Punctum

The Spring 2013 Critical Inquiry offers an interesting extension of Barthes’ punctum. In an article entitled Another Punctum: Animation, Affect, and Ideology, Eric S. Jenkins (re)interprets Barthes’ insights with what is definitely not photography (but may employ it in the process) – animation. Barthes punctum is felt. That contributes more to understanding it than anything else. It is affective, much as the Proustian cookie. Something in the photograph “connects” with the viewer, touches the viewer, wounds or breaks the surface. This “something” is not necessarily the same thing for each viewer. It may be a trivial detail of clothing, or setting, or physical feature, gesture. But it is enough to make the viewer stop and reconsider their assessment and response to the image based on how the image now exists in the world as they (the viewer) know and experience it. Barthes also considers a second degree or level of the punctum, that of how the “traditional” photographic image connects with the viewer through the aspect of time, along the channel of finality – death. THAT, which I am looking at, was but is no more. Call it poignancy if you like, it is as affective as the initial connection with some individual element within the make-up of the image. Barthes dwells on the specific characteristic of mortality found with traditional photographs. Traditional must be stressed as so much could not be said for “photo-shopped”, manipulated images or moving “pictures” – film. Contemporary with the development of film was the development of animation, another type of moving picture. Jenkins realizes that folks respond affectively to animation, so there must be a punctum at play there somewhere. The classical Chinese ink painting theorists would describe this as the image needs a doorway, an entry into the painting. We would call it the point where there is a suspension of disbelief. Animation, animated subjects do not exist, have never been, share our world and experience only through the image, nothing more.

“The punctum of animation, although likewise a punctum of “Time,” is about life rather than death. Gertie [Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914] never lived, so her coming death is unlikely to incur a wounding melancholy. Instead, in animation’s punctum, the viewer senses as alive that which does not live. This sense of life is so potent, this prick so sharp, that even knowing otherwise sometimes cannot prevent the feeling that these characters live. For instance, in an oft-repeated anecdote, famed Warner Brothers animator Chuck Jones mentions to a child that he created Bugs Bunny. The child stubbornly denies his assertion, insisting, “’he draws pictures of Bugs Bunny,’” Jones might depict the character moving and expressing, but Bugs lives beyond the drawings. This child expresses animation’s punctum, sensing as alive that which exists only as image.” (Critical Inquiry Vol. 39 No. 3 pg. 585)

After the end of art (the post modern), what makes for art is greatly in flux. No fixed criteria exist to make this art or not. Everything can be art. Everything is not art. Classical aesthetic theory falls short when one considers popular culture as a fountainhead of art. It is squished flat when one considers the current inter relationship of the market and art. Because some “thing” (concrete or conceptual) has had its five minutes of fame, does that make it art? If some “thing” sells, does that make it art? The higher the price, the better the art? What makes for quality with art if we know that it is art to begin with? On pg. 583 Jenkins writes, “If the punctum is like the passage through a black hole, perhaps animation’s punctum can be envisioned as going through another hole, a rabbit’s hole, like Alice transported to a realm where cats talk, caterpillars smoke hookahs, and the Queen of Hearts barks orders for decapitation.”
Inadvertently, Jenkins himself opens a passage that helps answer some of these questions regarding what makes for art, what makes for quality. Allowing for such a bivalent interpretation of the punctum makes an aesthetic utilization possible. Without doubt or controversy, one of the most beloved manifestations of western art would be that produced by the “category” called the Impressionists. Yet what do we find here? We find individual artists who insisted on always “representing” something that already was (much as traditional photography). At the same time, we find a palette and style that belongs more with that of the Disney studios than the contemporary academic painters of the time. The affective response to Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party or Monet’s Haystack at Sunset near Giverny could be equally described by either Barthes’ or Jenkins’ punctum. The house barely appearing in the summer’s pre twilight haze, the woman holding the dog up, these are trivialities that draw me in. They are not Gertie, in that they never have been. They once were. And yet there is also the aspect of the colors and forms, so much in keeping with Jenkins description of animation. Were I to ever encounter life forms like Renoir’s or a landscape like Monet’s, it would be as Jenkins describes, “Temporal hallucination.” (pg. 584) The contribution to considerations of quality or existence (is it art?) that such an expanded interpretation of punctum provides would be along the lines that it once was (something experienced, shared, coexistent with actual experience) AND the acute sense “as alive that which does not live”. Much as the pre Socratics (and the pre Robert Redford’s) described life (philosophized about life) as a river, one that you cannot step into the same river twice. No! Not even once. Yet we all admit we do step into the river. So considerations of art, its being and quality, have to include what definitely was, as well as what we can never enter into, “sensing as alive that which exists only as image.”

