Piggyback Posting

Okay, so I'm piggybacking off one of Alexa's posts which contained two videos of Quinn explaining his work and elaborating on his critical response. Watching one of the videos I was hugely surprised to hear that Quinn's most controversial topic in any of his work was his synthesis of the laws of ecology (which he referred to as the ABCs thereof) in Ishmael. Of all the really weighty issues he discusses in Ishmael, I feel like this is the most blatantly obvious, not something that would throw people up in arms. Apparently I was wrong about that. So, I had to think about why this would be so upsetting to people. Here is what I have tentatively concluded:

The ABCs of Ecology state that the world's inherent homeostatic system is infallible and always has been, working constatnly to even population and food balances so that neither tanks or explodes at any given time. The system is proprotional, fair, and self-sustaining, playing no favorites to either food availabilities or the life created by this food. Food and life are directly related, which is why for millions of years the system worked perfectly, never overpopulating the planet. There was always the right amount of food to sustain the right amount of life, and when food dwindled, so too did the life, which thereby allowed for more food to replenish, and thereby sustain more life. Highly cyclical stuff, which is why the system is perfect. I think of this system as an external locus of control, in that this is the way the world had worked for eons before agriculture. Agriculture, on the other hand, is an internal locus of control, because humans can manipulate the system from within to produce surplus food and thereby more life. However, here's the crux of my logic - we have chalked up agriculture to be the will of God. Man was set on the Earth and immediately he began to farm. So, the will of God, that's an external locus of control too, because the will to farm is derived from a higher power, something we cannot control from within.

I'm thinking that the reason the laws of ecology are so controversial, especially in their relation to religion, is that replacing the will of God (one external locus of control) with an age-old, infallible biological system (another external locus) forces people to resign God's intention. To diminish his influence. To admit that He didn't really have a Plan. To admit that we have been very, very wrong for a long time.

Now, no one really enjoys facing evidence that contradicts their long-standing schemas about life. No one really likes to get called the Dunce or have their face slapped by the backhand of truth, especially if the truth is obvious. That shit sucks. So, I can now understand why ecology would be such a controversial issue in Quinn's work. For me, this did not prove inflammatory at all, purely because of the kind of liberal, atheistic household I grew up in. But for a great, great deal of other people, I can see why this would be such a BIG DEAL.