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 So my parsons class this week dealt with food as our main topic, something which i had already reflected on slightly in my last post on hybridity, largely responding to some worries about gmo's and the precautionary principle in science that were sparked by the Outlaw Biology conference videos.
We had a rather wide-ranging and at times overly vague conversation about a number of topics, but a few things stood out as noteworthy. The one I want to explore a little deeper here relates to my own research interests and academic work, as well as my own personal interests. Simply put, it's the long-standing debate about what distinguishes natural from artificial, especially if we assume that man is a natural creation, and therefore anything man made is also natural. This was one of the lines of argument that was being advanced in class, and which I was specifically refuting in my limited comments. Here I want to try and draw that debate out further, flesh out some core concepts that must be dealt with, and try to work through some of the implications of these various positions.
3 Basic Arguments:
a) man vs nature - The Cartesian Duality
This first position argues that there is an important and clear divide between humans and other animals and nature, and that this is most clearly seen in areas like culture, technology, language, consciousness and higher-order logic and reasoning. While we may all be "animals" in the most general sense of living, breathing, mating and dying organisms, all the comparisons stop after those basic functions. As Descartes argues in his famous Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason (1637), animals are like automata, only capable of pre-programmed response.
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| [Animals] have no reason at all, and that it is nature which acts in them according to the disposition of their organs, just as a clock, which is only composed of wheels and weights is able to tell the time more correctly than we can do with all our wisdom...there is none which is more effectual in leading feeble spirits from the straight path of virtue, than to imagine that the soul of the brute is of the same nature as ours... {Discourse pt. V, 39-40} |
Similar to the claim about animals, there is also a qualitative divide between the social relations that could be observed in nature (lion prides, schools of fish) and the techno-cultural creation of complex cities and infrastructure (castles, bridges, aqueducts, highways, skyscrapers). All of these features distinguish the "man-made" from the natural.
b) man is nature - The Gaia Theory
This second position, while not as easily delineated as the first position, has a constellation of related ideas enough that we can sketch out at least a basic philosophical framework like above. In essence, this position holds that man is not separate from nature, but rather deeply enmeshed in the living world around us, regardless of whether we think this to actually be the case. We have simply fooled ourselves into thinking that we are superior through a long history of violent domination and disconnection from the land in every facet of our lives (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual). Lovelock described this idea as:
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| ...a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet. {Gaia Hypothesis, 10} |
While we are intrinsically connected to nature by cause of our being a part of it, we have also created a false separation that has become manifest in such a way that we actually believe the myth of Descartes to be real, and have attempted to force nature to conform to this duality. This effectively creates the illusion that we are separate and superior to nature and non-human animals, but as many argue, the costs of maintaining this illusion are increasingly exposing themselves (global warming, species extinction, mass toxicity of water and soil, deforestation, global conflicts, etc). Unless we begin to acknowledge these realities and work to restore a balanced interaction, things will continue on a downward track to mass global destruction.
c) man equals nature - The Postmodern Schizophrenia
This third position best characterize the modern world of wise-use environmentalism and techno-utopianism, and is an attempt by a commodity and use-value dominated world culture (ie: neoliberal capitalism) to impose market-based technical solutions to ecological systems--an effort that those in the gaia camp argue is impossible. This view sees the world from a Cartesian duality (mind/body or nature/culture), and ranges from open acknowledgment of inter-related systems to outright denial of anything except human use-value. Alex Epstein, writing for the Ayn Rand Center, expresses some of this logic in his discussion of cloning debates and the human-nature-god philosophical nexus:
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| The one truth in the anti-cloning position is that cloning does represent "the desire to exert our will over every aspect of our surroundings." But such a desire is not immoral--it is a mark of virtue. Using technology to alter nature is a requirement of life. It is what brought man from the cave to civilization. Where would we be without the men who "exerted their will" over their surroundings and constructed the first hut, cottage, and skyscraper? Every advance in human history is part of "the technological project," and has made man's life longer, healthier, and happier. These advances are produced by those who hold the premise that suffering and disease are a curse, not to be humbly accepted as "God's will," but to be fought proudly with all the power of man's rational mind.. {Ayn Rand Center, The virtue of "Playing God"} |
This position argues that man is a part of nature, somewhat in opposition to Descarte's view, but then inverts the Gaia claim about human interference and manipulation of nature into one of active intervention and design as our obligation (a Biblical steward mentality). If humans are a part of nature like everything else, they argue, then anything we do or create must also be natural. Therefore arguments premised on some action or technology being "unnatural"--for instance genetically modified organisms (gmo's)--are seen as arbitrary and not based on any measurable distinction between nature and non-nature. Anything we do is already natural, and therefore out actions, following a very utilitarian logic, should seek to maximize the good impacts and minimize the negative ones, but only within a certain logic of values.
