Seeing the farm as a factory erases living interdependence from perception
Evidence
The mechanistic metaphor is expressed currently in daily language when we say that the heart is a pump, or when we see an idea as âthe engine of growth,â or when we describe the brain as an âinformationprocessingâ system that uses âinputs,â âoutputs,â and âfeedbackâ to operate efïŹciently, or as in the opening example from Rebeccaâs class - room, when a stream is referred to as a drain. As Rebeccaâs students readily pointed out, living relationships such as those found in moving bodies of water can be used very differently when we see them as machines. For example, when a farm is seen through the machine metaphor, the farmerâs focus is on what inputs and techniques will produce the most food, rather than on understanding and caring for the landâthe soil, plants and animals as well as the humansâas living interdependent relationships. When âthe farmâ is thought of as âa fac - toryâ we lose the understanding of and appreciation for the connections that our bodies have with the bodies of other living creatures; we lose the understanding of the sacredness of that connection and its necessity to the life cycle. â Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 541
Categorization
- SEED: A ready-made classroom exercise: have students inventory everyday mechanistic metaphors (heart-as-pump, stream-as-drain) and reframe them relationally â a concrete eco-justice lesson.
- ADDENDUM: Extends the Grafting & Growth essayâs root system of metaphor and the tamarisk/stream infrastructure thread into a language-analysis teaching frame.
- XREF: connects to: Living in constructed urban environments severs people from ecological consequences; Industrial attention farming displaced diverse attentional modalities with one mechanomorphic species â The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of theâŠ, 488