Comments on: Orwell on food technology and modernity

By: Tripp

Tripp — Tue, 29 Jul 2003 21:48:57 +0000

A few random thoughts: Nanotechnology might converge into biotechnology, but what about the wheel? It’s a pretty useful invention that doesn’t seem to exist much in nature. so I’m not sure that nature holds ALL the best answers. Regarding living downstream from a dairy farm – it depends a lot on who is running the farm. I’ve taken a drink from a nice, clear stream only to find a dead cow upstream. Before we can safely synthesize our food, we better know for sure what all the nutrients and advantages we get from non-synthesized food, and that will take awhile.

By: clew

clew — Tue, 29 Jul 2003 03:14:42 +0000

There’s another possible difference between “natural” and “artificial” foods (and buildings): which production would I rather be downstream of? I don’t know about bioreactors – I expect some of them are clean and some awful. I’m pretty sure I’d rather be downstream of a pasture dairy or a permaculture farm than a CAFO or a Jersey additive plant. And since I am, eventually, downstream of most everything, I have a practical reason to buy local organic milk now. Old buildings are usually made of stuff that will rot or reuse well (to extend the ‘downstream’ metaphor). I think most of my fondness for them comes from the long tradition of prettifying and reusing them, and some from my own knowledge of how to modify them, and some from my association of concrete and aluminum with building styles that seem ill-engineered to me. On the other hand, a relative just built a house out of recycled styrofoam and concrete and Wirsbo, and it’s quite nice in an old-fashioned way, because the design is very like that of stone and cob cottages in similar environments – only much better insulated (the styrofoam) and heated. I have drifted from food… or no, I haven’t completely; heirloom and some non-transgenic GM foods and some hydroponic food has a variety of flavors that also have a long tradition of prettifying and reusing them; and I don’t mind being downstream of their production.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 16:05:29 +0000

But “Arts & Crafts” would be the name everyone would recognise …

By: Rana

Rana — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 06:07:42 +0000

“Engaged production” would also work.

By: Rana

Rana — Mon, 28 Jul 2003 06:06:40 +0000

Maybe “relational technology”? (I’m not sure that a “mystical” component is essential here. If a non-material element is an essential component, perhaps “spiritual” would be better.)

By: Jason McCullough

Jason McCullough — Sun, 27 Jul 2003 20:14:59 +0000

Maybe “mystical traditionalism” is the best name for this?

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sun, 27 Jul 2003 08:14:14 +0000

I’ve just looked back over my original post in the light of some of the views attributed to me in discussion. I don’t, as a matter of fact, claim there that some foods are ‘natural’ and others are not. What I do distinguish between are human attitudes towards the non-human world and how they are realized in things like food (and in other fields of human practice). To illustrate the distinction: Toulouse sausages, parma ham and camembert cheese are all synthetic products. But they emerge from a tradition and a history of craft engagement with nature that is radically different from the methods employed by the industrialized food industry. To notice that there is a difference here, and an important one from a human pov, isn’t necessarily to advocate deindustrialization! (Before anyone accuses me of that.)

By: Dan Simon

Dan Simon — Sat, 26 Jul 2003 22:18:32 +0000

Chris, you say, “I just wish I could better articulate exactly what it is” that makes you prefer natural foods to synthesized ones. Well, I’m always happy to help out.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sat, 26 Jul 2003 11:33:18 +0000

Cosma: we have some very good sausages round here. You should try some. Drapetomaniac: I didn’t sneeringly disavow being a green, I just didn’t think there was anything distinctively green about what I was saying. Lots of people: I’m very well aware of how problematic the idea of “nature” is. After all, everthing that happens in accordance with the laws of physics is, in some sense, natural. Ditto the problematic nature of any natural-synthetic cut.

By: Matt McIrvin

Matt McIrvin — Sat, 26 Jul 2003 06:47:24 +0000

Some disconnected remarks: I’d kind of like a wooden computer. (The early kit machines often did end up in handmade wooden cases. I’ve seen an Apple I in a museum whose case was wooden and rather rough-hewn—it had a rustic frontier quality.) Rudy Rucker said something interesting in his crazy futurological quasi-novel Saucer Wisdom: that engineers working on nanotechnology might eventually find out that they’re really just trying to do biotechnology. That the nanotech mechanisms that really work well are by and large the ones that chemical and biological evolution have already settled on, or elaborations of same. In some distant future we may end up growing some things that are mass-produced items today. Of course this would involve more tinkering with nature, but we’ve done a lot of that already when we grow things for our consumption. I’ve been reading a lot of Clay Shirky’s writings about virtual communities and “social software” lately. One of the things he stresses is that the technical issues and the social issues can never be completely disentangled, because they interact with each other so strongly. I suspect that the same thing may be true when dealing with big social problems in the real world: the dichotomy between technical and social approaches is to some extent a false one. A new, copious source of food is not going to feed any hungry people if you can’t get the food to them because of some social or governmental breakdown. Tech (communications, power, etc.) can help catalyze positive social change, but if people don’t want it it’s not going to happen.

