> Eubulides wrote:
>
>> [Mereologically yours, E]
>>
>> http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_body_politic/
>>
>
> Miles wrote:
>
> I know some of the vegetarians on the list have ethical objections to
> killing cows and pigs for food, but if I were forced to choose between
> killing a cow and killing one of these microbial communities, the choice
> would be easy. The cow's dead meat.
>
But, but, but, the cow's an ecosystem, too! (that's facetious, btw) But, of course, maybe we should kill and them because their ecosystem - when fed grass pasturage, rather than "high quality" commercial feed - is producing so much climate changing methane.
My feelings about this article almost perfectly echo my fury at NPR for reporting - as if it was breaking news - that, you'll hardly believe this, I know - the Green Revolution is failing in Punjab... absolutely shocking information, thank goodness no one has ever understood the ecological and social contradictions of the Green Revolution, esp. not in India! I don't know about you, but I've never heard of Lappe and Collins or Food First! or anyone else critical of the Ford and Rockefeller Foundation's greatest and glorious development program over the last forty years or more.
What's in evidence, for me, in the article is the still staggeringly individualist and reductionist character of modern biology and medical science. On the social side, its as if Mead, Freud, symbolic interactionism and all their cousins never existed... surely each of us is naturally a discrete individual who is personally responsible for working hard with the phenotypic expression of our genetic foundation in the context of our individual personality en route to success or failure... otherwise, how could I decide to sign on to the social contract that provides me the natural/universal human rights to which I am entitled by everything that is?!
On the nature side, it's as if no one has ever taken Flagyl for giardia and had problems with their digestion - from nutrient uptake and energy level to water uptake to diarrhea. My ulcerative colitis is surely related to this treatment regime... Its as if no one ever thought that maybe Listerine's (ever so very very very temporary destruction of oral bacterial flora might be a bad idea). Its more proof of how seriously the scientific and medical community has refused the idea that antibodies and bacterial flora from your mom and her milk (or a wet nurse's [can'tcha just hear my students going "EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!"?]) might could maybe possibly have something to do with your immediate health as a baby and your future health relative to your immune system.
W/r/t our ongoing exchange about pomo and pomos, this stuff strikes me as all the more proof that more folks need to read more things like Haraway's stuff on Oncomouse and her chapter on the Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies... and, if you are feeling like over-reacting, take a breath, remember that Sokal got it wrong, and go back and actually read the situated knowledges article... it ought to reframe (or set the terrain for re-evaluating) readings of everything else she's done before and since - from cyborgs to dogs, pimates to vampires.
Pissy once again,
Alan