Jared Diamond Argues that the worst mistake in Human History is the invention and widespread introduction of agriculture, because it has created a plethora of social, economic, and health problems for the word. One example of this is when the article states, “Hunter-Gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition.” This illustrates that the author's main argument is that agriculture was the worst mistake in human history because it shows how agriculture has negatively impacted health of both early farmers and people today by creating mass produced bulk crops that are low in nutrition. Furthermore, another example …show more content…
Hunting and gathering is probably a preferable lifestyle compared to a farmer, but it seems a bit over the top to blame absolutely every problem in our society on agriculture. It’s a common argument, but Jared Diamond's theory does seem to be quite an over-simplification. For example, he argues that inequality between sexes could be caused by agricultural because women were made beasts of burden and given greater pressure to work on the fields. However, the root cause of that isn’t agriculture, it’s sexism and stereotyping, because without an outdated sexist mindset no one would treat women differently in the agricultural department, and it is an oversimplification to ignore this. Furthermore, because of farming and globalization people now are given even more opportunity for a diverse diet. Although early farmers had access to only one or a few crops versus hunter-gatherers who had an entire forest of varied food, people nowadays have many more options than both hunter-gatherers and early farmers combined. A grocery store has ten times as many diverse and varying food items as a forest does, providing food from all corners of the world not just a single location or country, allowing people to create a perfectly balanced diet if they so choose. In conclusion, I agree with Jared Diamond's thesis on certain grounds, but I mostly disagree that the introduction of agriculture was the “worst mistake in human
Michael Pollan, an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism (Michael Pollan), writes in his book In Defense of Food, the dangers of nutritionism and how to escape the Western diet and subsequently most of the chronic diseases the diet imparts. In the chapter “Nutritionism Defined” Pollan defines the term nutritionism. Pollan’s main assertion being how the ideology of nutritionism defines food as the sum of its nutrients, and from this viewpoint Pollan goes on to write how nutritionism divides food into two categories, with each macronutrient divided against each other as either bad or good nutrients, in a bid for focus of our food fears and enthusiasms. Finally, Pollan concludes that with the relentless focus nutritionism places on nutrients and their interplay distinctions between foods become irrelevant and abandoned.
Wendell Berry writes in his book, “What are people for?” a thesis that modern culture is destroying the agricultural culture. He feels that technology is seen and used as the easy way to produce food faster and more efficiently. With this modern way of farming comes the idea that we need to work smarter not harder which is not always true. The goal is comfort and leisure and Berry feels that this is the reason for the down fall of the agricultural culture. He believes that hard work and pride in workmanship is more important than material goods and money. This was by no means a perfect society. The people had often been violent wand wasteful in the use of land of each other. Its present ills have already taken root in it. Even with these faults, this society appreciated the hard work of farming compared to the easy way of living today.
He claims that a better diet requires spending more time and resources on food, just like the people of the past did. Pollan attributes their surpassing health to this practice, but in his article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”, David Freedman paints a different story. Freedman describes how examinations of ancient non-Western remains revealed “hardened arteries, suggesting that pre-industrial diets…may not have been the epitome of healthy eating” (514). This discovery seriously undermines Pollan’s assumption that we should follow the lead of our ancestors because even though they spent a greater amount of resources on food and ate absolutely no processed foods, they still suffered from some of the same diseases which Pollan claims his eating habits will curb. As an opponent of processed foods, or “foodlike products” (Pollan 426), Pollan advocates eating whole foods. As many people have a similar opinion, he is not alone in this, but he is misinformed. Freedman reveals that after examining the nutrition labels on various unprocessed, whole foods, he found that many contained more fat, sugar, and sodium than processed foods (512). If unprocessed foods underwent the same scrutiny as processed foods, perhaps this common misconception could be prevented. The basic premise of Pollan’s essay is that a better diet will lead to better health. While we could all benefit from a better diet, “findings linking food type and health are considered highly unreliable (Freedman 518). Freedman discusses the multitude of nondietary factors such as air quality and exercise that render such studies untrustworthy. Pollan might be a well-respected author of nutrition books, but this does not mean that his theories are free of
In Part 1 of Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, he describes the secrets behind the food we eat. In the first part of his book, he wants to challenge his reader's assumptions about the reality of factory farming, use of chemicals in food, and health problems caused by food. He writes that "...we're still eating leftovers of World War II"(41), pointing out in this statement that the food system is misleading us about the misperceptions about healthy food.
