Pollan vs. Aristotle

   In class we have been talking about the unmoved mover and Aristotle's 3 parts of self-caused motion: the mover, that which causes the motion, and the moved. It was briefly brought up in class, but I wanted to again point out the connection between this point and the similar views in Michael Pollen's book. In "The Botany of Desire," Pollan addresses how we as humans traditionally think of ourselves as acting upon nature and plants. Our need to eat or appreciate a plant's beauty acts as the Mover, our gardening and harvesting the plant is the Means for motion, and consuming or enjoying the final product is the Moved. (I hope that made sense... my concept of the A, B, C is still a little shaky!) We are the Active, and the plant is the Passive. We are the form, the Mover, and the plant is the material, potency, what is Moved.

   But Pollan's book is from the plant's eye... he wants us to try to view the plants as the Active and ourselves as the Passive, as though we are the object to the plant's subject. I think this would look like the Mover being the plant's desire for survival. The Means would be the plant's control of humans, and the Moved being the plant's actual physical survival as opposed to its end.

   This is a stretch. Before we studied Aristotle, it seemed cute to think of the plants controlling us. But now trying to apply the A, B, C's of motion to the active plants and the passive humans just doesn't make the same sense. Humans play too much of a role to be considered only as the thing moved. Humans act upon the plant physically, I don't see how it could even be conceived that the plant entirely acts upon the humans. Maybe by being beautiful, humans are drawn to plants... but not in the same all-encompassing way a human has the physical capability to overcome a plant. I guess Aristotle's explicit illustration took away what Pollan was trying to convince me.