This specific chapter (desire: control; plant: potato) seemed to incorporate much of the material covered previously both in Pollan’s work and our class’ discussions. Control is the product of our primitive human desire to always want more- to never fully be satisfied, even after continuous revision in an attempt for perfection. For example, the apple has been genetically engineered countless times in order to perfect the sensation of sweetness, but there is as much variability among human tastes and desires as there is among the natural world.
Pollan also appears to be facilitating the argument that (involving the French gardens of Versailles) there is a certain undeniable beauty that results from incorporating the human ability to control nature with nature’s ominous ability to control us. This equilibrium, or rather paradox, seems to be beautiful due to the fact that we (humans) rely on cooperation and deliverance of something (plants) that demands the same of us. The beautiful aspect of this (for example, with perfect rows of blooming corn stalks) lies in the codependency we have with nature and the mutual “understanding” that is present.
The desire for control is also incorporated with chapter three: intoxication. One who uses artificial (or even natural) products to alter or manipulate his/her state of mind is controlling that action for personal benefit. The root cause of the decision to intoxicate one’s self may even stem from the lack of control that person is experiencing in his/her life. The question that I would like answered (if anyone wants to offer their opinion) is this: are sweetness, beauty and intoxication things that necessarily should be controlled? Or are we better off letting nature (both plants and ourselves) coexist without one controlling the other at all?
Kevin,
ReplyDeleteNice Post! Your question brings up one of the thorny issues at the heart of our desire for control: it is something that can certainly be overdone, but we usually do not think of control as something we just let happen. Control seems to refer to things (actions, precautions, behaviors) that we have to do if we are to avoid having things come unhinged.
But isn't that just another form of control?
If we no longer undertake the actions, behaviors, or precautions that keep things under our control, but rather let go, allowing other things to exert control over us, isn't this decision just another aspect of control? I think Pollan's trying to indicate a less binary understanding of control that complicates the image that control is either something we do, or else something we lose altogether.
If others agree, what examples from Pollan's book would support this claim? Which would argue against it?
The example of the irish potato famine from the book nicely illustrates this point. The Irish allowed themselves to reliquish their control over nature by relying on the potato for their primary food source. Although they were allowing the potato to exert control over them, they viewed this as preferable to controling their livelihoods within the framework of the English controlled marketplace. So in a sense this can be viewed as yet another form of control, which ulitmately led to great hardship for them, but a hardship that was in their control to some extent nonetheless.
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