In the book published in 2006, the Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural history of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, is a non-fiction book about American eating habits and the food dilemma that many Americans are facing today. Pollan begins the book by discussing the dilemma of the omnivore like ourselves, a creature with many choices of food. Pollan decides to learn the root to the food dilemma by examining the three primary food chains: industrial food chain, the organic food chain, and the hunter-gathering food chain. His journey begins by first exploring the industrialized food industry. Pollan examines the industry by following both corn and cow from the beginning through the industrialized process. The work on the corn fields of George Naylor shows him that the industrial system has made corn appears nearly in all products in the supermarket (Pollan 33-37). Pollen then decides to purchase a steer which allows him to see the industrialized monoculture of beef production and how mass production produces food to serve the society. Following his journey, Pollan and his family eat a meal at McDonald's restaurant. Pollan realizes that he and very few people actually understand how such a meal is created. By examining the different food paths available to modern man and by analyzing those paths, Pollan argues that there is a basic relation between nature and the human. The food choice and what we eat represents a connection with our natural world. The industrial food ruins that ecological connections. In fact, the modern agribusiness has lost touch with the natural cycles of farming. Pollan presents the book with a question in the beginning: "What should we have for dinner?" (Pollan 1) This question posed a combination of p...
For example, one of the students that Widdicombe spoke to said that before they ate Soylent, “there [were] weeks when [they]’ve eaten nothing but cheesy pasta.” Synthetic foods are a great solution to malnourishment, as they are pure, cheap nutrition with no empty calories. As Rhinehart claims, “agriculture’s one of the most dangerous and dirty jobs out there, and it’s traditionally done by the underclass. There’s so much walking and manual labor, counting and measuring.
Jared Diamond makes the argument that when humans decided 10,000 years ago to no longer be hunter-gatherers and made the decision to become sedentary and start domesticating their animals and crops, the result is that the human race has experienced a steady downfall. Diamond makes the point that “with agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism that curse our existence,” (Diamond). While the present system certainly is far from being perfected, Diamond’s various complaints and solutions certainly would not be of much use in the present time either.
When we think of our national health we wonder why Americans end up obese, heart disease filled, and diabetic. Michael Pollan’s “ Escape from the Western Diet” suggest that everything we eat has been processed some food to the point where most of could not tell what went into what we ate. Pollan thinks that if America thought more about our “Western diets” of constantly modified foods and begin to shift away from it to a more home grown of mostly plant based diet it could create a more pleasing eating culture. He calls for us to “Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants.” However, Mary Maxfield’s “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, argues differently she has the point of view that people simply eat in the wrong amounts. She recommends for others to “Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” The skewed perception of eating will cause you all kinds of health issues, while not eating at all and going skinny will mean that you will remain healthy rather than be anorexic. Then, as Maxfield points out, “We hear go out and Cram your face with Twinkies!”(Maxfield 446) when all that was said was eating as much as you need.
Jared Diamond author of “The Ends of the World as We Know Them” highlights the reasons for the disappearance of early civilizations. Civilizations like the Mayans, Incas and Aztecs once inhabited the earth for hundreds of years, However; when these advanced civilizations reached the pinnacle of their capability, they faced tragedies such as war, unusual weather, environmental deprivation, terminated trade markets and unscrupulous leaders who contributed to the destruction of their civilization. One significant idea portrayed from Diamond’s article is that there are many factors that threaten American civilization.
