Bow to the Grain

As anthropologist Anna Tsing says, grains domesticated us. The development of sedimentary agriculture roughly 10000 years ago ushered in the establishment of new social hierarchies, reinforcing what we now refer to as classism and “othering”. Cultivation has allowed the exercising of power over others, more commonly known as “feudalism”. This system enabled the creation of a food surplus, increasing the size of society manyfold. Conventional evolutionary theory has explained this phenomena as a form of ensuring survival. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, it must have been the desire of all organisms to survive, or perhaps thrive when reaching the correct thresholds. While human exceptionalism makes us think that humans are unique in making this jump, it could also be said that humans won the “timeline lottery”, effectively suggesting that humans just happened to be the first species to organize this way.

Pre-industrial attitude towards nature was fundamentally different, where nature was respected greatly, as seen in animal-deity pantheons in pagan Europe and the Mediterranean basin, to Bear Worship practices encountered in northern Asia, and to sacred whales encountered in American Pacific Northwest Indigenous cultures. With agriculture, by favoring a particular species in the face of a multi-species equilibrium, as seen in single-crop monocultures, humans laid the groundwork for collapsing ecosystems.

This is perhaps the origin of the contemporary outlook towards nature, where growth is prioritized over sustainable cycles. This is not to say that sustainable cultures did not develop in Europe/Old World, but rather were overtaken by the emerging culture of domination. Animist societies have emerged independently in several locations around the world. The independent emergence of these communities would suggest that there is an inherent belief of humans to be one with nature, perhaps suppressed by cultural upbringing or various environmental factors. The recognition of this desire is fundamental, especially in a time such as now where we are facing ecological catastrophe on all levels. Some communities, for example the Nishnaabeg tribe of North America, have still maintained these sustainable outlooks towards nature in the face of adversity.

Thinking of land as a way of learning, as mentioned in Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s “Land as Pedagogy: Nishnaabeg Intelligence and Rebellious Transformation”, may pave the way for a different understanding of nature and nurture. Simpson, being of Nishnaabeg First Nation descent, calls for a reunderstanding of not only our education methods, but cultural reimaginations in our interactions with nature, encouraging an understanding of nature as a live entity from which we can learn.  

Simpson particularly stresses the importance of observation and sensitivity towards nature’s needs and boundaries, enabling the maintenance of sustainable cycles of living. Paving the way for the preservation of Indigenous knowledge and culture through political presence and collaboration will enable society to shift their ways to be nurturing towards Earth rather than hurting, thus preserving us from ecological demise.

Ali Vedad Yuner