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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: September 6, 2004
Reviewed:
Latest Update: September 6, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

It Ain't Natural:
Organic foods, Clinton's bypass, stem cells.

1. Introduction Why I chose to share this reading.
2. Focus: Main point of this reading.
3. Reading Full identification of source for reading AND excerpt.
4. Concepts: Concepts and Key Words.
5. Discussion Discussion questions.
6. Conceptual Linking to Substantive Courses What this has to do with our class.

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Introduction:

• These readings represent a philosophical position that underlies the several news stories: "it ain't natural." There is an ideological position that says that whatever is "natural" is good for us, and that which is "not natural" is "not good" for us. The readings here highlight the problems with this position.

Focus:

• I would like you to come away from the reading understanding that what is "good" for us is that which does not appear to harm us either in the short term or the long term, and that which is "not good" for us is that which does appear to harm us either in the short term or the long term. What is "natural" is a fact often complicated by matters of which we are not even aware.

Concepts and Key Words:

• a natural fact: In our present context, anything that appears natural to me so that I assume it is a natural fact, whether I know whether nature produced it or not.

Reading:

• Backup of Clinton Is Given Bypass Surgery for 4 Arteries By Robert D. McFadden and Lawrence K. Altman. New York Times. P. A1, September 7, 2004. Backup.

• Behind the organic label As the industry grows, skeptics are challenging the health claims. By Melissa Healy, Times Staff Writer Health. At p. F1. Tuesday, April 6, 2004.Backup

Discussion Questions:

1. What is the philosophical position that supports the consumption of organic produce?

   The ideology that says that "natural is better."

2. Why don't we have lots of studies showing whether "natural is better?"

   The Organic Produce movement came out of a whole movement of trying to take some of the mechanized, artificial, scientifically imitated flavors and nutrients out of our produce and go back to an earlier time when we grew what we ate. That is certainly a simpler chain of events to follow. And in the Hippies movement of the 60s there was an attempt to go back to flowers and love and "nature," as better than the VietNam war.

3. Is Clinton's bypass surgery "natural?"

   Well, it does depend on how we define natural, doesn't it? Consider here the extent to which natural/unnatural is a socially constructed dichotomy. Not real. Ideology, not reasoned consideration of a complex issue.

4. Consider stem cell research from the perspective of "natural is good" and from the perspective of, since everything is interrelated nothing is truly natural anymore.

Conceptual Linking to Substantive Courses:

• Agencies:
  Sample linking: Ways in which underlying assumptions of assimilation affect services offered and clients' ability to access and use those services. How does this reading illustrate the need for social agencies, for more generalized agencies, for what Bolman and Deal would call "leadership" AND "management"? How does this reading suggest ways in which we could be more effective in rendering help, and what is the reading's relationship to a "safety net" for those who need help?

• Criminal Justice:
  Sample linking: Ways in which some groups are underrepresented in the unstated assumptions of our theories. How does this reading serve to illustrate adversarialism, mutuality, retribution, revenge, illocutionary understanding, the definition and operation of the criminal justice system?

• Law:
  Sample linking: Extent to which laws are made on the assumption that we are all essentially assimilated to the dominant culture. How does this reading help us see the need for contextual readings in law? How does it relate to our natural instincts to seek some kind of natural law? What facts and principles does the reading offer for discourse that could clarify for Others validity claims presented by an Obscure Other?

• Moot Court:
  Sample linking: Ways in which to make validty claims of harm understood by those who have never experienced many of the world's different perspectives. How can this reading enlighten our praxis in terms of different kinds of discourse, like instrumental, illocutionary, governance?

• Women in Poverty:
  Sample linking: The culture of poverty and assimilation. How does the reading deal with our underlying assumptions about poverty, especially poverty of the exploited, the NOT- male? What does the reading suggest of the interrelationship between our society and its children, generally cared for by women, often poor?

• Race, Gender, Class:
  Sample linking: The extent to which silence has been imposed by these affiliations so that domination and discrimination have entered our unstated assumptions in interpersonal relations and the structural context arising from them. What does the reading tell us about exploitation and alternative ways to deal with one another? What does it tell us about institutionalized -isms and our denial of complicity? What does it tell us about our common humanity?

• Religion:
  Sample linking: The spiritual component. Humans are spiritual creatures, creatures that recognize moments that go beyond ourselves to God, Allah, Isis, Gaia, the Universe, or a deep sense of responsibility to create our own meanng. How does the reading fit into our ability, our need to create such meaning in life?

• Love !A:
  Sample linking: What's the aesthetic link in this reading? How does it bring us closer to one another as humans? What does it tell us about our need for love, unconditional love, not rewards for doing well or being well, but caring and acceptance for being who we are?

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