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No Solution Without It
I have two more passages from Michael Pollan’s book, Second Nature, and then I will give it a rest. These are just too relevant and important not to include here for the purposes of starting discussion though:
Civilization may be part of the problem with respect to nature, but there will be no solution without it. As Wendell Berry has pointed out, it is culture, and certainly not nature, that teaches us to observe and remember, to learn from our mistakes, to share our experiences, and perhaps most important of all, to restrain ourselves. Nature does not teach its creatures to control their appetities except by the harshest of lessons - epidemics, mass death, extinctions. Nothing would be more natural than for humankind to burden the environment to the extent that it was rendered unfit for human life. Nature in that event would not be the loser, nor would it disturb her laws in the least - operating as it has always done, natural selection would unceremoniously do us in. Should this fate be averted, it will only be because our culture - our laws and metaphors, our scienc and technology, our ongoing conversation about nature and man’s place in it - pointed us in the direction of a different future. Nature will not do this for us.
The gardener in nature is that most artificial of creatures, a civilized human being: in control of his appetites, solicitous of nature, self-conscious and responsible, mindful of the past and the future, and at ease with the fundamental ambiguity of his predicament - which is that though he lives in nature, he is no longer strictly of nature. Further, he knows that neither his success nor his failure in this place is ordained. Nature is apparently indifferent to his fate, and this leaves him free - indeed obliges him - to make his own way here as best he can.
So take that civilization haters! LOL!!
- Prev: The End of Art
- Next: Every Need & Desire Satisfied
September 12th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Take that Nature haterz!
September 12th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
This reminds me of the following quote by Paul Hawken in The Ecology of Commerce:
To me, some off the civ-crash stuff seems to assume that schools, the suburbs, business, and civilization as a whole will just disappear overnight. Okay….. but where would they go? I think they have to be a part of the solution, as the quote states above. I like the idea of transformation and bringing something forth rather than being focused on destruction (to steal from Joseph Campbell).
September 12th, 2006 at 7:51 pm
The question is not “How do we save business?” per se, although that would be an ultimate end of saving civilization–business being an integral part of any civilization. The question, for our more immediate purposes, is: “How do we make saving the environment good business?”
The attempt to conquer nature is self-destructive–as Pollan points out, nature wins by default–but it will continue unless the irresponsible start to feel it in their pocketbooks.
September 12th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Civilization is also indifferent to us; it’s just another force of nature. We created it, and it’s up to us whether we raise an angel or a monster. And if it is a monster we raise (Adam, Adam, procreate!) then it’s not civilization’s fault, it’s our bad parenting. The form and consequences of civilization are ours to influence, and abandoning it altogether is equivalent to dumping your naughty kid at the bus station and driving off.
The current racketeering, terrorizing, polluting, corrupting abomination we call civilization is not a definition of civilization but a particularly ugly (to me) manifestation thereof. Doesn’t mean we should kill it; whatever happened to rehabilitation? Let’s at least give the miserable wretch a chance to redeem itself.
There is no solution or idea that we can project indefinitely into the future unchanged. Transformation is all about improvisation.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Hey cool post… during the day I work for a local Organic and Natural grocery store in Seattle, WA and during the night as a podcast professional producing passionate podcasts for Organic and Natural lifestyles.
If interested Organically Speaking has released a conversation with Michael Pollan podcast (audio conversation). Interesting tidbits on farmers markets, CSAs, and more!
Some Podcast Show Note Questions:
Q) Why the price difference between conventional food and organic and how do we go about bringing down organic food prices?
Q) How can small local organic farmers remain local in a capitalistic system?
Q) What is the “Food Web” you briefly touch on in your book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.
http://OrganicallySpeaking.org
All the best,
-Ricardo
Holistic Conversations for a Sustainable World
September 13th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Very relevant, Tim. Now I’ve gotta read Pollan. Also reminds me of the last chapter of “Consilience” by EO Wilson. Sort of: “We’re making this up as we go along, so let’s bring that to the front of our awareness and focus.” Very mature. I feel the need to qualify that last remark, and I think this is exactly what Wilson is talking about. Just a thought: Maybe this is the point upon which scientists become adamantly atheist. Religions can make us feel like children, and therefore, we abdicate full responsibility.