The Powerful Press

This weekend many of you, like me, have received a forwarded email entitled “March Against Monsanto: News Not Reporting, Please Share”. It contains images from the various demonstrations worldwide that occurred on May 25, 2013. Our own neighboring big city, Columbus Ohio, was among them. Scant attention was given this demonstration by the few media outlets covering the Newark area. That night the AP ran a story headlined “Protesters across globe rally against Monsanto: Demonstrators rally against Monsanto in global anti-GMO protest” A couple of quotes from that article are notable to consider:
“Genetically modified plants are grown from seeds that are engineered to resist insecticides and herbicides, add nutritional benefits or otherwise improve crop yields and increase the global food supply.”
“Monsanto Co., based in St. Louis, said that it respects people’s rights to express their opinion on the topic, but maintains that its seeds improve agriculture by helping farmers produce more from their land while conserving resources such as water and energy.”
These quotes need to be considered within the context of:
“The Biotechnology Industry Organization, a lobbying group that represents Monsanto, DuPont & Co. and other makers of genetically modified seeds, has said that it supports voluntary labeling for people who seek out such products. But it says that mandatory labeling would only mislead or confuse consumers into thinking the products aren’t safe, even though the FDA has said there’s no difference between GMO and organic, non-GMO foods.” (same article).
We rely on the press to keep us informed and assume that what is being presented bears on the world we all experience in common (as opposed to the press reporting fantasy, fiction or something contrived ala’ Orson Wells). The first quote given in the AP story is glaringly inaccurate. GM plants may be from seeds that are engineered to resist herbicides, but why insecticides? The description may be inaccurate, or maybe the insecticides applied afterward ARE detrimental to… who (or what)? Within the context of the pronouncement of the lobbying group, Biotechnology Industry Organization, something, for someone, is unsafe here. We’ll return to this later. “Monsanto Co…. maintains that its seeds improve agriculture by helping farmers produce more from their land while conserving resources such as water and energy.” likewise is inaccurate. It is excellent marketing though. Studies in India by various individuals and research centers shows that not only not to be the case, but the exact opposite (see Vandana Shiva’s various extensively referenced recent studies on this matter). Which brings us back to the first quote. “We rely on the press to keep us informed and assume that what is being presented bears on the world we all experience in common (as opposed to the press reporting fantasy, fiction or something contrived).” In this case the press has simply taken marketing PR presented by the industries involved in the story as definitive – and passed it on to the reader. When a pet owner attempts to eliminate fleas, ticks and mosquitoes through the application of magic drops to their pet’s skin, or a pill or injection, this is what is called a systemic insecticide. The organism itself now contains the insecticide utilized to ward off, well, insects. GM plants likewise are engineered to contain systemic insecticides (as well as “resist”?). GM sugar beets (look at the label of where your sugar comes from) as well as soybeans, corn, etc. have these qualities. The European Union found that these plants were threatening wildlife (insects, small animals, etc.) and banned their use. In the context of the lobbying group’s quote, it is perfectly understandable to not want to confuse the consumer with the fact that the ingredients might be deadly to some organisms, but not humans. Back to Monsanto’s quote and why the American Press consuming this PR is so troubling to Newark and its surrounds. Following Monsanto’s recent Supreme Court victory regarding its seeds being considered as intellectual property and thus any second, third, etc. generation seeds utilized as, well, seeds (not as intellectual property) being in violation of US patent law, various articles appeared covering this decision (Bowman vs. Monsanto Co.). “Monsanto demands exclusive right to supply that seed” reports NPR (Supreme Court Rules For Monsanto In Case Against Farmer 5-13-13). Richard Wolf in USA Today “Supreme Court Sides With Monsanto In Major Patent Case (5-13-13) reports that The Center For Food Safety “found that from 1995-2011, the average cost to plant 1 acre of soybeans rose 325%”. This was corroborated by a different AP story (unreferenced) appearing at this time that noted the cost of GM seed to be triple that of retained seed. This is corroborated by yet another story “Trouble on the farm: ‘We face a grim future’” (Mark Koba CNBC 5-20-13). Some notable quotes from that article:
“A Kansas Farm Management Association report says that the number of farmers with a 40 percent debt ratio is higher now than it was in 1979 and that farms with a debt ratio of more than 70 percent are three times as many today.”
“A report released last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City warns that if farmers use their accumulated wealth instead of profits to finance their agricultural investments, they could end up in greater debt, risk bankruptcies and potentially face the loss of their farms.”
“The USDA predicts a 25 percent decline in farm profits for 2014, as commodity prices level off and exports are reduced.”
“”Not too long ago it took $400 to grow an acre of corn,” Schriver said. “Now its $1,000 an acre of corn. A bag of seed was around $35-40 an acre. Now it’s $245 or more. It’s getting very expensive to farm.”” [Jim Shriver, OSU grad farms 1,600 acres in Indiana]
No surprise here. GM seed requires various herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers (patented of course) produced and marketed (as completely safe for humans) by the members of The Biotechnology Industry Organization. No surprise either that this same scenario of an agriculture increasingly centered on financial resources, as opposed to those associated with farming, led to the demise of farming, and increase of rural poverty and hunger in India over the last 15 years.
Today I did what I do every spring. I purchased a beautiful ripe melon. It was very tasty. I then planted some of the seeds in my garden so that later this summer I will have some more to eat. Farmers have been doing this for millennia. Now I have to wonder whether I didn’t inadvertently plant intellectual property instead of seed (and subject myself to a potential lawsuit). The power of the press doesn’t only include what is described and reported. It also is found with what is left out and not told.

