Responsibility Requires Conscience (the case of Monsanto vs. Monsanto)
A federal judge on Friday banned the planting of genetically modified “Round-up Ready” sugar beets in California. (link at bottom) In the plant world this is the ultimate case of the lesser of two evils. While Roundup is hated by many environmentalist for it’s effects on amphibians when it is suspended in water, it is loved by others as the most economical and effective tool in the war on invasive species. Never mind the conflicting science about the effectiveness of trait containment in frankenplants and the ability of hybrid traits to pass on through seedlings. We have seen through woodies such as Spirea, Maples, Asian Pears and even more rapidly in Monsanto’s own genetically modified corn, that making a species hardier will only make it better at adapting and proliferating. This is one of the greatest of all natural laws, and a law that Monsanto has become masters at capitalizing on. Regardless of the harmful practices, this a case is the ultimate example of a moral being trying to pass responsibilty to a being without a conscience, and the kind of argument that truly turns a garden philosofer like me on.
For decades Monsanto and the companies they have bought, have been creating selective herbicides that can be effective on broadleafs vs. grasses, herbaceous plants vs. woodies and so on and so on. However, since Monsanto’s chemical patents have been expiring, and cheaper private label versions of Roundup, Weed-B-Gone, and Grass-B-Gone have taken over the marketplace, there has been a brilliant yet somewhat evil effort to change the landscape of the market. Just as they havecornered the market on chemicals for decades (a market they very much created), they have been creating a market in bioengineered plants to eliminate the need for chemicals they don’t create and making it easier to use the ones they do. The larger problem is, and where the “Evilness” arrives is that if plants weren’t taken out of their natural environment in the first place and used for unnatural purposes none of this would be necessary at all.
One could argue that the evilness is inherit in the monocropped, overconsolidated, and geographically unsustainable nature of the agriculture industry as a whole, and that they are just trying to lessen the evil. That is another debate that we won’t go into here. It could also be said that Monsanto is just trying to limit the use of chemicals and that is a good, but in this case the crop was created so people could use more chemicals, particularly one that Monsanto makes. Worst of all, to make it easier to use that chemical they are creating potentially and in some cases proven invasive species (such as Round-up Ready turf grass) that do far greater damage to the environment than the chemicals to control them. Worst of all the chemicals they are making them immune to is the only effective control that man has for the invasive species. In the end what does more damage to the environment isn’t the plants or the chemical, but the irresponsible or uneducated decisions that are made by the people who create and use them.
That is what makes this case and scenario so exciting and downright intoxicating to a garden(ing) philosopher like me. This gets to the heart of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and logic and grows right out of the garden. To look at the more heady side of this you can check out my previous post on The Morality of Sustainability. For now though, I will cut straight to the case at hand and sum it up simply in application here.
Only beings with a self-conscience can be responsible for their actions, and have moral authority or responsibility. Left with the lesser evils, the chemical has two opportunities for good on the decisive front: at creation with the maker, and in use with the applicator. Chemicals can be produced responsibly and even organically if the makers take the time and responsibility to do so. The perfect example is agricultural vinegar, but lobbyists have kept it illegal in most states. It could be said that the good in the intent is enough, but regardless of our culture’s fondness of Spock and John Stuart Mills, the ends only justify the means in the eyes of the beholder. That is a false argument, and that is just an excuse for personal justification rather than grounds for moral right or wrong. For good to be possible it must come from the actions of a moral being and be inherit in the nature of the beings involved.
As for Frankenplants (Genetically Modified Organisms / GMO’s), they are not beings with a self-conscience (once again you can look at the previous post) so Sugar Beets cannot be held responsible for their actions once they are released into nature. However their creators are moral beings and have an inherit responsibility to do good, not just call it good and try to justify their actions. Taking the nature out of a natural being by altering it’s nature, using it unnaturally, and forcing it to work against nature is the ultimate example immorality in itself. Add in that you are doing it for personal and financial gain…You have pure outright evil.
In this case, Monsanto is trying to put the owness of selectivity in the hands of a being without a conscience…the Sugar Beet. It is trying to take it out of the hands of the beings with the conscience, chemical manufacturers, applicators, and growers. Finally, they are trying to wash their hands of all responsibilty by saying the ends justify the means. Worst of all, they stand to profit from both sides of this by being able to sell the seed, plus more Round-up.
I have been clear througout my posts, that I don’t like to deem people as evil, to me the evil lyes in the lack of education and understanding that leads to these decisions. I think all people are inheritly good and only their actions can be good or evil. When people are described as good or evil, it is due to the accumulation of their collective acts and relegated to the adjective not a form of existence. The evil that has led to this is the lack of education in the liberal arts that has proliferated all industry, especially horticulture/agriculure, and even more worrisome our education system as a whole that becomes more industrial each day. Generations of replacing introspection with instruction instead of using both in education has led us where we are today, agriculturally, environmentally, economically, politically…and ethically. I am sure that there will be plenty of people who claim that this case is being blown-up by a liberal activist judge in California. Well if being moral means being liberal, then I am damn proud to be a Liberal.
Link to Reuters’ article on Judge’s ruling
*Please note that all of the food in these photos was grown orgnically, in my own garden, from organically certified heirloom seed, and tasted even better than it looks.






