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Brave New World
Films have some 'splainin' to do about food and our future.
Digging the economic dirt
Sometimes, it's tough to read Harper's magazine. Yes, the writing is excellent and the information is first rate, but it can still leave you feeling like you want to slit your wrists.
The most recent issue just piles on the despair. Lewis H. Lapham, soon to leave the magazine, is heading off still in full-frothing fury at the state of US politics. In his editorial, "The Simple Life," Lapham states, "If President Bush and his companions in arms delight in all things shallow, derivative, and dumb, they take their sense of ease and comfort from the assurances of a consumer market and a popular culture that place a high value on those qualities."
And yes, popular culture certainly does have a fair amount of 'splainin' to do, (film, in particular) but, like everything in this complicated, old world, there are two sides to every story. And sometimes, there are even more than that.
'It's not just empty space'
At the Whistler Film Festival, in amongst the heaps of Canadian shorts, there was a 30-minute film from Tony Papa called It's Not Just Empty Space. The film is a platform for our very own Dr. David Suzuki to talk candidly about his life.
And talk, he does -- everything from growing up in Vancouver and Ontario, to his mother and father's last years, the house he lives in, and how the world has changed since he was a child hiding out in a swamp, collecting frogs' eggs and tadpoles. His swamp is now an enormous shopping mall, and Suzuki, himself, a world-renowned authority on the environment. Much of the film is taken from an essay published in an anthology entitled Life Stories: World-Renowned Scientists Reflect on their Lives and the Future of Life on Earth.
It is well worth reading, but the film is an equally compelling visual interpretation of this changing world from the perspective of one human person, (albeit, a very well spoken and extraordinarily informed person.) One of Suzuki's philosophies about human existence is taken from the native belief that we are part of the Earth, an idea that is actually backed up by some serious science.
Out of this world
Says Dr. Suzuki, "When I first encountered First Nations people, they told me we are made of the four sacred elements: Earth, air, fire and water. As I reflected on that, I realized we've framed the environmental problem the wrong way. There's no environment "out there" for us to interact with. We are the environment, because we are the Earth. For me, that began a whole shift in the way that I looked at the issues that confront us and the way we live on this planet."
Suzuki uses a number of different examples, including Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley's experiment that followed the path of argon (an inert, nonreactive element) in a single human breath to illustrate the idea that nothing ever really goes away. The most surprising thing that Dr. Suzuki has to say is that the spirit and science aren't necessarily opposed. In fact, they are often oddly conjoined. It is economics that is utterly screwed. Dr. Suzuki states that the soul sickness that pervades much of Western culture stems from the idea that we have cut ourselves off from everything truly necessary to existence: clean air, clean water, good food and some type of spiritual connection to the place we live.
Our poor, sad world, we have not been kind to her.
Despite this, Suzuki, interviewed recently at the world climate change conference in Montreal, seems unusually chipper about the issue of global warming, citing the number of grassroots movements that have popped up across North America that simply ignore the Bush administration and are taking matters into their own hands.
Bathtub philosophy
The term "grassroots" is an indicator of the biological nature of our mammalian perspective. No grass, no food, no humans. Which returns me, again, to Harper's magazine, in particular, to an article from Bill McKibben, "Letter from China: The Great Leap, Scenes from China's Industrial Revolution." Reading it in the bathtub one night, all I could say was "Oh my God!" over and over.
The sheer scale of possible catastrophe was simply too large to comprehend. Writes McKibben, "Forget pollution for a minute -- the bigger problem is that almost every natural system in China shows the effects of thousands of years of hard use, and especially, of the last half century of ideologically inspired misuse...Without roots to hold the soil, much of the countryside has simply turned to sand. Deserts advance by hundreds of miles annually, and the dust storms of April and May are now a recognized Beijing season, just like the Dust Bowl circa 1934..." The article also explicates the possible effects of mass migration from the rural, farming countryside, to the city, where people move from becoming "food independent to food dependent", a change that has already taken place in other countries (Brazil, Africa, Mexico, etc.) to the great detriment of human life.