Dewey And Da Bees

Pragmatism and Diversity: Dewey in the Context of Late Twentieth Century Debates is a collection of 8 essays, an introduction and a concluding conversation amongst the various authors edited by Judith M. Green, Stefan Neubert, and Kersten Reich (2011). The writings and philosophy of American John Dewey are pretty much de rigueur for undergraduates of private liberal arts colleges. Indeed, the entire philosophy of pragmatism is pretty much embodied within many of these institutions. My bookshelf finds no “Dewey” between “Deleuze” and Freire”. This book did much to help me understand the myth-conception I’ve had about graduates of small, private liberal arts colleges being celebrated for landing their first job with the American Lung Association or R.J. Reynolds. It doesn’t matter which, they would be equally competent, committed and enthusiastic at either. But I guess I was wrong. Interesting insights about cosmopolitanism, pragmatism, and how they are viewed through the perspective of democracy (and education) accompany this reading.

But it ain’t all a bed of roses. Dewey seems to leave that small private liberal arts college enthusiasm slathered all over the place, even second hand, on those reading about him though not directly. Two essays addressed this: William J. Gavin’s The Context of Diversity versus the Problem of Diversity and Jim Garrison’s Dewey and Levinas on Pluralism, the Other, and Democracy. Gavin’s essay substantiates the existence of tragedy and Kafkaesque type scenario’s (a variation of which would be Heller’s Catch 22 scenarios). No amount of “problem solving” or reductionism to help address a problem eliminates these because, quite frankly, they just are, and won’t disappear from life as we know it or be lessened no matter how earnestly we apply pragmatic organization (hence the disjunct of the student gushing over their new job representing the American Lung Association, or R.J. Reynolds. It doesn’t matter which, pragmatism prevails). Garrison’s essay was the more vexing. Admirably, he does take the time to associate Levinas with Dewey primarily on their interest and commitment to diversity and pluralism. Though Levinas is presented accurately enough (good enough is an adequate standard in the comparison of ideas, authors and applications for this writer), Garrison fails to reconstruct his outlook as earnestly and conscientiously as he does Dewey’s. Reconstruction is a cornerstone of Dewey’s pragmatism but applying it with such bias undermines any benefits to be had from this aspect of pragmatism and democracy. It has been said that art is impossible after the Holocaust, or poetry for that matter (or God for some), but what about Dewey’s pragmatism? Reconstructing Levinas within the context of the post-holocaust civilized world (the latter part of the “later” Dewey), would have created a better understanding of inadequacies. Which brings us to – the bees.