It is a known fact that the world population is increasing without bound; however, there is a debate if this increase is a good thing or if it will prove catastrophic. The article “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garrett Hardin discusses how the ever-increasing world population will exhaust the world of its natural resources, and eliminate human’s capability for survival. On the other side of the argument is Julian L. Simon who wrote “More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment.” This article proposes the theory that with an increase in population, humans’s quality of life is amplified. One particular issue that they both mention and have drastically different views on is the future of agriculture and human’s ability to sustain it.
And, because food now comes at a low cost, it has become cheaper in quality and therefore potentially dangerous to the consumer’s health. These problems surrounding the ethics and the procedures of the instantaneous food system are left unchanged due to the obliviousness of the consumers and the dollar signs in the eyes of the government and big business. The problem begins with the mistreatment and exploitation of farmers. Farmers are essentially the backbone of the entire food system. Large-scale family farms account for 10% of all farms, but 75% of overall food production (CSS statistics).
A civilization is the starting point of a society. Civilizations have existed for millions of years and are the basic unit of structure for a society. Civilizations were the base of great societies such as Egypt and Rome. If not for civilizations these societies would not have flourished or even existed.
The culture of hunter/gatherer society was the least damaging to the environment in the long term before humans developed agriculture. There are several reasons for this. First, human population was much smaller in comparison to what it became during the agrarian age. Second, hunter/gatherer societies tended to be largely nomadic, which allowed the environment time to recover and regenerate whatever natural resources were used. Third, humans simply did not have the technologies to further exploit the environment. Human population was much smaller during the time of hunter/gatherer societies due to high rates of infant morality, infectious diseases, and social morality - infanticide, geronticide, and warfare (Southwick 128). Fewer people mean fewer demands on the environment. With growth in human population, the grasses and animal populations humans used for sustenance did not have time to recover, which turned into humans using the earth's natural resources in an unsustainable manner (class discussion 02.14.03). Humans living in agrarian society do not necessarily use the environment's resources in an unsustainable manner, but the greater the population density, the more land will be needed to support that population in a sustainable manner. As resources become more and more scarce, field owners will be less willing to let land lay fallow (class discussion 02.21.03). Humans then found a "tech fix" with the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals. Cipolla calls it the first great economic revolution (Cipolla 18). The development of agriculture lead to the development of communities, city-states, civilizations, and other settlements. The social structure that formed around agriculture brought about the possibility of specialization within a society, since not everyone had to hunt and gather all the time. Instead of living in an ecologically sustainable manner like the hunter/gatherers, people started living in an economic manner (Southwick 128). Specialization enabled the development of social institutions such as religion and government, and agriculture necessitated the development of irrigation.
So overall, Agriculture is playing a very important role in changing the lifestyle of different people. Agriculture might have made everything easy for us but it still has its cons. We see the effects of agriculture and how it affects the lives of other species and the environment.
There might be some crossover in opinions but generally people will stray either one way or the other. Diamond definitely made some excellent points. He said that the three main things that separate the world’s “haves” and “have nots” are Guns, Germs and Steel, broken down into a countries military power, how advanced their technology is, and the diseases or microbes they have been faced with. He makes excellent points saying that the people in the island nation of Papua New Guinea have limitations within they very few resources they even have at their disposal. The crops are not productive and cannot be stored for an extended period of time once harvested, and the only domesticable animals they have are pigs, which truly, are only good for meat. Pigs have no other material purpose and cannot be used with farm equipment such as plows. Now you might be thinking, “What does farming have to do with economic success?”, but it actually has a lot to do with it. If a civilization does not have a surplus of food, then people have no time to work on anything but farming thus causing civilization to be at a standstill. If a country cannot advance their technology, they will go nowhere. That is why the countries in the Middle East developed so quickly. This specific region of the world called the “fertile crescent” had crops that could be grown easily and stored for long periods of time. They also had great domesticable animals to help them with their farm work and do be a source of other materials. People could use the animals meat, fur, skin, bones, milk, eggs, and even their feces could be used for fertilizer. This is why these two places were separated in how advanced they were so greatly, the Middle East had the surplus of food that allowed them to work on advancing their technology. Places with the ability to farm well, are now the places that have the most success. Military power was also hugely