Update: Thanks to reader Nancy Coscione, I now see that Vandana Shiva has responded to the “controversial” New Yorker article about her and her work. I plan to read both on my trip to the North American Permaculture Convergence, starting tomorrow.
Seeds of Truth — A Response to the New Yorker
Here’s a long New Yorker article that I’m determined to read all the way through. Not because I want to, but because it goes against the grain (so to speak!). I’ve been a Vandana Shiva devotee for years; the first part of this article (which, so far, I’ve only skimmed) also appears to lionize her. Glad I skimmed further, because the second part of the article demonizes her (too strong a word? not sure) as an “absolutist” on GMO seeds.
Like anybody else, I hate to see my heroines fall. On the other hand, I also want to “come to my own conclusions,” despite not having the time, energy, talent, training or desire to do my own research. What to do? This is another case where I aim to keep an open mind, putting this article in my internal hopper and letting it roll around. So, maybe not “come to a conclusion,” but rather, allow it to fertilize me further.
Articles like this one make me realize that I am prejudiced. I can tell by how resistant I am to reading the dreaded second part of it.
So, Ann, take off thy conceptual helmut and shake out thy own hair!
Meanwhile, I have a sense that I will still aim to avoid GMO products as well as eat organically and locally and permaculturally, whenever possible, and it usually is, the way I’ve set up my own life. (Search for hundreds of articles on this site that contain the word GANG or GANE).
Seeds of Doubt
5 thoughts on “Vandana Shiva: Seeds of Doubt?”
Hello Ann, Thanks for your posts and passion. I can never open your links. I tried the suggestion at the bottom to no avail. I have a Mac Book… All the best, Dave Small
I know now why you couldn’t open that post (two http’s rather than one, and I’ve got to remember to take off that extra one which is there automatically). Thanks for the reminder. You should be able to open at least that one now. And of course, there’s always “copy and paste.”
Here is Vandana Shiva’s reply to the New Yorker pro-Monsanto piece you linked to on your blog…
http://vandanashiva.com/?p=105
Thanks Nancy, I updated the post to include her reply.
Another response to the New Yorker piece, pointing out the sad irony that the magazine published Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking articles on DDT in 1962: http://www.navdanya.org/blog/?p=1547