BOOM! Here’s another review.
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World By Michael Pollan
I
reviewed a different Pollan book last week so I’ll spare your reiterating
what I think of his argumentation and writing style. I’ll just jump straight into my
review of Botany.
The question at the heart of this book is, “do we choose the
plants in our garden or do they choose us?” As Pollan himself points out, this
seems like a silly question; of course I
choose my plants. But not so fast; why did you choose those plants? Pollan
would argue it’s because, through the long dance of evolution, you “desire” those
plants more than any other. To illustrate his point Pollan walks us through the
history of the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In each part he
explains how each plant went from its wild form to a wildly desirous piece of
horticulture.
Pollan’s discussion of each plant is very fascinating as he
breaks down the desires that caused the above plants to boom in popularity. For
example, when discussing the apple he points out that the plant engendered
itself to human by being sweet and making good booze. As a result colonial Americans
planted apples in mass quantities. This idea is absolutely fascinating! We don’t
choose the plants they choose us. Moreover, the plants “manipulate” we humans
by playing to our desires and that is how they propagate themselves. This idea
is fascinating but I’m not sure it’s right.
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| YUM! |
How does this help me to be a man?
Pollan’s idea about plants is interesting but not biblical.
Genesis 1:29-30 tells us that God has put man over the earth. Pollan does not subscribe
to this view so it is not surprising that he doesn’t include it into his work. However,
while Pollan covers the “plants choose us theory” very well the doesn’t give
much credence to the "we rule the plants" theory.
But there are examples in Botany of how humanity has mastered the plants. Potatoes, for example, were wild tubers growing in South America but we’ve managed to grow and distribute them in quantities more massive than they ever would grow in the wild.
Humanity’s place is rule over nature. That does not mean that we abuse nature but we are, to the best of our ability and in an attitude of humity, control and rule over it.
Pollan may have an unanticipated insight.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to note that we fell because a man blew his responsibility and *was* ruled by the appeal of a plant. It takes a "true gardener" (John 20:15) to renew man and put him back in his rightful position as a steward-regent of creation.
First, thanks for commenting. I don't see a lot of those! Second, I still think Pollan is convinced that plants, via evolution, are controlling humans. I also think on some level he's arguing that we've gone too far by valuing ploy cultures and orderly crops. Finally, do you like the script I have running that automatically tags your scripture references? :)
DeleteYeah, the scripture tracker is very cool. I haven't read Botany of Desire, so I'm sure you understand Pollan's perspective far better than I. My point was simply that in the big picture our fate has indeed been shaped by botanical desire -- not evolutionarily, but in the sense of Genesis 3. We can't get back to "ruling the plants" unless we've encountered a true gardener who himself overcame temptation.
ReplyDelete