Gardening
(four minute read)
Gardening is such a peaceful hobby. Waiting for seeds to come to life, then watching them sprout into verdant plants flush with flowers is truly a joy. It’s a way to witness the cycle of life in a smaller time frame. Surprisingly, gardening can give one a perspective on how it relates to geopolitics.
In the garden, the gardner is the dictator. The master of the entire realm. His word is law and his decisions are final. The choice of who lives and who dies is entirely based on their whims. Gardeners are usually viewed as peaceful, benign individuals, but they can be filled with biases and prejudices just like any leader. In their desire for conformity and control, the gardeners spread death and destruction to the unfortunate beings that aren’t on his predefined list of what is acceptable.
From the beginning, the gardner changes the natural environment to fit his desires. In a scorched earth attack on the land, huge swaths of nature are upended and taken down to bare soil in order to create something suitable for a new way of life. Anything that was previously living there are dispensable and trivial. In his arrogance, the gardener assumes his vision of organization and beauty is better than what nature had originally intended. It’s the same vision that the founders of our country had. Indigenous people were viewed as obstacles on the way to a new social order and organization.
The insects and weeds that come into the garden are viewed as an invasion. An encroaching tide of immigrants that must be dealt with swiftly and thoroughly. If a certain plant or insect is deemed unwanted, it’s given the label of a ‘weed’ or a ‘pest.’ It’s similar to the way unwanted people are labeled. Labels divide the good from the bad.
The labels carry weight and make it easier to dismiss the enemy, the immigrant, or the “other.” The less we feel connected to something, the easier it is to destroy. This is obvious in the way leaders try to demonize entire groups of individuals. It’s easier to do inhumane things to the other people when they aren’t viewed as human at all.
Cucumber beetles are a constant presence in my garden. When I see one sitting on a blooming dahlia, I catch it and squash it between my fingers. It’s life is extinguished in an instant. In a similar way presidents have to make decisions about which people to kill. Who are we to make such decisions about who lives and who dies?
How many mistakes are made in the killing of the intended target? Some gardeners use pesticides that kill so called bad bugs as well as beneficial insects, but to the gardener, it’s a small price to pay and justified in maintaining their garden. Our leaders tell us that their actions are just the price of keeping our country strong.
Collateral damage in the garden is a constant. Sometimes mistakes are made. Branches are broken or entire plants are killed. Beneficial insects are killed as well as the unwanted invasive ones. During war schools are accidentally bombed and hospitals destroyed. There’s always collateral damage and there is no one else to blame apart from our own callousness and carelessness.
I can soothe my conscious by saying it was only some weeds or merely an unwanted bug, but this is exactly how our leaders feel. “It was only some muslims.” “It was only some refugees.” I can relate to how the leaders feel with how easy it is to kill something unwanted.
The Jain religion treats all beings as precious. Some of their adherents are so mindful that they carry a brush to sweep insects away before they sit. Buddhists feel that animals are sentient and could even be reincarnations of humans. Many Indigenous tribes feel that everything has a spirit whether it’s a rock, a tree or an insect. There are heavy implications for this way of life. While I agree with these philosophies on a superficial level, it honestly feels like a burden.
I can’t kill this beetle that’s destroying my garden? Seriously? This invasive weed is the equivalent to my columbines? What about the poison oak around my home or the mice scurrying around my pantry? These are the same thoughts that those with power have. The gardner and the leader have a similar mindset. “We killed the terrorist and we only killed a few innocents through collateral damage. It’s a small price to pay if we want to keep our country safe.” “I killed some bugs, but my zinnias are gorgeous.”
This comparison may seem exaggerated, but it’s the same thought process at a different scale. If all life is valuable and sacred then does the scale of things actually matter? Does some life have inherent value over other life? Whose life is more precious, the weeds or my roses? The Christian or the Muslim? The President or the criminal?
If you had to choose only one, whose life would you save, the Dalia Lama or a murderer? A cucumber beetle or a butterfly? Your dog or the Pope? Your neighbors dog or the Pope? It seems the further someone or something is from your direct experience the less value it has. That’s why people aren’t up in arms about the death of innocent people during a drone attack. That’s why I can smash beetles between my fingers. Both are labeled as unwanted so they have no perceived value. But the labels themselves do have value. Labels allow us to free ourselves from our conscience.