'The Future of Food'
The documentary, The Future of Food, makes a similar point about the move from subsistence farming to industrialized commercial farming meant to support a rapidly swelling urban population. The film takes on one of the most important subjects of this time, maybe of all time, and in this light, I wished that the filmmaker was more up to the challenge. Deborah Koons Garcia (widow of the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia), is certainly impassioned about her subject, but she is not necessarily a great documentarian.
This is a problem with many recent (often politically motivated) documentaries -- the subject may be fascinating, but the films don't measure up. It isn't simply a matter of assembling a collection of facts and training the camera lenses on some talking heads. There needs to be an overall argument.
That said, some of the information in the film is truly startling. The sheer size and scope of Monsanto's empire, aided and abetted by the US government in successive administrations, puts the work of Darth Vader and Darth Sidious to shame. If they want to compete with the suits at Monsanto, they should hire lawyers instead of stormtroopers.
Evil farmers?
Suits is the name of the game, lawsuits that is; the company has reportedly sent 9,000 patent infringement letters to farmers, and at the time of the film's making, the company was involved in 100 lawsuits. Evil of this magnitude almost needs a map, or some similarly helpful visual aid to make it graphic and clear just what "they" have been up to (gene splicing, the conjunction of the seed industry with the pesticide industry, countless corporate mergers and buyouts, influence peddling, not to mention changing the genetic code of multiple species).
And more importantly, why? A particularly ominous tactic of companies like Monsanto, is their ability to rewrite laws, in order to promote their own corporate interests. Of course, they had Dan Quayle on side. The rest was easy.
Until quite recently, companies weren't even required to label genetically modified foods because they were considered GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) by the FDA. Whether this was, as some scientists argued, merely a means of avoiding liability, is difficult to say. There is simply so much information, much of it incredibly complex, that this film can really do little more than scratch the surface.
Is that food?
While Koon's narrative is mainly concerned with food production in the US, the rest of the world has taken a different route. Europe, and England especially, have continuously said no thanks to genetically modified foods. Japanese scientists are quoted as saying, "We will watch the children of the US for the next ten years." Meaning, what will happen to a generation raised on such foodstuffs may not be immediately apparent, but rats fed genetically modified corn have developed lesions, impaired growth and suppressed immune systems.
One of the most disturbing stories is that of the "terminator" genes. These cause a plant to produce for one season and then commit suicide and become sterile, which then forces farmers to buy more seeds. If this gene outsources, meaning it crosses with regular non-GMO wild plants, what you could effectively have is no more food. If the seeds from "transgenic" plants are from invasive species, they might have the ability to enter a monoculture, and effectively, wipe it out completely. Good-bye world.
The problems associated with a monoculture are already well apparent to the residents of British Columbia. The mountain pine beetle infestation in BC is destroying large swathes of trees in the province. But while this is may devastate the forest, we aren't strictly dependent on trees for food. But what if a similar occurrence happened to something like wheat or potatoes?
When a small group of companies provides most of the worldwide seed supply, you have an even greater threat because, as one of the scientists interviewed in the film says, "Whoever controls the seed, controls the food." Often, the people in control don't have any interests other than the growth of the corporation they serve. Government is simply another tool, bought and paid for. The most damning assertion the film makes is that the Bush administration has long been cuddled up in Monsanto's massive lap. Numerous government officials have previously been on the payroll of Monsanto, including Linda Fisher at the Environmental Protection Agency, Ann Veneman, the head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Clarence Thomas. When FDA scientists protested the lack of regulation, Michael Taylor, a former Monsanto official, was hired to author a softer FDA policy.
'Art and information interlocking'
Presto, no more problems with meddling scientists, or pesky testing. The fact that no one, not scientists, nor government, truly understands what happens when viruses and bacteria are used to carry genetic cell material from one organism to another (fish into tomatoes). Ignacio Chapela, a U.C. Berkeley professor states, "Transgenic manipulations are probably the largest biological experiment humanity has ever entered into." And, he adds, "If we understood what it is we were doing, we would stop this research for the next fifty to one-hundred years." His university is given $25 million in grants from the biotech industry. His own research was funded with $2000. Despite the dire predictions, The Future of Food ends on an upbeat note with the rise in organic farming. It is a tiny flame of hope, but it can grow, quite literally.
