A Response to your Responses about Pollan

Many of you chose to dispute the claim that Madsen made Pollan focuses too exclusively on "garden growing." There were two responses to this, each with different claims.

A few of you claimed that Pollan does mention alternatives: "Contrary to Madsen’s comment that garden growing is the only solution given in my article, I do also mention biking to work, turning the thermostat lower, hang drying laundry, buying a hybrid vehicle, and eating locally grown foods. There are many other ways to reduce our carbon footprint but perhaps garden growing is one that produces many positive outcomes “some of them directly related to climate change” (Pollan 93)"


Others of you would argue based on Pollan's main argument. For instance, one of you pointed out the different agencies necessary for gardening versus solar power: 

"These two topics are on completely different magnitudes, and gardening is something that can be achieved at an individual level. Using solar power is something that we have no access of creating alone, and probably lies in the power of the government and electrical companies to decide upon."


If Pollan's main claim is that we should change our "habits of mind" (which, as I pointed out the other day, is not the main idea Madsen draws on in his summary), then alternatives that are unable to be enacted by a single individual are less effective. As another of you also pointed out, its not that gardening has to be the thing, but, 


"The idea is to find one thing to do in your life that does not involve spending or voting, that may or may not virally rock the world but is real an particular.”  This is what I hope readers took from my article, and I hope in this way they feel compelled to alter their lives minutely so that a collective change will take place"

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Others chose to address the claim Madsen makes that his "angle of vision is too strong." Some of you argued that the alarmist language is persuasive and that is the point. This does not create much of an argument, however much it might be true.

One of you argued that the "alarmist" language is actually satirical:

"Just as Jonathon Swift suggest eating babies to ease the economic troubles of poor Irish families, I propose planting individual gardens to abolish the specialization in society in a somewhat of a similar satirical tone. The sarcasm is scattered throughout my article such as when I say, “Have you looked into the eyes of a climate scientist recently? They look really scared.” Or when I say “Will you get a load of that zucchini?!” This combination of satire and focusing on one complicated solution causes the audience to recognize the wrong in saying “why bother?”

I'm not sure its satirical, but I am intrigued by the argument. 

Finally (although this by no means covers everyone), some of you chose to argue based on the context of the piece--the NY times: 

"Pollan takes into account the demographic of the readers of the New York Times. The readers of the New York Times tend to be liberal and college educated. According to the New York Times media kit 56% of readers have a college or higher education. People who are liberal and have a college education are more concerned about climate change"


These were all good responses. I'm glad we focused on this piece.