Diabolical corn has hatched a plot to take over the world, says Michael Pollan.
For a long time I have been thinking about that rascal Hobbes and the idea of scarcity. You might remember Hobbes and his "nasty, brutish and short" view of the world. This fear-based perspective on the political and economic world (and for some people, their inter-personal world) has done great damage, causing us to brutalize other people, steal their resources, and generally be mean and selfish.
Combine Hobbes with Descartes' ideas that nature is separate from culture and that human are superior because we have consciousness, and you get the great disgrace that humans have done to the biosphere and to our place in the cosmos. Sounds like hocus pocus, I know, but how often does a modern human truly experience his or herself as "at home" among all the species of the natural world? Not nearly often enough.
In any case, Pollan takes a look at the world with humans as one species of many. He shows how this perspective erases the antagonism between culture and nature. All species can flourish by sharing in Earth's natural abundance, if we allow the other species to play the roles they have evolved to fulfill. Great news for a rainy June day.
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