Quinn's Exigence

I believe that Quinn's exigence in Ishmael is essentially what Ishmael himself espouses. The ideas Ishmael presents to his student through Socratic dialogue are the ideas of Quinn. This being said, his exigence in writing the novel was to effect a change among his audience, just as Ishmael is trying to do with his students. He wants to bring them about to a new way of thinking that promotes sustainability and a new way of thinking.

Specifically, Quinn and Ishmael want to tear down the beliefs of what are termed "Takers." Their mythology, according to the novel, says that  we are the pinnacle of evolution (70), that without us the world is no more than primeval anarchy (71), and that humans were made to put it in order. (73) Basically, the Takers believe that the world was made for humans while on the other hand, animals were made for the world. Thus, humans are not animals - they are "civilized." Based on these assumptions, humans are destroying the world for which they were made. The quote  “We’re destroying the world because we are, in a very liberal and deliberative way, at war with it” aptly describes the relationship between humanity and Earth. (130)


Consequently, Quinn says that humans must no longer live this way if we are to continue inhabiting the Earth. We cannot live in this manner any longer and still expect to have a planet to inhabit.