And to skip wiley: Yes! Business, distilled, is about some people making stuff and other people wanting/needing that stuff. How could we do without that?
A lot of the new models emerging on the net, like tipping, demo’s before purchase, open-source, free stuff, etc are most heartening and show not only a clear-headed desire for business to change, but they’re actually taking advantage of this new technology to make the changes and we can watch and participate in this evolution. The best, and perhaps only (?), way to really undo the evil profiteers is to ignore them, at least as much as possible, through our buying choices.
September 13th, 2006 at 9:07 am
I’ve liked a lot of what Catherine Austin Fitts has written along these lines, trying to transmute the malignant economy into one that directly betters the community.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:18 am
I wish I had the exact quote, but it’s a pretty basic truth in any case.
When you’re dealing with very self-interested people (as business people most always are), the way to get them to support your interests is to figure out what’s in it for them, and sell them on it. Appeal to their self-interest, not their charity. Just as nature always wins out, so our basic nature always wins out, under pressure, and our basic nature is to first be self-interested. Even love has this aspect to it.
So yeah, “How do we make saving the environment good business?” That would be the question. Make it a win-win, sillies. It’s so simple; it’s ridiculous the people in question haven’t figured this out yet.
And this, from unthinkable:
Well said.
September 14th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Within this article hides the assumptions that shield civilization from its source and give it a malignant edge. The lies that we are told about the indifference and mindlessness of nature serve to herd us back to the safety of our factory feedlots. The endlessly repeated idea that humanity is alone in a hostile world breeds such fear that the technology of control seems like a worthwile endeavor. While some of us gnaw at our own limbs to break free others glory at their golden chains.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
civilization != culture
September 15th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Civilization is a very different thing from culture. Cultures have existed for millions of years; civilizations, a mere few thousands. Cultures control appetites and do all the things Pollan mentions; civilizations are based on exponential growth—boundless, uncontrolled appetite. I usually like Pollan, but I’ve found he often ignores some critical point that really gets under my skin. Here, the point is this: yes, nature drives all species to compete as aggressively as they can, but the result of that competition is balance. What could be more balanced than a Lotka-Volterra cycle? When that careful balance is upset, there is a regular response: overshoot. That’s all civilization is: a case of overshoot. An extreme example, to be sure, but the shape is well-known to any ecologist. When the limits of growth are ignored or escaped—when we simply follow our appetites without regard to the consequences—we set ourselves on the road to destruction. It’s a doomed course from the very beginning, and the further it is pursued, the worse the end will be. But it is civilization that has driven this; it is nature that limits growth by setting it against the growth of everything else. In failing to recognize this, Pollan gives poetic voice to an utterly wrong-headed notion.
September 15th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Did we really create civilization or was it one of these angels or monsters who gave it to us?
September 15th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Could you be more specific Krill? Where are you seeing these hidden assumptions? Are they in Pollan’s quote, or do you see them in people’s responses below?
What are the lies that are being told? Who is telling them? Why are they being told? What are their effects?
I only ask because no one here - in my eyes - is saying that humanity is alone in the world and you seem to be seeing something else entirely!
September 15th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Jason, great comment. I am going to respond to this in a separate post in a couple days!
September 15th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
Well, couldn’t it be said that you or I are doing that same thing, but with different notions? Maybe that’s all we have as humans - to be as poetic as possible about our many failings….
September 16th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
The lies are so embedded in our language they become impossible to extract, without reverting to paradox or poetry. The divisions we form in our thoughts between humanity and nature form the battlelines on our planet. The very word “nature” in itself is a twisting of truth, in that it assumes the existence of something outside of it. All words are loaded with bulk of their history. What comes to mind when hearing of “natural selection”? What is the relationship between semantics and terracide? Why does the world answer with silence when we claim all Idea as our own? I wonder if it is even possible to express a thought without driving home a duality. I now regret to have picked on one paragraph or one author when anything would have worked in its place.