Levinas centers on the Other which Garrison translates (or expands) to implicate the Same. One description of Dewey’s pragmatism has it stressing democracy as a way of life made operational through continuing education all founded on the fundamentals of nature, possibility, experience and community. These last four are pretty descriptive of the bees and could be considered almost as a template. An important part of contemporary existence is the place and importance of programming, software, in today’s world. These methodologies (outlooks, dispositions, organizations, whatever) function much as templates in that, like our student with her first job, it doesn’t matter what the application (or “context”). Dewey’s pragmatism can also be considered as a template. But the bees find themselves having to fly, be free and “work” the environment of, sometimes, up to three miles from their hive. Unlike livestock, totally managed and determined, for the bees no freedom means no production. Here Levinas’ Other can be reconstructed much more effectively and informatively than Dewey’s problem solving pragmatism. What the bees encounter in their necessity to be bees, is more like the Other of Levinas than some “problem” able to be solved if we just employ reductionist applications. It is planting time hereabouts , and not wishing to dispel wonderful myths of plowing and seeding most of it is done with a giant tanker truck coming in and spraying herbicide (akin to agent orange) on the field. After everything has died (including the dandelions the bees got drenched working while the spray was being applied), another huge, complicated piece of machinery (with attached tanks for liquid application) comes to inject seed and pesticide into the brown dead field. A couple of weeks from now, perfect rows of corn or beans will appear in this by design wasteland. For the bees, this certainly is the Face. This Monsanto-type methodology is a program, a template for how farming is done/to be done today (with all the protections of intellectual property). But what of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling and now, within our democracy, having to sit down at the table with Lloyd Blankfein? Will he be just an individual or is he, like our student, there as a representative of Goldman Sachs? Dewey is said to be promoting that there are three at the table. Me, Lloyd and our work. But the Supreme Court says there are really now four (or five, depends how you count). There is me, Lloyd, Goldman Sachs and our work. The corporate structure, much as software, functions as a template, insisting on a specific disposition, outlook and precedence. Stressing education of individuals for the sake of a full and healthy democracy begins to unravel when one notices that the little me is outnumbered two (or three) to one: the corporation, its representative (and its representative as an individual standing to gain enormously if he doesn’t vary from the template). Like the bees who must fly out into an environment that is committed to a specific modus operandi (trespassing insects must be eliminated), our individual at the table finds themselves in a situation better addressed by Levinas than Dewey.

Antigone

Recent events continuously in the news brought Antigone to mind. “We’re better than that, aren’t we?” The jury is out on that and well it should be for western culture has maintained many of the same funerary dispositions prevalent at the time of Sophocles. Being one of “them” and having threatened “us” justifies Creon’s decree in the hearts of many.

“In a Critical Inquiry essay (The Idle Idol, or Why Abstract Art Ended Up Looking Like A Chinese Room) Robert Morris stumbles along, page after page considering theoretical explanations for the state of abstract art today (Morris has taken to making outdoor labyrinths). The last two pages are memorable. Here he dispenses with theory (though he knows that what he writes is still theory). He describes what he considers to be the current art scene in the NYC area where he resides (the real reason for the state of abstract art today). My own interpretation of his description would be that the scene is a group ethos without the “idol” of authorship. The individuals contribute to what is taking place within the group, with the entire group participating as well as experiencing (celebrating) the outcome ( the outcome being the participation or rather, the act of participating). Morris describes it as singing. Artists sometimes are curators or show organizers, and curators are considered as artists. There is a fluidity, a constant exchange and interaction with an emphasis on the connectivity of networking. It is curiously analogous to the chorus in ancient Greek tragedy (if you can stretch your imagination enough). It “sings” its art, its message, its ideas, etc. But there is no claim to individual ownership or origin. It is in a communal sense (much as the chorus embodies the community within Greek tragedy) with a heavy emphasis on networking and belonging (which can only be done by actively singing; singing along with everyone else, not counter, questioning or critiquing, but going with the flow). To sing with the chorus is to go with the flow, one way only. The chorus is univocal though it may be polyglot.” (this blog’s December 2009 post entitled Making The Signifier)

Antigone does not sing with the chorus.

Creon’s decree also encompasses memory and memorials. Brief and eerie glimpses of our un-advertised, un-celebrated selves tacitly materialize. Charon is to ferry Sandy Hook Elementary to the nether world to join the Kent State shooting site along with oh so many other tragedies by disappearing, “getting paved over” so that life can go on without the memory being indexed to any concrete material. In many parts of the world the tragedy itself is precisely memorialized by the preservation of just such material — the destruction, the trace, the residue of wrong. Here we want it to disappear, for a return to a normalcy that denies aberration, relegates it to a “them, they or those”, putting it outside the distribution of sense (for the abomination was so sense-less). Ai Wei Wei’s 5,000 names of children buried under earthquake rubble or Maya Lin’s list of names only half buried under the earth defy Creon’s convenient and easy bifurcation of what is to remain of Eteocles and Polyneices.

