However, humans have always acted on ignorance because of our basic knowledge of human evolution that we rule out the possibility that we may actually be at the bottom of the evolutionary pyramid because of our all powerful way of thinking that consciousness equals dominance. For instance, astronomers who look for life on other planets, use a narrow definition of life and only measure variables that could support a human's way of life. The air we breath, water sources we need for survival, etc. We in turn, do that on our own planet where we diminish the earth by selfishly supporting a humans way of life and do not acknowledge the ways we can coexist and heal the earth while supporting ourselves. Pollan presents similar ideas as Kingsnorth from our last blog post where he states ideas of what happens when we begin to look at the point of view of the land apart from our own perspective. And as Pollan mentioned, we focus on genes as a basis of hierarchy when we only possess 23 compared to rice who possess more than 30. In turn we need to think about who is actually a more superior species when we too are manipulated by nature.
So questions I ask are: what stories can be told and how will literature evolve if we see from the Plant's Eye View? What kinds of characters could be shaped and and how could it incorporate nature with culture? In other words, what happens to the composition of our needs hierarchy when we begin to acknowledge nature as a counterpart or maybe a superior element?
I think you really highlighted the essence of Pollan's talk, which I found absolutely brilliant! In terms of the evolvement of literature (I like this Darwinian-ish concept of literature), I think if we were to position ourselves as seeing though the plant, or even another form of nature outside ourselves, that maybe characters would be the same in some regards. I mean, language and other forms of communication will differ across species. However, if we're trying to see things through nonhumanisitic lenses, aren't we still personifying the very thing we're trying to think as? In other words, our human ways of thought will always remain. So, if we're trying to see from a plant's point of view, wouldn't our thoughts still be humanistic? In terms of our needs hierarchy, perhaps that would change that perception of us being better than or other forms of life being less than equal to our lives. However, I still wonder if our thoughts would remain human if we even tried to think from a plant's perspective, because we're personifying everything. I wonder what would happen if we tried to do that and not personify the plant's view.
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