Separating the film from the issues it explores is a tricky business. The information is important, and in some cases, much deserving of wider exposure, so does it matter if the film is actually a good film? Other investigations such as Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me, or Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, are better examples of information and art interlocking. Here is where art begins to take on larger function, bridging the real, and the more-than-real world.
John Berger writing about a book by Geoff Dyer called The Ongoing Moment, says, "Suppose prophesy is for a moment taken out of its Koranic or Talmuidc contexts and inserted into the context of photography, the most momentary of art of all? Suppose photography relays the visual prophesies we often fail to see, thereby offering us a second chance?" It's a different way of seeing, unencumbered, the larger, infinitely more mysterious, world. Seeing is believing, and more importantly, understanding. Dr. Suzuki calls it interconnectedness.
'Jesus without the miracles'
What Lapham says, what Berger says, what Suzuki says, Thomas Jefferson and even old Jesus had to say. In "Jesus Without the Miracles: Thomas Jefferson's Bible" and "The Gospel of Thomas," by Erik Reece (yes, also in Harper's), the author sets out to explore the history and implications of Thomas Jefferson's "The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth" and "The Gospel of Thomas" (that's "doubting Thomas," Jesus's skeptical twin brother).
The similarity between these two texts is that they are very much about how to behave in this world -- no heaven, no miracles, just the simple, hard road of trying to be a better person. Writes Reece, "The world's values are all upside down in relation to the kingdom of God." A statement that is eerily reminiscent of David Suzuki saying, "There's something funny about an economic system that puts value on things that are not nearly as important as those that are regarded as trivial." Which paraphrases the parable "Consider valuable the things that have no material value." Not even in the religious sense, but in the hard, clear facts of this world, this existence, this place.
The agrarian impulse is one of the most central ideas in Jefferson's philosophy, and Reece sees this not merely as an economic model, but as a fundamental difference in world (and heaven) views. One view maintains that the world is a shit pile, we don't need to worry about it, since we'll have our reward after death; the other says this is it, right here, right now. Writes Mr. Reece, "It is time we inverted Pascal's famous wager to say not that we should believe in heaven because we have nothing to lose but rather we should believe first in this world, because in losing it we may lose everything." Amen, to that.
Dorothy Woodend reviews films for The Tyee every Friday. ![]()



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BC Mary
6 years ago
Comments on "Brave New World"
Well done, Dorothy Woodend. Whew!
Birch
6 years ago
An oddball article, written in haste (if the number of syntactic problems due to inadequate proofreading is any measure).
BUT, it's an immensely important article, too. Anyone who reads Harper's Magazine already demonstrates a heads-up attitude to the world, and Ms. Woodend has done us a huge favour by synthesizing a number of source materials into her review.
I was surprised that she didn't quote from a previous Harper's article "The Oil We Eat: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq", published nearly a year ago now.
Get out your spades and keep your compost, folks. If you're urban, get some planters for your balconies. Food is going to get more and more expensive and of lesser and lesser reliability and quality unless we start caring for its provision ourselves.
Truman Green
6 years ago
lovely, informative piece, Dorothy, but the Suzukisms made me laugh like crazy as usual. Will this shameless self-promoter ever cease and desist? To wit: "When I first encountered First Nations people, they told me we are made of four sacred elements: Earth, air, fire and water. As I reflected on that, I realized we've framed the environmental problem the wrong way. There's no environment "out there" for us to interact with. We are the environment because we are the earth... For me, that began a whole shift in the way that I looked at the issues that confront us and the way we live on the planet." Okey, David, where exactly did you first encounter these native people? (Or are you just making it up?) I've tried to imagine it. Let's see...okey, I've got it. You canoe up to an Indian reservation with a camera crew and an old chief comes up to you and says, "We are made of four elements, eh, Mr. Suzuki, earth, air, fire and water." To which you say, "Holy Keeriste, I never thought of that. You've just changed the way I look at the environment, eh." Or maybe it was at a gathering in the longhouse, or something, where all the Indians in a chorus said, "There's four elements, eh, Earth, air, fire and water." Suzuki, you are a very funny man. Have you ever thought of writing for the Air Farce show or maybe Saturday Night Live? How about that 22 minutes show on CBC? I also love your Suzuki Foundation site where you advise everybody to get a will, and then give directions how they can leave a bequest to your foundation.