Racism

In his complex analysis of Colonialism, Albert Memmi recognizes a final stage of colonialism where the colonized shed the colonizer, primarily categorically through a process of resistance, revolt and reclamation. Although a fundamental establishing principle of colonization, racism inevitably (and inescapably) manifests itself within the colonized themselves at this later stage. As Memmi writes “Considered en bloc as them, they or those, different from every point of view, homogenous in a radical heterogeneity, the colonized reacts by rejecting all the colonizers en bloc.” Ending the paragraph with “If xenophobia and racism consist of accusing an entire human group as a whole, condemning each individual of that group, seeing in him an irremediably noxious nature, then the colonized has, indeed, become a xenophobe and a racist.” Memmi extends his thought with a definition of racism itself: “All racism and all xenophobia consist of delusions about oneself, including absurd and unjust aggressions toward others.” (The colonizer and the colonized, 1957 pg. 130)

Albert Memmi was a philosopher and contemporary of Camus, Sartre, Arendt, etc. Coming from a man who himself was “the colonized”, this is a very curious appraisal of what racism is. During this same time, within the US, racism was primarily defined by the color of skin and the purity of blood. This outlook was based on contemporary “scientism”, reasoning associated with polio vaccines, atomic bombs and evolution theory. Memmi’s definition makes no mention of that. Ranciere’s political interpretation stretches the practice outside the one embraced by scientism (or religion) and establishes it within the distribution of sense — racism being just another of the ways that “the police” maintain this sensibility, part of their arsenal. This “exclusionary” methodology (without being specifically named as such) appears to be pretty much the present day rendition of racism, invoked whenever exclusionary practice is uncovered and highlighted (given a name). But Memmi’s insight is much more active than Ranciere’s passive, after the fact definition. Ranciere’s approach is almost like Aquinas’s definition of evil as the absence of good (where good is what is considered to be real). Ranciere’s political expression of racism would find itself a posteriori the experience of colonialism rather than a priori its establishment. Once “an entire human group” becomes part of the distribution of sense, it would appear that racism is not for Ranciere’s political aesthetic. But Memmi, as a colonized who needed to reconcile himself to a very active and real injustice, resists theory with the realization that humans experience delusions, and act on them, often forcefully. This interpretation opens tangible possibilities for change within the highly polarized politics currently growing evermore so in the US. Descriptions of many of the current polarizations regarding wealth inequality, gun issues, immigration, and health care parallel being “Considered en bloc as them, they or those”. Ranciere’s interpretation leads to the inevitable possibility of wholesale, mass societal delusion; something in itself embodying the definition of racism. Memmi offers a way out by giving us the opportunity to initiate our own complicity (“about oneself”), giving each of us individually the ability to resist, revolt and reclaim a non-delusional engagement.

Colonialism

Whatever became of colonialism? What is colonialism? How does one set it up, run it? Is there a business “how to” manual for doing that? Dutifully, a library search found me busily inquiring. Just “colonialism” was met with “see colonies, subdivision colonies under names of countries” and “see imperialism, subdivision foreign relations under names of countries” and “see world politics”. Well colonies gave scads about everything from the early American colonial diet to life in the Indian sub-continent under the British. “Economic colonialism”, “contemporary colonialism” and “present day colonialism” yielded nothing; likewise “theory of colonialism” which found itself wedged between “Theory of Collective Behavior” and “Theory of Constraint Management”. No texts on the business economics of colonialism, its strategy, marketing or management! “Neocolonialism” revealed some disparate titles (NAFTA & Neocolonialism) while “Post colonialism” revealed a plethora of works. Alas, they all implicate an end to the colonial (hence “post” colonial). I was interested in how colonialism had reinvented itself within the 21st century. “Urban colonialism” and “city colonialism” fared no better.

The entire search reminded me of youthful days, on a philosophic lark, trying to “uncover” texts with directives on Witchcraft. Plato and his ilk are just full of one vast exegesis on “the good”, but not much on what is not. Balance was found lacking in my search. Like colonialism, many accounts of the experience of witchcraft, in different countries, and history, but no theory, no directives, no “how to” manuals. I began to sense that colonialism, as part of Ron’s sinister “Evil Empire”, may just still be lurking out there, and very active. Only today it has been rebranded under a different guise. How many companies and products have done just that over the years? Why not colonialism?

