Botany of Desire Michael Pollan\'s

Botany of Desire

Michael Pollan's best selling book The Botany of Desire offers an interesting insight into the psyche of plants (if there is such a thing). The sub-title "A plant's Eye view of the world" gives away the thesis which revolves around botanical desires and how they often work with human desires for their own ends. Whether we like the book or not- (obviously some of us wouldn't bother reading about plants and what they think) the author must be given credit for presenting a completely original treatise. He may not be correct but he certainly had something unique to say about human desires and evolutionary process of plants.

Pollan presents his thesis by exploring the histories of four plants apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes. The author feels that while we thought we were using plants for our benefit, the plants had all the while been using us for their survival. The simple example of this lies in our desire to repeatedly grow some plants. Though we obviously think that we are doing it because we desire, Pollan believes that it could be that these plants are "[getting] us to move and think for them" (p. xx). The treatise with its highly original thesis is definitely worth a read though there are many points on which we may not agree. For example, the author believes that plants have made us help them survive through beauty and taste. In other words, he connected it with Darwin's theory of natural selection where the fittest survived. However if that were so, why is it that we still see many other plants which are otherwise not so beautiful or fruits not all that appealing surviving. While I agree that tulip is a flower most people would love to have in their gardens, what about cactus. This plant has been an eyesore for many and those with children might actually be wary of it because of all the thorns. But cacti have also survived the evolutionary process just like any other plant.

It all started with Pollan's own garden where he saw a bumble bee and wondered about its role in the world: "I happened to be sowing rows in the neighborhood of a flowering apple tree that was fairly vibrating with bees. And what I found myself thinking about was this: What existential difference is there between the human being's role in this or any) garden and the bumblebee's?" (p.3). At first, this appear a strange comparison and the author admits that it does. But he encourages us to think again; think about the role of these plants and why is it that we choose one plant over the other? This is where natural selection steps in.

While I have my reservations about author's hypothesis that a plant would make us take care of them, I still cannot disagree with the notion that there is a greater force that makes us choose one plant and not the other. It acts on our senses and makes us care for the survival of plants. We must not forget that Darwin felt that natural selection is the process by means of which only the fittest survive- now while the fittest part is debatable, it is not all too far-fetched to assume that there is indeed a process that aids the evolutionary process by eradicating some species and helping others survive. This may also apply to plants. Pollan argues that "in the years since Darwin published The Origin of Species the crisp conceptual line that divided artificial from natural selection has blurred." (p.xxii). Thus the nature may actually be forcing us to sit up and take notice of plants and then cultivate the ones we really like. He thus makes some plants appealing to us and the author calls this determinism: "We too cast evolutionary (deterministic?) votes every time we reach for the most symmetrical flower or the longest French fry. The survival of the sweetest, the most beautiful....proceeds according to a dialectical processes, a give and take between human desire and the universe of all plant possibility." (243-244)

The convoluted histories of plants have been very carefully explored. The author has done a marvelous job in exploiting historical changes to plants and agriculture to support his thesis. However it would have been better to hypothesize that our relationship with the plants falls in the bigger scheme of things instead of presenting plants as some thinking beings. It is interesting but often a little too far-fetched nonetheless. Pollan's premise is definitely original and his histories of apple and tulip are worth reading more than once; if not for their own sake then for the sake of understanding how we are all connected in the larger frame. Our ambitions are connected with the ambition of the plants to survive and multiply but at the same time, I cannot shrug the feeling that instead of the plants, it is the Nature itself that helps us stay connected with each other. And since human beings are the most powerful creation, they are in a better position to take care of plants and animals and thus their powers are effectively utilized. But while the author was making the assumption that plants force us to make copies of them so they can survive and that they may actually be just as conceited as we are, he probably forgot to see that eventually even these plans benefit the human race more than anyone else.

Thus man is not altogether wrong in assuming that the world has been created for his benefit. This is because when plants survive as did apples and potatoes, they eventually offered more benefits to mankind than we could ever offer them. We consume them and when we don't, we use them to decorate our homes and please our senses. However the same cannot be said of the plants since we human offer little or no real service to them except that we grow them so we can please ourselves.