Truman Green
6 years ago
Anyway, David the earth, air, fire and water idea is pretty much a 4th century Greek philosophers' concept, eh. Empedocles of Acragas figured, that: "..matter consists of 4 elements, earth, air, fire and water-a theory that is later supported and embellished by Aristotle." (google Empedocles of Acragas and earth air fire and water.) You might also study the ideas of Democritus and Leocippus, all 4 element types. For more recent stuff, David try googling "chonps" to find out what we'e REALLY made of.
BC Mary
6 years ago
Truman, Truman, dear ... Sufferin' Jesus, this is the Holy Season! We're supposed to overindulge in food and drink, max out our credit cards, and try not to kill each other.
Now repeat after me: Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm ... dammit, man, I said calm!
RickW
6 years ago
Yes, indeed! The act of farming is a massive environmental upset, and has been for the last 10,000 years. Anything we call farming today, is merely a variation on a theme. Just because something has been around for this length of time, doesn't qualitfy it as "natural". Using that rationale, GM foods will someday, be as "natural".
Truman Green
6 years ago
Hi, Mary. I don't believe in holy seasons. I would hope that every day would be a holy day--one where we have respect for the truth. I have this theory that the OBVIOUSLY rotten people couldn't be responsible for all the suffering in the world. You could call it the "non-reducible theory of evil", (an analog of intelligent design)--that much of it is due to the wolves in lambs' clothing, and is characterized by interminable bullshit. I count Christianity and its practitioneers near the top of the list. Maybe don't, "Silent night, holy night" me, eh. I'm not trying to kill anybody just to highlight who I happen to think are the phonies in the world. If this is all a bit too Holden Caulfiedian to you, so be it.
BC Mary
6 years ago
Sorry, sorry, Truman. There's more going on here than I can understand. You got me wrong. But you rarely get anything wrong, so I'm huddled and unhappy. I didn't put any weight at all on your assessment of David Suzuki -- your opinions are always well founded, therefore interesting. Fact is: it just struck a hilariously (I thought) atonal chord in this sanctimonious season.
Truman Green
6 years ago
Come on, eh Mary. You mean to say that you can't see the humour in, "When I first encountered First Nations people, they told me we are made of four sacred elements: Earth, air, fire and water." I was damned near rolling on the floor, not only trying to envision such a meeting, but also trying to deal with l960's (I guess) native people studying all of those greek philosophers. I think you owe it to me to at least google "Empedocles of Acragas, earth, air, fire and water", eh. I don't think life gets much funnier than this, Mary. My little brother and I used to have this game where we'd try to make the other one laugh so hard he'd be begging for mercy. This woulda been perfect.
BC Mary
6 years ago
Come on yerself, Dude. If I'm following you correctly (and am probably not), we're laughing from the same page of the same hymn book. Always were. I thought it was hilarious simply because you, in the nicest possible way, were blasting holes through one of our unchallenged icons during this hypocritical season in which lies are truth and the truth is a lie. You were, I thought, being family-iar. It's what happens each year at this time. Not funny. But funny.
So here I'm left with
and I no longer know whether to laugh or cry. Isn't it always this way, in The Season To Be Jolly?
