Dec 26 2007
Deep Thought
I’ve maintained a long radio silence while reading Michael Pollan’s, Omnivore’s Dilemma, probably because I dedicate so much more thought to what I read then to what I would like to write.
The book is profound in its application. The best part of his writing by far is the appreciation he has for our animalistic tendency. We are part of a massive chain of events in nature, and the way we behave and experience the world is in large part a manifestation of our evolution. No matter how much we’ve civilized ourselves over the past millennia, we cannot escape some of the hardwiring we already have. Imagine trying to run Windows XP on a PC from ’93. Our civilized software can only run on our hardwired circuitry. The analogy is supposed to imply that we reach for a higher moral order from a ladder built on survival in a larger food chain.
Removing ourselves from the animal world without recognizing how the two area inextricably related isn’t right.
Pollan’s book is largely about the choices we must make as people everyday. Do we opt out of the industrial food chain? Do we choose organic, or do we choose sustainable? The latter in the last question is a harder more cumbersome question, because it seems near impossible to sustainably feed 6 billion people. Have we passed the point of no return or do we have to start looking at the human population as we would a population of wild animal? Can the ecosystem support an overabundance of lion? Will they thin the gazelle population to a point where lion begin to die of hunger? Human beings are remarkably adaptable and can show to be unforgiving in their survival. When does the ecosystem reject us?
The questions and insights posed by the book are more than moral, they appeal to our survival and deep seeded tendencies.
I can’t help but keep thinking that our mind works on a different plane than our hard wired unconscious. We as the “civilized and superior” are predisposed to certain self-damaging behavior that the “natural and inferior” world cannot keep in check.
Can we really be sustainable?
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