentalist. He is best known for his book
IshmaelIshmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn. It examines mythology, its effect on ethics, and how that relates to sustainability. The novel uses a style of Socratic dialogue to deconstruct the notion that humans are the end product, the pinnacle of biological evolution...
(1992), which won the
Turner Tomorrow Fellowship AwardThe Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award was created in 1989 by Ted Turner, to be awarded to an unpublished work of fiction offering creative and positive solutions to global problems. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn won the award in 1991, which will not be awarded again, and was selected out of 2500 entries...
in 1991.
Quinn himself does not identify as an "environmentalist," arguing instead as his central thesis (and throughout his works) that humans are not separate from but
part of the so-called "environment" (which, like "nature," is typically conceived of as being
out there somewhere, and somehow distinct from
us).
Daniel Quinn studied at
Saint Louis UniversitySaint Louis University is a private, co-educational Jesuit university located in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1818 by the Most Reverend Louis Guillaume Valentin Dubourg SLU is the oldest university west of the Mississippi River. It is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit...
,
University of ViennaThe University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is, therefore, the oldest university in the German-speaking world and one of the largest in Central Europe.-History:...
,
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
, and
Loyola UniversityLoyola University Chicago is a Jesuit private university located in Chicago, Illinois. The university was founded in 1870 as St. Ignatius College, and is the largest Jesuit, Catholic University in the United States....
, receiving a bachelor's degree in English, cum laude, in 1957.
In 1975, he abandoned his career as a publisher to become a freelance writer.
Daniel Quinn(born 1935 in
Omaha, NebraskaOmaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
) is an American
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
described as environmentalist. He is best known for his book
IshmaelIshmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn. It examines mythology, its effect on ethics, and how that relates to sustainability. The novel uses a style of Socratic dialogue to deconstruct the notion that humans are the end product, the pinnacle of biological evolution...
(1992), which won the
Turner Tomorrow Fellowship AwardThe Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award was created in 1989 by Ted Turner, to be awarded to an unpublished work of fiction offering creative and positive solutions to global problems. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn won the award in 1991, which will not be awarded again, and was selected out of 2500 entries...
in 1991.
Quinn himself does not identify as an "environmentalist," arguing instead as his central thesis (and throughout his works) that humans are not separate from but
part of the so-called "environment" (which, like "nature," is typically conceived of as being
out there somewhere, and somehow distinct from
us).
Biography
Daniel Quinn studied at
Saint Louis UniversitySaint Louis University is a private, co-educational Jesuit university located in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1818 by the Most Reverend Louis Guillaume Valentin Dubourg SLU is the oldest university west of the Mississippi River. It is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit...
,
University of ViennaThe University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is, therefore, the oldest university in the German-speaking world and one of the largest in Central Europe.-History:...
,
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
, and
Loyola UniversityLoyola University Chicago is a Jesuit private university located in Chicago, Illinois. The university was founded in 1870 as St. Ignatius College, and is the largest Jesuit, Catholic University in the United States....
, receiving a bachelor's degree in English, cum laude, in 1957.
In 1975, he abandoned his career as a publisher to become a freelance writer. Quinn is best known for his book
IshmaelIshmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn. It examines mythology, its effect on ethics, and how that relates to sustainability. The novel uses a style of Socratic dialogue to deconstruct the notion that humans are the end product, the pinnacle of biological evolution...
(1992), which won the
Turner Tomorrow Fellowship AwardThe Turner Tomorrow Fellowship Award was created in 1989 by Ted Turner, to be awarded to an unpublished work of fiction offering creative and positive solutions to global problems. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn won the award in 1991, which will not be awarded again, and was selected out of 2500 entries...
in 1991. This fellowship was established to encourage authors to seek "creative and positive solutions to global problems".
Ishmael is the first of a trilogy including
The Story of BThe Story of B is a 1996 novel written by Daniel Quinn and published by Bantam Publishing. It chronicles the teachings of a colleague of Ishmael, whose story is told in the book Ishmael, published in 1992....
, and
My IshmaelMy Ishmael is a sequel to the novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Its plot revolves around a gorilla named Ishmael who describes his philosophy regarding tribal society to Julie, a twelve-year-old girl.-Plot summary:...
. The 1999 film
InstinctInstinct is a 1999 film starring Anthony Hopkins, Cuba Gooding, Jr., George Dzundza, Donald Sutherland, and Maura Tierney. It was inspired by Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn. In the USA the film had the working title Ishmael...
started from parts of this story.
IshmaelIshmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn. It examines mythology, its effect on ethics, and how that relates to sustainability. The novel uses a style of Socratic dialogue to deconstruct the notion that humans are the end product, the pinnacle of biological evolution...
and its sequels brought ever-increasing fame to Quinn throughout the 1990s, and he became a very well-known author to certain segments of the
environmental movementThe environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green movements, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....
