“Monocultures of the mind.” The term comes from the writing and speaking of Vandana Shiva, especially her 1993 book titled Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology. The phrase is an argument. It’s an allegation. It is as provocative as it is neat. “Monocultures of the mind” is a name for the thing that has happened. The land has become the purview of a few species. The weeds and the not-weeds have been sorted accordingly. Knowledge of the weeds, other than to know thy enemy, is trivia.
Has it happened? Is there a “monoculture of the mind”? Can we see this monoculture when we consider the role of various organisms in our socio-ecological systems?
Let’s take sumac for example. I’ll admit that I can’t pretend to know what Iowans think about sumac, but we can likely all agree that it’s not the most prized among plants. Of course, we would have to stipulate which sumac we were talking about (Staghorn? Smooth? Fragrant?), but let’s say we took them all as a bunch, all sumac, just as an object of consideration. If I asked, “What does sumac mean to you?” I am curious what answers I would get. What people think, say, and do about various non-human species is the focal point of much of my work.
Short of the will and resources for a systematic study, one way that I can try to look at the cultural significance of sumac is to look at what North American poets have written about the plant.
Renowned Canadian poet Margaret Atwood wrote in “Sumacs” (1983):
“[…] but go outside and down
the bank, among the sumacs
with their tongues of dried blood
which have stopped speaking […]”
Doug Ramspeck, poet and professor of English at The Ohio State University, wrote in “Sumac Prophecy” (2010):
“but she did not think it was a moth
or hawk—she thought a tear had opened
in the seam of things, that the sumac tree
at the field edge had displayed its hairy seeds
[…] the apparition’s
blood-red tail against the apparition’s
blood-red seeds […]”
So, “blood” may be a theme for sumac then. Well, they are both red, but I won’t embarrass myself trying to decipher the metaphor any further—besides, we’re missing context.
Then let’s consider something more fun. How about Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria)? The whimsical little wildflowers named for their appearance are the perfect rarity to go casually searching for in the spring in the Midwest. Instead of the poets, could we consult the scientists?
A little research turns up mind-expanding interspecies relationships. The wildflowers are “amazingly well adapted for pollination by queen bumblebees that are common in early spring” (p. 47) according to naturalist Carol Gracie’s (2015) Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast. Dutchman’s Breeches are myrmecochorous, meaning that their seeds are dispersed by ants. The plants, sometimes called “Staggerweed” by ranchers, also contain bicuculine, an alkaloid known to cause tremors, vomiting, seizures, and death if ingested by cattle. Weeds indeed. Though, as Gracie suggests, since the plant is innocuous to sheep, one animal could conceivably clear it for the safe grazing of another. “Everything is food,” Harry Nilsson wrote. So everything is, as long as the necessary biodiversity is present to do the eating.
The point that I hope to make is that these species must be present in Iowa for them to warrant serious consideration by those who deal closely with plants as growers of any kind. If Dutchman’s Breeches are absent, is knowledge of myrmecochory and bicuculine absent? If sumac are absent, is its bloody poetic significance absent? And if far more species are absent, have we then shut out far more possible bridges to new ideas through greater contemplation and understanding of biodiversity? Are we living in a “monoculture of the mind?”
As rain and warmth bring a panoply of non-human life to visibility in Iowa, I find myself searching for biodiversity, privately testing Shiva’s thirty-year-old thesis against my experiences on the landscape. The good news is that there is a conceivable alternative to monocultures of the mind. As Iowa farmers continue keeping prairie strips, wetlands, forests, etc., they prove it is possible to live among a diversity of species and through those species to live among a diversity of ideas.
References
Atwood, Margaret. (1983). “Sumacs.” The North American Review 268(3):23.
Gracie, C. (2012). Spring Wildflowers of the Northeast: A Natural History. Princeton University Press.
Ramspeck, D. (2010). Possum Nocturne. University of Akron.
Shiva, V. (1993). Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology. Palgrave Macmillan.
Iowa Learning Farms 