By: Rana

Rana — Sat, 26 Jul 2003 02:59:54 +0000

The question is how do we wish to live rather than how we can live. This is central to how I approach this issue; as an environmental historian and ethicist, I have real trouble drawing clear lines between “real” and “synthetic,” “natural” and “unnatural,” etc. Each is ultimately a human concept developed out of a specific historian concept and used to render the great complexity of the world into assimilable chunks. So I tend to look instead to see which practices favor connections, respect, community, richness and a sense of being part of something larger than oneself, with all the duties and privileges that brings. Working with a tomato to make it more edible seems more respectful than bending it out of its genetic inclinations to become something quite different—the classic flounder in a tomato example comes to mind. Perpetuating a variety of “heirloom” species and seeking to add to their numbers seems “better” to me than reducing that diversity down to one simplified variety. Similarly, synthesized (as in produced in a lab) products created not to fill a need but to replace an existing and rich system with a sterile, limited one seems problematic. I guess it comes down to intention—are these goods produced out of pride, greed (cheapness) and desire for control, or are they produced to improve others’ lives, to enrich the larger community, and to be humble citizens of our world? Thanks for the thought-provoking post!

By: zizka

zizka — Sat, 26 Jul 2003 02:55:02 +0000

Back 40: I would not call any fermented or cultured food (e.g. by yeast)synthetic. It’s a product of a life form, and the fermentations I know of are parasitic on photosynthesis. I suppose that at this point we’re pretty close to engineering microorganizations to digest cellulose for us instead of cows doing it, and I suppose that that would count as synthetic food in some respects. I did miss the original argument. But other conversations of this type seemed driven by the belief that it would be possible to end hunger by synthesizing proteins and carbohydrates, and my skepticism is about a method that would do that in bulk quantities any where near as effectively than the traditional method. Many of the end-hunger technofreaks I have known combined an utter and aggressive hopelessness and passivity about population control or social change with a really giddy and ungrounded optimism about the technical fix. Ending the cruelty to plants by producing synthetic food using microorganisms to produce food instead sounds thoroughly loopy to me. Beyond “Let’s do it because it’s technically possible” (or to see if it is techically possible), what is the point of it? I’m highly skeptical of the ending-hunger argument, especially because it’s usually come to me from people who seem generally indifferent to social problems. Esthetically, I’ll take it case by case. I already am fond of beer, kim chee, sauerkraut, etc., and have no bias against fermented foods. I will eat TVP or tofu though they’re not favorites. But none of these strike me as synthetic.

By: stolenelectioncoin.com

stolenelectioncoin.com — Sat, 26 Jul 2003 01:34:31 +0000

We now temporarily take control of your blog to mention an urgent civil disobedience. How to force congress to pass a prescription drug benefit under Medicare Part B Now you have the opportunity to repeal HR 1/ S 1 the Republican prescription drug plan and replace it with a prescription drug benefit under Medicare Part B Call Eckerd Pharmacy Corporate Headquarters at 1-800-325-3737 and tell them unless they can get the congress to pass a prescription drug benefit under Medicare part B covering 80 percent of medication with no extra premium, no extra deductibles, no means test, no coverage gaps, you will not buy from them and you will tell your friends also not to buy from them. Call CVS Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 888 607-4287 and tell them unless they can get the congress to pass a prescription drug benefit under Medicare part B covering 80 percent of medication with no extra premium, no extra deductibles, no means test, no coverage gaps, you will not buy from them and you will tell your friends also not to buy from them. Call Walgreens Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 888 289 2273 and tell them unless they can get the congress to pass a prescription drug benefit under Medicare part B covering 80 percent of medication with no extra premium, no extra deductibles, no means test, no coverage gaps, you will not buy from them and you will tell your friends also not to buy from them. Also read and sign the petition at http://www.boycott-republicans.com which covers a comprehensive progressive agenda.

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Fri, 25 Jul 2003 22:41:45 +0000

“The attitudes Orwell’s character is repelled by are now found less on the left and more in parts of the right (especially the libertarian right).” Don’t forget about the “virtue” conservatives who feel that in vitro fertilization, cloning, and other forms of a genetic manipulation are a grave threat to human dignity, as Eugene has been discussing lately

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 25 Jul 2003 21:08:02 +0000

The following is from the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm’d off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider’d, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc’d some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, “If you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you.” So I din’d upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.