Paradoxes in Positions
While the above positions are extremely thin sketches of complex and shifting positions, they at least give us some conceptual terrain to begin walking around on for this question of nature and man. At the core is this question of perception and its implications for how we think and act in the world. In other words, what is the difference between seeing myself as an internal part of an all-encompassing entity called "nature" vs seeing myself as an external part of a constructed entity called "nature"?
One importance implication between the two views is the responsibility and relationality attached to the notion of nature. For example, if I believe in the Cartesian duality and view nature as an external thing, out there in the woods where the salamanders and bears are--in opposition to the concrete world of Brooklyn, NY and the L train where I live--it is very easy to lose track of how this "human city world" interfaces with that "natural animal world". I can essentially go along with my day however I please with no awareness or concern for potential impacts from this world and lifestyle. I am never forced (or in many cases even allowed) the chance to examine or consider the implications of my actions. Where does the garbage go when I throw it onto the curb. Where does the water go when I wash the dishes or take a shower. What powers my computer or charges my iPod? None of these factors need to be considered in relation to our daily reality, because we have already separated ourselves from nature, simultaneously externalizing and internalizing it as a concept. It is only when the power goes out or the garbage union goes on strike, that I even have to stop and think about these semi-mechanical routines.
But if we start from a different premise than a Cartesian dualism and rather view nature as something we have constructed, and which can be traced historically through a series of practices and discourses--a la Foucaultian genealogy or similar methodology--then we can begin to point to the places and techne which emerged to legitimate a discourse of culture as distinct from nature, or human as distinct from animal. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida has done an extensive tracing of this process in the philosophical ideas of Western thinkers and their claims about the question of the animal, and many of his claims have since been taken up and expanded within the field of critical animal studies, animal behavior studies and related fields of inquiry.
Similarly, the fields of ecocriticism, deep ecology and ecosophy/ecotheology have developed parallel discourses on the concept of nature and the philosophical threads of thinking about ecology and humans. The Norwegian philosopher < a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_N%C3%A6ss">Arne Naess, who is credited with the concept of deep ecology, is one well known example where these ideas have been traced and developed, but the core of these ideas is an understanding and belief that humans cannot remove themselves or their actions from their ecological surroundings. In other words, everything we do has an impact and ramifications in the web of life, and we should attempt to take a full account of our actions prior to acting in order to minimize harm. In this sense, it is very much a philosophical analog to the precautionary principle in science I discussed earlier.
Within cybernetic systems theory, as well as in chaos theory, and increasingly in quantum physics, there is a growing awareness of the complexity of life being far more dynamic and interconnected than we had ever imagined, and far more than we are able to model with even the most sophisticated computer simulations. From mycorrhizal associations between fungi and trees, to the complex relationships between mirror neurons and visual processing of external stimulus in the cortex, we are barely skimming the surface of understanding the complex way that the world around us functions.
But this knowledge has not stopped us from blazing full speed ahead in manipulating our natural environment. So a major problem becomes how we take certain values and translate them into actions. If we truly believe that we are an interlinked species in a complex web of life which we both impact and are impacted by, what changes in how we think about and interact with our surroundings might seem appropriate or necessary? To take a simply example, if we wanted to improve the aquatic systems in the Hudson River, what actions would we need to take to realize this? How would we measure changes, and what would the implications be of an improved aquatic ecosystem for the future of the Hudson River Valley?
So the challenge becomes one of asking, how do we go about changing the political value structure which underlies our modern economic value structure? I think one of the answers lies in the creative work of artists, but I'll leave that for a later essay.
As a parting thought, here's a thought on the techno-future from a different angle, in this case Shaviro's amazing blog on the movie Gamer.
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| That is to say, there is no going back on the network and its circuits of celebrity and control, and reverting to a supposedly clearer and more honest state of affairs. The only way out is the way through. The only possible oppositional strategy is one of embracing these control technologies, generalizing them, and opening them up. This is the very strategy that Neveldine and Taylor adopt in Gamer, by fully embracing the very logic of entertainment and involvement that they are satirizing, and making an “exploitation” film whose hope is to draw audiences in, rather than “alienating” them. In the twenty-first century, cognitive estrangement doesn’t work any more as a subversive strategy (if it ever did); what’s needed is rather a strategy that ups the ante on our very complicity with the technologies and social arrangements that oppress us. |
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Posted by horatio on Saturday, February 13, 2010 (04:30:50) (71 reads) [ Administration ]
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