Going through back channels, subjects associated today with colonialism (like human trafficking), I stumbled on some works. One very curious one, Prospero and Caliban (1950) is an exposé of the psychology at work with colonialism — Hegel reconstituted through a Freudian/Jungian blender. The book’s perspective has an almost Tea Party logic to it– colonialism works just fine, it is that damn human nature which causes the project to ultimately go awry; so let’s look at the human errors in hopes of getting it back on track. The other, a rough contemporary, was one that I had missed when reading the likes of Fannon’s Wretched of the Earth or Said’s Orientalism – The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi (1957). It even has an intro by J. P. Sartre himself! Memmi writes: “I have been criticized for not having constructed my portraits entirely around an economic structure, but I feel I have repeated often enough that the idea of privilege is at the heart of the colonial relationship — and that privilege is undoubtedly economic. [I know the feeling, babe] Let me take this opportunity to reaffirm my position: for me the economic aspect is fundamental.” (Preface, page xii) Sartre’s contribution in the Introduction (page xxiii) further fleshes this out by humanizing it (or rather de-humanizing it): “In fact, racism is built into the system: the colony sells produce and raw materials cheaply, and purchases manufactured goods at very high prices from the mother country. This singular trade is profitable to both parties only if the native works for little or nothing.” If after Bhopal, Union Carbide could quietly redefine itself as a wholly owned subsidiary of the ever respectable Dow Chemical (now engaged to Monsanto, see the society page announcement “Monsanto And Dow Cross-License Biotech Corn Traits” AP, 4-11-13) thus legally absolving itself from responsibility for the devastation wrought, then it is apparent what became of colonialism after the curtain of Post colonialism came down, ostensibly ending the show.

I Walked Out On A Talk By Ann Hamilton

No, it was not on account of anything she said, or had to say, or gestured, pointed at, or articulated. Actually she was quite captivating, refreshingly lucid, and made connections on levels and depths that one could only marvel at. I followed her. Not like she lost me, left me sitting there because she was Ann Hamilton and thus worth listening to. I mostly admired her affective intelligence (The “cement of affective intelligence” valorized by Carlo Petrini of Slow Food). It was primarily focused on how connections are made between people (within people), over time – living people, living organism, living traces. No, it was all quite good and yet I walked out. Maybe I should back up a bit. Her talk was first person, the best way to explain, articulate. “This is how…” “This is why…” “I felt this” “That’s how one responds…” etc. And it was amazing. But backing up again, this week the strangest connections, the most horrifying links were made. I was making syrup to feed my newly hived package bees, syrup made of sugar. It was not the hundreds of pounds of honey that Ann had mixed with pennies for the witness of sheep – the conceptual realization of what Vandana Shiva describes as the business economy and the economy of nature (but what of the economy of sustenance?). Like a cow chewing its cud I stared blankly at the stove top while waiting for the water to boil. Beet Sugar read the label on the ten pound bag. Just weeks prior I had read that the European union had banned GM beet sugar because it has detrimental effects on wildlife, which I assume includes honey bees. The same wildlife, animals that Ann was talking about in her presentation, so central to what drives her sensitivity, her need to respond intelligently and adequately. That sugar, that I’m about to turn into syrup, sustenance for my infant hives, probably originated from GM sugar beets. The large migratory bee keepers who have thousands of hives to pollinate our summer fruits, nuts and veggies, and who suffered losses of 75% and more this winter, feed their colonies tanker truckloads of high fructose corn syrup. And that is probably from GM corn. The organism, the plant, is genetically engineered and altered to be resistant, detrimental to invasive insects. This is what is known as a systemic insecticide, where the plant itself embodies the repellant, becomes toxic to whatever outside pest may desire it (think flea and tick repellant that is consumed or absorbed by cats and dogs). I thought to feed my newborns mother’s milk, the honey and pollen left behind from the hives that had not survived to a second year. Neonicotinoids (current applied pesticides) create a systemic insecticide when absorbed by plants, where the plant oozes trace amounts into its resin, nectar or pollen. Pollinators gather their stores of pollen to feed the larva, the colony’s future, and nectar to create honey to sustain themselves thereby unwittingly integrating this very poison into their future. What did I have to feed these insects that would give them a chance to survive, as a colony, a society of warm and fuzzy, bumbling bugs until 2014? Wasn’t there an “organic” alternative that would make me feel affectively intelligent? And so I walked out on Ann Hamilton sometime after she described how silk is made from boiling live larva, creating this wondrous sacrificial crimson silk covering she utilized in a magnificent installation with peacocks.

