In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan diagnoses the many problems with industrial farming, which operates on the principle of efficiency. But “efficiency” as defined by industrial farming leads to an assembly-line method of production, which, Pollan says, leads in turn to many kinds of imbalance and, in the end, an agricultural system unhealthy for humans, animals, plants, and economic and biological systems. In “The Animals: Practicing Complexity” he visits a farm that operates on entirely different principles—so different, in fact, that even Pollan doesn’t immediately grasp the complex relationship between all the parts. Here, to understand how it works so well, one must grasp an entirely different definition of efficiency.
In “Rewilding North America,” Fraser outlines the way environmentalists began to face up to and remedy the flaws in their conservation methods. Such an important change could only happen, she argues, through critique of the almost-sacred “island” (closed, short-term) model and moving to a (more open, long-term) “corridor” model. But it took years of scientific data and a deliberate PR campaign to convince environmentalists to think in a new way.
Have you ever taken issue with the way something—something important to you—is done, produced, organized, or communicated? Have you thought of a better way? Can you think up an alternative, better principle around which to organize this system within which this practice takes place? Salatin says “You can’t change just one thing.” What would happen if you were to put your better way into practice?
Write a paper in which you explain your proposal for changes in a specific practice as an improvement over the existing way of doing things. Keep in mind your audience: who might be open to, and who might resist your proposal? What would it take to convince others to rethink? Are Fraser and Pollan effective advocates of new thinking? Why or why not? Borrow from their rhetorical strategies, or invent your own. Let’s talk about these strategies in class!
The “habits of mind” this assignment targets are 1) to look for and recognize organizing principles; 2) to stop conceiving of phenomena only in isolation and learn to understand context—the larger, overarching systems (and sets of complex relationships) of which these phenomena might form a part; and 3) to “test” principles, thinking imaginatively and thoroughly about implications. The major writing goals of this second assignment are 1) to write a concise, coherent, and accurate account of a how a system works; 2) to pose valid critical questions concerning the merits of that system and the principles upon which it operates; and 3) to write a compelling (even if wildly unlikely) account of an alternative principle and the resulting changes it would bring to the system.
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