In the last three weeks I have been visited by about thirty friends from distant places dating back over thirty years. Some of them I don’t even remember not knowing and even though I hadn’t seen some in five to ten years it seemed as though a single day had not passed. Most have married or should have been allowed to, and some we here to see one get married. About the only thing that was different was some of us were a little softer physically and mentally. However none of us were any softer in our passions. When you get a group of artists, musicians, chefs, designers, and gardeners together you know you are in for aesthetic overload. I have to thank Michael and Anita for choosing Asheville as the location for their special day. There couldn’t have been anyplace more appropriate for such a reunion.
It was definitely a spiritual time and this in particular is a spiritual time of year for me. Lately I have been completely enthralled in my writing for the update, but I have also been rediscovering my camera. Two days a week I have been spending in the field capturing what has probably been the best blooming season I have ever encountered. This has allowed me to capture from bud to bloom to leaf and to seed hundreds of varieties of plants. In the process it has reconnected me to the people who introduced me to some of the plants, and the people I introduced the plants to. This has been a true rediscovery of myself and I can never thank enough the people that have allowed this happen, just like I can never thank enough the people who first made these introductions to me. There is an old saying that it is bad luck to thank someone for giving you a plant, you just give them one back and give one to someone else. Gardening is without a doubt about giving and bringing people together rather than thanking them and going on your way. Things and people always seem to keep coming around like the seasons in a garden.
This spring has also allowed me to reconnect with people I have never met. In my excursions I have visited private and public gardens as well as nature herself. I have even just cruised neighborhoods scoping out that one missing specimen. Twenty years ago this is how I first honed my craft with mentors and friends like Duane Hoover of the
This spring I have been spending two days a week scouring the grounds of The
I am sure that if he knew then what we know now, he would have moved from defining sustainability as related to money, to creating things that are sustainable without it. He saw the plants as a palet to fulfill the visions of his designs, strong in Architecture, but grounded in the patterns of nature. They were like the books on a shelf or the art on a wall and he brought a greater appreciation of them to all of us. He saw sustainability as a plan to care for the land buy using it to generate the money to pay for the art. I am sure if he were alive today, he would see that the plants need to take care of the land so we don’t have to plunder it to pay for the gardens we create. In the end, he made us more aware. He just wasn’t aware of the consequences of his actions, but without them we would not have come to the awareness we have today.
Where to start. I am back from a pseudo fast from twitter and the blog for lent. It was unofficial, but needed even though I did sneak in a few visits on feast days. However, the thought of returning from the wilderness is very appropriate. You all know I am prone to the nature side of things. Yet this time has allowed me to get back to my urban and “cultivated” roots. The vegetable garden is up to date, and I have been catching up on photos from more traditional plantings. Besides working in the yard, I have been hanging out at the Biltmore and cruising neighborhoods to capture more cultivated plants while nature appropriately sleeps.

As yesterday would have been the 201st birthday of Charles Darwin I found it overly ironic that all I saw on the news was a barrage of people declaring that global warming was a farce because it had snowed outside. I have to admit that I am starting to find the snows I have missed from my youth a bit annoying now. However it hasn’t effected me enough to start denying reality and the evidence of real science. I may be delirious from cabin fever and the total loss of routine from an ad-hoc school schedule, but it is not about to lead to the closing of this American mind.
I am still having a hard time taking off running with the blog since Christmas, but with the ground wet and nothing but ice and snow for a month, I couldn’t run if I wanted to. Normally at this time I would be out prepping beds, putting up trellises for my peas, and digging trenches for my potatoes. Instead I have been trapped inside by the weather and the year I hoped to be a quick return to the garden after the rains of last summer is anything but. Instead, I am in the midst of a writing binge on the new app similar to the one I was on last summer when I started writing our 1st app. For a gardener with a philosophy degree this is about as challenging to your sense of reality as your first introduction to Kant’s Epistemology.





My wife is a landscape painter, and you can see her work 