Truman Green
6 years ago
Okey, Mary, but can you google just, "Earth, air, fire water? Empedocles is about the fourth entry. Then re-read the Suzuki quote about how he had that damascus road (lite)revelation as follows: "When I first encountered First Nations people, they told me we are made of four sacred elements: Earth, air, fire and water. As I reflected on that, I realized we've framed the environmental problem the wrong way. There's no environment "out there" for us to interact with. We are the environment because we are the earth... For me that began a whole shift in the way that I looked at the issues that contront us and the way we live on the planet." Which part of this do you actually believe, Mary? I mean, the levels of hilarity are almost infinite. Start with unbelievable triteness. Then go to historical nonsense. Then how about a self-proclaimed drosophila melanogaster wizard taking such stock in West Coast Native philosophy, (stolen from the Greeks). I mean, it's endless.
BC Mary
6 years ago
Right. I looked where you suggested that I look. Earth, air, fire, water ... Aristotle to alchemy. I'm not a damn bit interested in any of this, Truman. Whaddaya mean, which part do I believe ... ? Yesterday you had me believing in Christianity, for chrissakes. I admit to confusion. Cripes, let's not even go to those places where one culture stole myths from another culture. But if you've spotted the vector between Aristotle and Suzuki, well, I guess that's a bit sad rather than hilarious. Maybe Suzuki's been taken over by David Icke, I dunno.
The thing is, Truman, that isn't what I was laughing at. My fun was much simpler, arising from the vision of a gentle Truman driven to lobbing volleys during the season throbbing with other meanings.
Truman Green
6 years ago
I see...but all I am saying is that the quotation from Suzuki might just be the funniest thing ever said by a human being on this planet. I've been reading it all day and I can't stop laughing. Anyway, all the best to you. Notice I didn't say happy holiday or anything like that, eh.
BC Mary
6 years ago
Anthropologists may howl over their campfires on this one, sure enough. And by the way, thanks for pointing out poor David's feet of clay. Actually I thought he only did fruit flies.
No, you didn't say happy holiday. I like the holiday part. I even like the choirs, the good food, and Handel's Messiah. But it's a cruel, mean-spirited season IMHO, because it emphasizes the gulf between the rich and the people without much money.
But hey, here's a good laugh. I just learned that I have to spend the Winter Solstice in the company of my ex, who is not good for my soul. Because why? Well, because it's Christmas. And that makes just about as much sense as Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
The best to you too.
Truman Green
6 years ago
yeah, Mary--drosophila melanogaster-- fruit flies.
skeptikool
6 years ago
Ashes to ashes etc. For a split second of celestial time we experience our world but are always "of the earth" to which we return. When the worms and crows have done with us perhaps, through our DNA, the process repeats.
That "soul sickness" is certainly evident in some of the sneering commentary in this thread.
Truman Green
6 years ago
Hi Skeptikool. You say, "Ashes to ashes, etc. For a split second of celestial time we experience our world but are always "of the earth" to which we return. When the worms and crows have done with us perhaps, through our DNA our process repeats." Skeptikool, will you cut it out. You're just trying to compete for the Truman Green Award for Irrepressible Bullshit, eh. I know what you're up to. Sorry, Suzuiki still gets it. Have you checked his website where he lectures you about the need for everyone to get a will, and then suggests how you can leave your estate to his foundation?
Truman Green
6 years ago
Also, I might ask, when you dummies talk trash like your "ashes to ashes" nonsense and Suzuki's appropriated "earth air fire water" crap just exactly who do you think you're talking to, anyway--a Benny Hinn audience? Soul sickness, indeed.
alexwh
6 years ago
Just like few know that the fax is a 19th century invention I back Mr Green's pointing out the existence of Empedocles. For many Googlers nothing happened before the 20th century.
BC Mary
6 years ago
Truman, are you finished yet? I hate to begin thinking it isn't safe to make an ironic joke about the Christmas season without incurring this kind of hazing. I turn the question back to you: Cut it out, will you? Brave new world, indeed.
hometown546
6 years ago
What's a Benny Hinn?
