If you take a broad-scope, evolutionary view, from a systems
level, the researchable questions--and the focus of action--and
the emergent answers--are very different. Then the question isn't
"relative risk" or "economics" of risk. (That latter goes back to
Jeff Bump's comments of last week.) It becomes one of how we can
recreate food systems from the ground up, and human social
systems that are sensitive to the carrying capacity of the land.
We didn't invent the game-plan, we're playing it out. And my
guess is that it's a tad premature for us to be assuming as a
species that we can out-think that which brung us to where we're
at--evolution, or god/dess/es, or karma, or physics, or the dao,
or Ralph, or whatever your name for it is. We might have some fun
trying...but my guess is, it's having much more fun with us, and
its fun is going to last far longer than ours if we don't play by
the rules.
I'd urge people in sustainable ag not to get unduly confused by
reductionist viewpoints like the one expressed in /The New
Scientist/. These viewpoints are part of the entire fabric of
what we are questioning in the first place. Just spiffed up and
expressed in more complex language than, say, in the '70s, when
what we were questioning was reductionist field/production
practices (like spray and pray).
Part of the power of reductionist arguments is that they can't
easily be countered on their own terms. One of the geniuses of
reductionist science is that it requires such a huge level of
resources to sustain itself. Once you grow an elephant, socially
speaking, it gets to say where it sits for dinner. An offshoot
of this: if Corporation X has 70 badillion dollars to spend on
proving that Chemical Z isn't risky/also appears in potatoes/is A
Good Thing, it's probably going to take about that much to
"prove" otherwise. And add to that immense pool of
self-justifying institutional resources things like: the
peculiar self-assurance with which these reductionist viewpoints
are expressed, and the entire scientific/PR culture which carries
and asserts Authority so well. They have the money and power and
suits and haircuts to make any counter-argument on their turf
sound bozoid. In fact, the mere *existence* of dissent is enough
to discredit it, since they represent Reason, and anyone who'd
argue against that must be UnReasonable, right?
I suggest we simply continue to insist, as a movement, that the
terms of the argument be shifted away from reductionism wherever
possible. Just as sustainable ag shifted the terms of the
argument in the 70s, and as Rachel Carson did in the '60s...and
she, amazing being that she was, was making her observations and
writing about them first in the 50s. It's been through most of
this industrializing century that reductionist interests have not
wanted these whole-systems ways of thinking to prosper...or even
to be allowed to continue. I vote for continuing. And in a few
weeks, when I'm wearing my pointy UW hat again, I will report in
on some research developments that should be of interest to you
all around this.
peace
misha
michele gale-sinex
ranting on her own nickel for a change, and it feels really good
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