[Pastoral themed books aimed at the middle and upper classes] is a longstanding phenomenon. No doubt David Brooks or somesuch has written about it at length.
[...]
...
I'm sure you're right.
If David Brooks is the author however, I wouldn't use the book for a doorstop. That fathead, who, as you know, rocketed to punditry fame following the publication of the intellectually wafer thin "Bobos in Paradise" is not half as clever as some suppose.
A much better, and more serious investigation into this question than anything the folly-fallen Brooks could hope to offer is found in a book I've already hawked at least three times, Timothy Morton's "Ecology Without Nature" --
<http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MORECO.html>
Andy wrote:
I'm left wondering how one is supposed to come to Pollan's conclusions sensibly and honestly (as I think he does) without being thought guilty by association with Julie Andrews.
[...]
His honesty is not in question. I'm not interrogating his value as a critic of modern farming. In fact, I'd like to leave Pollan behind and focus on what I consider to be the true target.
What I'm interrogating is something he didn't invent and probably isn't conscious of as he writes. It's something he brings with him because it's part of the conceptual air we breathe: the idea that humanity has cast itself out of the garden, that we are living un-naturally and must become more 'natural' to redeem ourselves. This idea is subtly woven into his work. The topic of re-engineering farms is actually very technical and wonky. You'd think the audience would be as small as that for a book on re-designing the electrical grid. So then, what (besides the good writing) attracts a group of readers ranging from the crisply, but sustainably, dressed urban environmentalist who reads the 'Doors of Perception' blog to off-the-grid crunchies eagerly awaiting Peak Everything to re-set the clock to 1809?
I believe it's the dream of reconciliation with the set of hazy ideas we collectively call 'Nature'.
Andy wrote:
You see this game being played out with any legitimate environmental issue you could ask for.
Scientists: Well, we seem to have this global warming problem looming.
Somebody: Doomsdayers! Religeonists!
Scientists: Uh, ok, but here's the data. It's not the end of the world, but it'll probably make things difficult, and we can probably do something about it, since most of it seems to be from industrial and agricultural practices.
Somebody: See, you hate progress! You want us to go back to being nude foragers in a Romantic Eden!
[...]
Note the differences between the feverish critics you're describing and what I'm doing. To the climate change denialists for example, the scientist is guilty of being a 'doomsdayer' *simply for talking about the probable consequences of unchecked C02e*. The *discussion itself* -- details be damned -- is considered an affront to the denialist and he uses shutdown language to squelch it.
That's not what I'm doing.
I'm saying: 'you're right to investigate, dissect and propose solutions to what ails industrial farming but, your proposals are shaped by the ideas and opinions you bring with you. One of these opinions is a disdain for artificial fertilizer use, which is described as a mostly bad thing (it powered industrial farming which led to bad foods, furthering our 'alienation' from 'Nature').
As I wrote earlier, the *desire* to see the synthetics gone *precedes* the formation of the argument about the consequences of the end of cheap hydrocarbons.
That being the case, if it turned out that a method could be found to preserve widespread artificial fertilizer use even after petrol became consistently very expensive, I suspect it would be harshly criticized because that would enable the continuation of large-scale industrial farming in the 'post peak' world.
Thus spoiling the longed for renewal of 'natural rhythms'.
It's this desire preceding the argument which most interests me.
.d.