Ever since the industrial revolution, humanity has been hell bent on standardization over diversification. This has been a dangerous practice for it goes against the grain of Nature, which requires a well functioning ecosystem to be diversified. Hence, with every step you take in any healthy forest, you will walk into a different world filled with wide varieties of plants, insects, and even microclimates.
To contrast the Natural to the Standardized, imagine going into an Iowa Farmland to gaze at acres and acres of corn. Imagine also that a corn loving bug decides to take on that field. A never ending feast to that bug"until his glut wipes out all the corn. This means that one species of bugs could devour an entire ecosystem, which also wouldn't be good for the bug for it too requires a diversity of plants. If the corn goes, what will he eat?
Nature works on diversity and if one follows the logic of Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, diversity is the key to survival on this planet. The ancient wisdom behind you never walk into the same river twice is simply the way Nature works"and it's worked well on this planet for the past 4.5 billion years. Change with diversification is the modus operandi in Nature.
Standardization has been the buzz word since the actions of assembly line tycoon, Henry Ford. The key to industry, as it became in farming, was in growing/making large quantities of goods in a standardized fashion. Eventually the mantra of standardization went from automobile production to education and to farming. Indeed, the "teach to the test" and "no child left behind" is nothing more than Ford's mantra applied to our children via behavioral psychology and education.
Standardization was ultimately linked to the notion of efficiency. It was what you used to make the most money in the most efficient and quickest way possible. It also helped you to control your workers by having them perform one task over and over which limited creative thought.
This standardized technologicalization of humanity and Nature was confronted in feminist Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's roots spoke volumes to the timeless classic we see today. She was born on August 30, 1797 in London"which would have thrust her into the arms of the industrial revolution. Her mother was Mary Wollstonecraft, a feminist writer famous for A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) and The Wrongs of Women. Mary's mother only lived ten days after giving birth ( http://classiclit.about.com/cs/profileswriters/p/aa_mshelley.htm ) .
In essence, Shelly followed her mother's feminist footsteps through Frankenstein. Frankenstein was a story that reacted to the mechanization and industrialization of human life that contradicted the natural means of creation through the wombs of women specifically, and the Feminine (Nature) in general, in relationship to men and the Masculine. Her story was the reaction of the Natural to the Unnatural and mechanized life. It was about the monster that humanity would create in its control over Natural Process"and over other people as evidenced in the psychological ranting of behavioral psychologists who see their mission as to control behavior.
However, as the history of most tyrannical and totalitarian societies reveals, total control from external sources leads to rebellion. Unfortunately, the various rebellions of the French, American and other revolutions have produced more of the same.
Perhaps this is because we don't realize the larger behavioral and cognitive patterns behind our modern behavior?
Unfortunately for us, we can't continue to turn a blind eye to the behavioral patterns we have gotten ourselves into. For example, along with pollution caused by automobiles and industry, we are destroying our lands through standardized farming practices such as monoculture cropping and genetic engineering. Monoculture cropping is simply the planting of acres upon acres of one crop (e.g., corn). Genetic engineering is the manipulation of genes in a plant that allows for more control and hence profits for corporations such as Monsanto and Cargill.
According to an article on Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto ) , " Monsanto has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as being a "potentially responsible party" for 56 contaminated sites ( Superfund sites) in the United States. Monsanto has been sued, and has settled, multiple times for damaging the health of its employees or residents near its Superfund sites through pollution and poisoning .
Let's state that again: "Monsanto has been sued, and has settled, multiple times for damaging the health of its employees or residents near its Superfund sites through pollution and poisoning." Yet, in 2004 The Wildlife Habitat Council and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Performance Track presented a special certificate of recognition to Monsanto Company during WHC's 16th Annual Symposium.
"We shall feed the world via a green revolution," Monsanto says.
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