Will The Real Sustainable Agriculture Please Stand Up

Recently, hereabouts, there has been a lot of activity concerning sustainable agriculture, farming. Locally, a few conferences have taken place amongst those already engaged in sustainable farming. There are also some folks hoping to enter into it in 2013. However, the portrait of this sustainable farming presented here in central Ohio does not look much like the one presented globally by the likes of activists like Vandana Shiva, Jerry Mander, etc. According to these writers, American agriculture (monoculture farming), touted by agribusiness as the greatest in the world, fails. They cite the obesity of the consumer as one symptom of this failure (I believe the statistics are at the level of 40% of Americans). If American monoculture farming were so incredible, why do those who eat all this great food look more like the steroid saturated livestock in the feedlots than the Greek ideal of svelteness? They ascribe this to the industrial processed food derived from the monoculture harvest. Another reason given is that so many Americans farmers rely on off the farm income in order to keep farming. The last census puts this at over 80% of family farmers are in this situation. Food is cheap, and hence farming is a precarious way to earn a living, a low paying job for most. Subsidies go to the large agribusiness farming operations/processors (not to the small individual farmer), hence monoculture farming with its overriding emphasis on a steady, predictable cash crop. Sustainable farming for these globally oriented interpreters has to do with sustenance. It has to do with livelihood as opposed to earning a living. It is not a job or entrepreneurial enterprise but something someone does with what they have, what is available in order to stay alive, to “sustain” their livelihood. Literally. Here in central Ohio (and I’m sure within much of American culture) “sustainable” is used pretty much within the same methodology as adjectives like “green” (shale gas is the green energy solution), “recyclable”, “carbon footprint” and “energy efficient”. That is, sustainable farming is one that doesn’t diminish the environment, always leaves more for the next go round, thus building up the soil as well as the nutritional content of what is consumed, etc. The disparity between the two interpretations enters with the place and role of subsidy. American sustainable farming is in competition with industrialized monoculture farming, both in technique as well as product marketing. Industrialized farming doesn’t tolerate competition, whether in the field (systemic insecticides spell death to the transgressor) or in the market (legislation that forbids labeling food in order to differentiate source, origin or composition). The higher price demanded for its product still is not enough to make American sustainable farming, well, sustainable. For American sustainable farmers, the “entrepreneurial enterprise” is not “something someone does with what they have, what is available in order to stay alive”. Rather, it is something someone does in competition with industrial agriculture, both in terms of accessing resources, like land and water, as well as securing market share. Within this competitive environment, being subsidized to start up, let alone continue such a practice of farming, is considered quite acceptable, if not downright essential. And there’s the rub. For Shiva, Mander, etc. it is the very subsidizing of agriculture that contributes to the elimination and degradation of “sustainable” farming. A lack of fairness is intrinsic to the practice of subsidy. Yet without the subsidy, whether through Government grants or off farm income, how sustainable would sustainable farming really be in the US? The irony that presents itself is that not only are the wealthy the only ones who can afford to consume a third world diet (to stay healthy), but they are also becoming the only ones who can afford the farming practices that produce such a diet.

Not Depressed Enough Yet

Sonny Klimczyk is a musician, singer, songwriter in Zanesville Ohio, and a good one. Some folks find his songs a bit on the down side which makes him laugh. He feels that’s when he composes some of his best music. Recently, when he was performing, I asked if he had created any new ones. “No. I guess I haven’t been depressed enough yet.”
This week package bees arrived and folks were picking them up. The lady at the order confirmation table was shivering so bad she could barely write legibly. For those in the know, the bees needed to be hived under winter time conditions since it was cold and windy with occasional snow squalls. Writing to a friend about the experience I found myself saying “It all starts again, only without the sense of end. That also seems to make all the difference in the world.” The news that continues to come in regarding bees has not at all been very hopeful.
Vandana Shiva describes three economies – the business economy of “the market” and capital, nature’s economy of ecology, and the people’s economy of sustenance. The economy of ecology is described as nature’s economy – the cycle of water to clouds to rain, or of water filtering through the earth in order to be clean and sweet to drink, the composting process of dead and waste becoming nutrient for what lives, sheds waste and eventually dies, etc. This economy has no end but is continuous on account of its connectivity. This time of year people with a spiritual orientation, self-described as “religious”, celebrate the paradox of end and beginning. Philosophers would call this “making a cut”; to elaborate a break in order to give meaning to what is otherwise continuous, indescribable, without apparent start or stop. I guess the difference comes in when you take “the cut” literally, actually claiming and believing that what is in perpetual process without dependence on human agency begins or, just as well, has an end. To not be able to identify such a beginning or end is depressing for many of these folks. They would consider such an outlook of not being able to point at a beginning or end to be an expression of negativity or despair, neither of which is embraced by those with a religious partiality. The ecological economy has no end. It will continue whether there is a specifically human witness or not. The business economy is driven by and comprised of an end. It is not without human agency. To depreciate the business economy in order to appreciate the ecological economy would be depressing to a lot of folks. Right now, the scientific evidence seems to be mounting up overwhelmingly that the economy of business is drastically altering the economy of nature. I guess we’re just not “depressed enough yet” to compose a new outlook. To do that would require making a “cut”, admitting an end in order for there to be a new beginning; something that many are not exactly ready to celebrate this time of year.

