It was hard to leave the farm Friday night. I quickly got used to the tranquility of the place, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. The serenity is a part of what we all were seeking when we signed on for the season, I'm sure, both as an end in itself and as a suitable environment for personal projects beyond learning to farm. One of the interns, a chef, seeks inspiration for moonlight farm dinners he'll create every month for CSA subscribers and others. I seek a clarity of mind that will allow me to be creative and open in practicing my writing... not really sure where it will take me, but appreciating the process itself. 
Every other Wednesday night throughout the summer Alan, Jo, his children if they are able, and the interns will share a family meal and explore a reading or question relating, in an open way, to the basic question of Why We Farm. This first week, Alan posed the question: Is farming art, or science? We discussed the ways in which farming is creative, intuitive, an aesthetic endeavor, and a medium for the farmer to express an idea -- all ways in which farming is an artistic process. At the same time, farming relies crucially on detailed observation, knowledge of chemical and physical processes, experimentation, and an effort to control certain environmental variables in support of optimum conditions for growth. There was a discomfort among some with calling farming a science, though, a visceral reaction against associating what we are doing at River Hill with the efforts to control the growing environment, the genetic manipulation of seed, and the hubristic attitude of the leaders of, say, Monsanto: if what they are doing is science, then we must insist that what we're doing is art! But of course, this would be both to deny the aspects of investigation and discovery in the practice of farming that gives it a natural scientific character, and also to concede that Monsanto's mission is an exemplar of what we want to call scientific practice. This would be inaccurate on both counts. Monsanto's motive is profit, and though the corporation utilizes scientific research and information it is in the service of this profit motive. The guiding values of business don't necessarily mirror the guiding values of scientific practice. There may be a good reason for Monsanto to believe that all environmental variables are controllable and all scientific laws are codifiable and exceptionless: this underwrites their product design and marketing campaigns. But must all scientific practice be guided by this idea of recovering necessary laws? Do all scientists believe that, if they can uncover just one more variable then they'll have discovered the exceptionless generalization that is the sole objective of scientific research? Must we believe that, unless it is exceptionless there is no explanatary value in a generalization, 'This causes That'?
Around the dinner table, we all wanted not to betray what we were calling the 'magic' in nature, or what was historically called 'God,' by adopting an attitude of arrogance in the face of the complexity of our medium. In graduate school, I defended what we called 'defeasible generalizations' as legitimate and explanatory laws in science: 'A fish egg becomes a fish' is true, even though most fish eggs fail to develop according to this natural tendency (they're eaten, or crushed, or dried up). There is a reductionist impulse within the scientific community, for sure; population biology is more respected by some than natural science, for populations of organisms are, it seems, more predictable than any one individual, and the move to a higher level of organization is prompted by a search for 'invariance' in scientific pronouncements. I've argued that this search is futile and defeasible generalizations are everywhere. And that this is perfectly acceptable and extraordinarily valuable science. We can have our 'magic' and work with it, too.
The ancient philosophers were biologists, and physicists, and mathematicians, and psychologists, and political engineers, and poets all at once. The conceptual division between artistic and scientific practice was blurry, and I think this is just fine, if you can live in the gray. Philosophers love the Idea and the Ideal. Ideals are beautiful, and human beings are attracted to beauty. My attraction to them is a deep and powerful force in my life. The ideal of love, for example, is one I've wrestled with over the years. When my love for a past boyfriend wasn't enough to make our relationship a healthy one, given different approaches to life and my relative immaturity in matters of relationship, I was wrenched to the core. I spent a lot of time blaming myself for my selfishness, hating myself for the weakness that I believed marred the beauty of love itself. Everyone deserves love and care and affection and understanding. But of course, to believe that sacrificing my own happiness in the service of loving someone else manifests an ideal of love is simply immature. This is one way of falling from an ideal, involving a misunderstanding of it -- narrow, shallow, or flawed.
Another way we can fall from an ideal stems from our entrenchment in a broader system that distorts it or makes it impossible to achieve. Many ideals are community ideals, realizable only by many of us working or living together in a certain way, with particular attitudes, and common aspirations. To bring this back to farming: the dream some of us share at River Hill is not merely scientific, nor exclusively artistic, but wholly human: it's a particular vision of the good life for human beings, lived in association with and respect for the non-human world, in appreciation of its beauty, and with gratitude for its nourishment. These attitudes of appreciation and gratitude and respect inform and shape all that we do on the farm -- the way we work the soil, our attention to the intracacies of the ecology within which thrive our vegetables and our selves, our exploration of the ways of nourishing our bodies and spirits and minds to the deepest level through food, friendship, art, physical activity... and a wonder- and awe-filled gaze towards the magnificent -- and magical -- earth that sustains us.
Why do we farm? To live as closely as possible to a certain ideal of human life, a life that actualizes all our human capacities to their fullest, and in a beautiful way. Is this an 'opting out' of the society whose ills we criticize? How much are we making a difference by living a life guided by an ideal? Humans are attracted to the beautiful, and to manifest this beauty is one step in the larger project of consciousness raising for sure. But to wrestle with or influence the field of broader society's real life options within a political and cultural and economic system that's grown up piece by piece -- and guided by disparate and conflicting values -- is another part of the puzzle. The puzzle is immensely complex and multi-faceted, like ourselves, and like our earth. Deciphering this puzzle is an endeavor, I'm sure, both artistic and scientific.