Truman Green
6 years ago
Mary, didn't I just read your pillory of our own Rafe a few minutes ago? Mine is mild indeed. I mean, you accused Rafe of being a phony and everything, calling him a Social Creditor and a socialist cum green party guy. Anyway, I think our too-early-retired world-class geneticist (fruit flies die at 29 degrees fahrenheit) self-brander needs a few pokes and jabs. Hey, I've invented a new word to counter Suzuki and Skeptikool's claim that us western world types are suffering from something called, "soul sickness." (This is a blanket insult if I ever heard one, eh) Mine is "iconopathy." I'm submitting it to the people at Websters. It's gonna mean, "an unthinking, slavish reference for icons, no matter how silly they talk--see iconopathic, iconopathist."
Truman Green
6 years ago
hometown56 Benny Hinn is the guy on tv who passses white drywall buckets around the audience for cash donations while he makes people do phony testimonies and fall down on stage, speaking in tongues and stuff like that, eh--and who the CBC calls a big phoney.
Aurora
6 years ago
Wow. How did we move so far from discussing a film on an extremely important, scary and pervasive problem to dissing one of Canada's truly eminent scientists? Soul sickness, indeed. Mr. Green, not sure where entirely you're coming from, you get off, or better still - where you throw your own efforts in this sorry 21st century existence we are all currently a part of. I happen to think some of your derogatory commentary on Suzuki may well be the words of cynicism extreme, red-neckedness run amuck, professional jealousy (!?),.. or just an acute abhorrence of icnopathy. Take your pick. If that's where you find your fun and daily humour, okay. Not sure it's entirely productive on this forum.
However, to sink to a complete discreditation of someone as renowned and respected as Suzuki purely on the basis of Dr. Suzuki's simplifed quote briefly stating the history of his own shift in scientific thought - fairly subversive in its day - then to cheapen his work further by critizing him for seeking funding for the continued valuable work of his Foundation, hardly warrants such cheap humour. No matter what you may think of Suzuki the man, the scientist, the historian - he at least continues his efforts in tbe best way he knows how. If celebrity and iconic status is a part of that, I accept that. Both his academic and activist background is on the record.
I suggest you give it a rest and go make fun of someone much more worthy of your scintillating sense of humour. And we all know there are no shortage of those types out there. How 'bout we begin with some of the board members of Monsanto for starters?! Now there are much more worthy subjects for humour gone crazed. I'm sure you could come up with far more insane and absurd examples of inanities emanating from the comments and writings of that worthy organization.
Go for it. My guffaws await with bated breath.
Truman Green
6 years ago
Aurora, I loved your response. Thanks for using my new word, "iconopathy." Don't forget iconopathic, inconopathically. I don't yet have a response from the Websters people but someone over at the American Psychiatric Association promises "due diligence" before the next edition of the DSM, which, I'm sure you know, stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders--sort of the shrinks own bible. May I add that your description of Suzuki as, "one of Canada's truly eminent scientists" qualifies you as a candidate for the screening test as the first official sufferer of this promising new ailment, (Merck people take note)?)the clinical term for which will be "inconopathosis." Suzuki's not an emminent Scientist, eh. He's never discovered anything, except, as I have written, some previously- known strain of melanogaster drosophila that dies at 29 degrees fahrenheit. My god, the man only did fifteen minutes of research before he discovered his true calling--talking about science. I hope you will start to think about how these myths develope. He's a film producer, fairly smart guy and a wonderful broadcaster, but not an eminent scientist. As far as "professional jealousy", well, I may be a Joseph Campbell wannabe (the famous myth guy, who fell in love with the myths he was supposed to be studying--sort of an unfortunate case of Munich Syndrome) but my total lack of scientific credentials would disqualify me for that flattering accusation. But seriously though, the earth, fire air and water stuff and his adoption of a new paradigm on how we think about the planet, and stuff like that, DID get me laughing so hard that I was getting pains in my ribs.
kent
6 years ago
Is it too much to ask Truman and Mary to argue in prvate? I'm sick of both of them.
Truman Green
6 years ago
You might wanna consider ignoring me, Kent. I mean, you could have said this in private too, eh. Unless, of course you have some thoughtful criticism, which I'd love to hear.