Birds Do It, Bees Do It….

Two in one day! What does it take? Charlie Dunmore, writing for Reuters, reports that the European Commission is looking to ban neonicotinoids (3-15-13 EU Could Impose Pesticide Ban To Protect Bees). “Syngeta and Bayer, leading global producers of neonicotinoids, say the harmful effects on bees is unproven and that a ban would cost the EU economy billions.” Later in the online news: Bird Group Calls For Halt To Widely Applied Insecticide by Chuck Raasch for USA Today (3-18-13). “The [American] Bird Conservancy, one of the nation’s most active bird-conservation groups, released a 97-page report Monday that says that independent studies of the damage to birds and aquatic ecosystems they depend upon for food raise “significant environmental concerns” and that the Environmental Protection Agency has been too lenient in allowing the use of this class of insecticides, called neonicotinoids.” Later in the article this appears: “Manufacturers say the American Bird Conservancy report depends on suspect science, and a ban would be destructive to global agricultural production. Defenders say that neonicotinoids were created as safer alternatives to the pesticide class they replaced about 20 years ago. Neonicotinoids have been in use for about two decades. The insecticides are sprayed or used to coat seeds, such as corn, to protect crops and control insects around the globe.” Beginning to see a pattern here? (No, not that the reporters’ first names are the same)
There’s an even larger recurrence taking place. Our friend the atom was touted as the savior of progress back in the 50’s. Able to power ships, cure diseases and give light to entire cities. It was safe and concerns to the contrary were unsubstantiated. DDT was likewise promoted to famers and public health officials. Reports began filtering in on these matters, on their residuals and “unintended” exposures, uses, etc. and the same was said. Another spotlight appeared on cigarette smoking, then on exposure to second hand smoke. Lead paint was shown to be disabling growing children because it was inadvertently being ingested or its dust inhaled. The same dust likewise produced by the lead in gasoline. Why, it was all “suspect science”, “unproven”, and would cost the economy billions to rectify. Later, in Raasch’s article: “An industry scientist disagreed, arguing that the EPA constantly monitors the effects and that extensive studies by Bayer and other major producers of the insecticide do not show adverse effects on birds. “Field studies have shown that birds rarely, if ever, are affected when fed a diet with a high content of treated seed,” said Mike Leggett, senior director of environmental policy for CropLife America, the association that represents pesticide makers.” Of course, it is not in Bayer’s or Syngeta’s interest to do studies on the residuals, the 20 years of accumulation of their product within the soils where it was utilized. Given the task to pour a 50lb bag of pesticide from one container to another, not a single one of their technicians would refrain from using a dust mask while performing the task. Some scientist are showing that these toxins are now appearing within growing organisms, such as plants, much as minute traces of Teflon exist within human blood from long term ingestion of accumulated residue. Yet there’s Mike Leggett, lobbyist with CropLife America, confidently proclaiming “that birds rarely, if ever, are affected when fed a diet with a high content of treated seed,” But what about the dust that comes from what did not stick to the seed in the perfect control required for laboratory testing? That rubs off in fifty pounds of seed grinding against each other within the bag and during the mechanized handling in planters and drills? It escapes into the air like the dust of two old fashioned chalk erasers clapped together. Multiply that over 20 years and uncounted square miles. Like the residuals from nuclear processes and waste, from smoking cigarettes, from leaded paints and gas, it drifts into the air, coating everything over time. Indeed we are told that Bermuda was formed over time from airborne Saharan sand. The same folks who would sue if they discovered the wind had carried their GM canola’s pollen onto your non GM field (and have won in court over exactly that) disinherit the wind when it comes to detrimental outcomes. For these giants battling with each other over “market share” the birds and bees have become collateral damage in their campaign for “global agricultural production.”