Every other Wednesday night throughout the summer Alan, Jo, his children if they are able, and the interns will share a family meal and explore a reading or question relating, in an open way, to the basic question of Why We Farm. This first week, Alan posed the question: Is farming art, or science? We discussed the ways in which farming is creative, intuitive, an aesthetic endeavor, and a medium for the farmer to express an idea -- all ways in which farming is an artistic process. At the same time, farming relies crucially on detailed observation, knowledge of chemical and physical processes, experimentation, and an effort to control certain environmental variables in support of optimum conditions for growth. There was a discomfort among some with calling farming a science, though, a visceral reaction against associating what we are doing at River Hill with the efforts to control the growing environment, the genetic manipulation of seed, and the hubristic attitude of the leaders of, say, Monsanto: if what they are doing is science, then we must insist that what we're doing is art! But of course, this would be both to deny the aspects of investigation and discovery in the practice of farming that gives it a natural scientific character, and also to concede that Monsanto's mission is an exemplar of what we want to call scientific practice. This would be inaccurate on both counts. Monsanto's motive is profit, and though the corporation utilizes scientific research and information it is in the service of this profit motive. The guiding values of business don't necessarily mirror the guiding values of scientific practice. There may be a good reason for Monsanto to believe that all environmental variables are controllable and all scientific laws are codifiable and exceptionless: this underwrites their product design and marketing campaigns. But must all scientific practice be guided by this idea of recovering necessary laws? Do all scientists believe that, if they can uncover just one more variable then they'll have discovered the exceptionless generalization that is the sole objective of scientific research? Must we believe that, unless it is exceptionless there is no explanatary value in a generalization, 'This causes That'? Around the dinner table, we all wanted not to betray what we were calling the 'magic' in nature, or what was historically called 'God,' by adopting an attitude of arrogance in the face of the complexity of our medium. In graduate school, I defended what we called 'defeasible generalizations' as legitimate and explanatory laws in science: 'A fish egg becomes a fish' is true, even though most fish eggs fail to develop according to this natural tendency (they're eaten, or crushed, or dried up). There is a reductionist impulse within the scientific community, for sure; population biology is more respected by some than natural science, for populations of organisms are, it seems, more predictable than any one individual, and the move to a higher level of organization is prompted by a search for 'invariance' in scientific pronouncements. I've argued that this search is futile and defeasible generalizations are everywhere. And that this is perfectly acceptable and extraordinarily valuable science. We can have our 'magic' and work with it, too.The ancient philosophers were biologists, and physicists, and mathematicians, and psychologists, and political engineers, and poets all at once. The conceptual division between artistic and scientific practice was blurry, and I think this is just fine, if you can live in the gray. Philosophers love the Idea and the Ideal. Ideals are beautiful, and human beings are attracted to beauty. My attraction to them is a deep and powerful force in my life. The ideal of love, for example, is one I've wrestled with over the years. When my love for a past boyfriend wasn't enough to make our relationship a healthy one, given different approaches to life and my relative immaturity in matters of relationship, I was wrenched to the core. I spent a lot of time blaming myself for my selfishness, hating myself for the weakness that I believed marred the beauty of love itself. Everyone deserves love and care and affection and understanding. But of course, to believe that sacrificing my own happiness in the service of loving someone else manifests an ideal of love is simply immature. This is one way of falling from an ideal, involving a misunderstanding of it -- narrow, shallow, or flawed.
Another way we can fall from an ideal stems from our entrenchment in a broader system that distorts it or makes it impossible to achieve. Many ideals are community ideals, realizable only by many of us working or living together in a certain way, with particular attitudes, and common aspirations. To bring this back to farming: the dream some of us share at River Hill is not merely scientific, nor exclusively artistic, but wholly human: it's a particular vision of the good life for human beings, lived in association with and respect for the non-human world, in appreciation of its beauty, and with gratitude for its nourishment. These attitudes of appreciation and gratitude and respect inform and shape all that we do on the farm -- the way we work the soil, our attention to the intracacies of the ecology within which thrive our vegetables and our selves, our exploration of the ways of nourishing our bodies and spirits and minds to the deepest level through food, friendship, art, physical activity... and a wonder- and awe-filled gaze towards the magnificent -- and magical -- earth that sustains us.
Why do we farm? To live as closely as possible to a certain ideal of human life, a life that actualizes all our human capacities to their fullest, and in a beautiful way. Is this an 'opting out' of the society whose ills we criticize? How much are we making a difference by living a life guided by an ideal? Humans are attracted to the beautiful, and to manifest this beauty is one step in the larger project of consciousness raising for sure. But to wrestle with or influence the field of broader society's real life options within a political and cultural and economic system that's grown up piece by piece -- and guided by disparate and conflicting values -- is another part of the puzzle. The puzzle is immensely complex and multi-faceted, like ourselves, and like our earth. Deciphering this puzzle is an endeavor, I'm sure, both artistic and scientific.
No comments:
Post a Comment