, the
simplicity movementSimple living is a lifestyle characterized by minimizing the "more is better" pursuit of wealth and consumption...
, the anarchist movement and
Anarcho-primitivismAnarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation...
movements. Quinn has traveled widely to lecture and discuss his books.
Daniel Quinn offers readers a way out of the dilemma between inattention and blame. It is tough to hold the attention on global problems and still imagine solutions and reasons for hope. Some blame humanity in general, and claim "human nature" necessarily leads to species loss and habitat degradation. In the writings of Daniel Quinn, one can find a perspective that is pro-sustainability and pro-human, an antidote to views of humans as inherently toxic to the world.
While response to
IshmaelIshmael is a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn. It examines mythology, its effect on ethics, and how that relates to sustainability. The novel uses a style of Socratic dialogue to deconstruct the notion that humans are the end product, the pinnacle of biological evolution...
was mostly very positive, Quinn inspired a great deal of controversy with his claim (most explicitly discussed in the appendix section of
The Story of BThe Story of B is a 1996 novel written by Daniel Quinn and published by Bantam Publishing. It chronicles the teachings of a colleague of Ishmael, whose story is told in the book Ishmael, published in 1992....
) that since
population growthPopulation growth is the change in population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals in a population using "per unit time" for measurement...
is a function of food supply, sustained food aid to impoverished nations merely puts off and dramatically worsens a massive population-environment crisis. This crisis is born of a disconnect between local humans and the local habitat with its food. Quinn points out that ending this disconnect is a proven way to avoid famines.
Some say his argument is a modified version of
Thomas MalthusDr. Thomas Robert Malthus FRS ,was a Jewish scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularised the economic theory of rent....
, although Quinn states the problem is not a food shortage, pointing out an excess of food, which does not go to feeding those who are starving. He suggests that current population growth is unsustainable both for human beings and other species, and that apparently benevolent policies now will wreak havoc when considered from a longer-term view. As evidence of this, he points to the extinction of 200 species a day currently being caused by human beings. Quinn has also suggested that the low fertility rates of developed nations are irrelevant as counter-evidence to his thesis, because the food production of developed nations is what is driving population growth in the
Third WorldThe term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned or neutral with either capitalism and NATO or communism and the Soviet Union...
.
Quinn repeatedly states in his books that he speaks to a population as a whole, and not some arbitrary subsection (say, Germany). His argument is simple: more food, more humans. Not necessarily more humans in Nebraska, for example, but wherever the extra food from Nebraska is going. His argument rests on the physical fact that more food eaten directly translates to more human mass. He specifically states that starvation in problem areas is not necessary, provided the humans are allowed to move to areas that can sustain them. He objects to nonemergency food aid that simply keeps an already unsustainable population growing in a place that will never feed that many.
In 1998 Quinn collaborated with environmental biologist Alan D. Thornhill, PhD, in producing
Food Production and Population Growth, a 2 hour 40 minute video (later DVD) elaborating in depth the ideas presented in his books.
Quinn's book
Tales of Adam was released in 2005 after a long bankruptcy scuffle with its initially scheduled publisher. It is designed to be a look through the animist's eyes in seven short tales.
Related authors include
Jean LiedloffJean Liedloff is an American author, best known for her 1975 book The Continuum Concept. She was born in New York. As a teenager, she accomplished the Drew Seminary for Young Women and began studying at Cornell University, but began her expeditions before she could graduate...
,
Derrick JensenDerrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. Jensen has published several books questioning and critiquing contemporary society and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S...
,
John ZerzanJohn Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like...
,
Edward GoldsmithEdward René David Goldsmith was an Anglo-French environmentalist, writer and philosopher....
, and
Fredy PerlmanFredy Perlman was an author, publisher and activist. His most popular work, the book Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, details the rise of state domination with a retelling of history through the Hobbesian metaphor of the Leviathan. The book remains a major source of inspiration for...
.
Quinn currently lives in Houston, Texas with his wife Rennie.
Key concepts
- New tribalists
New tribalists are adherents of neotribalism. They propose a New Tribal Revolution outlined in the Ishmael series by Daniel Quinn. New tribalists believe that the tribe fulfills an important role in human life, and that the dissolution of tribalism with the spread of civilization has come to...
- Food Race
The Food Race refers to the relationship between food supply and human population postulated by Daniel Quinn. Quinn advocates the view that human population, like all other animals, is controlled by food supply. Thus, larger populations are the result of more abundant food supplies...
- Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth....
- Law of Limited Competition
External links