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At the Public Affairs Conference, I attended the panel "Ishmael: Takers, Leavers, and Choices," which centered on how the book Ishmael can be applied to society today. The first speaker was John Keiser, who has created the emphasis on public affairs Missouri State has today. He was the first speaker to summarize Ishmael, by saying that the book basically divides people into two groups: takers and leavers. The takers are those who "take" from the Earth, while leavers are those who value people rather than things and want to preserve Earth. Keiser also mentioned how population growth is going to affect the future of sustainability. With three billion more people expected by 2050, the consequences of "takers" are going to become more significant. Along with this population growth, Keiser said, there should come a breakdown of hierarchy. Basically, the only way "leavers" can be effective is if they can gain more control.

The second speaker was Tom Reed from Honor the Earth. I believe his expertise is mostly in Native American communities and how they live as leavers. He spoke mostly on how takers affected their lives (i.e. displaced them, changed their ability to live in harmony with the Earth) and also on the difficulty in finding a balance between living as a leaver in a taker world. One example of this is how there are Wal-Marts on reservations, which forces Native Americans to participate in a very taker-oriented economy.

The third speaker was Richard Chenoweth, whose opinions I found rather refreshing. Whenever I go to the Public Affairs conferences, I always seem to feel like we never reach an actual solution; everyone's answers always seem to be that awareness will be the cure. Yet I think there's a point where awareness doesn't actually solve anything. Chenoweth talked about how concentrating on education about sustainability is not productive, and how it does not actually change attitudes or behavior. Chenoweth asked the important question of "Under what conditions will people sacrifice for the common good?" Perhaps he was hinting at how, by our human nature, we must reach the tipping point before anyone forces themselves to change habits. He also mentioned that being rational is going to lead to our collapse; that is, expecting to always gain something (ahem, money) is an impossible goal despite how practical it sounds.

And finally, the last speaker was Theogene Rudasingwa, who I personally was most interested in. He actually didn't talk much about Ishmael specifically, but provided some insight into how human nature works and relates to sustainability. He outlined the three challenges of humankind as the search for knowledge, discovering how to conduct oneself, and the question of how to govern. He also mentioned how everyone is both a taker and a leaver - it is impossible to be only one, especially in this era. Aside from his Ishmael-related discussion, I found his history very interesting. He was in Rwanda during the genocide, and received his M.D. in Uganda. One of the most important things he said was that as a doctor, he is taught to be humble because it is not him that heals the patient but the patients themselves. Random maybe, but thought-provoking.