Do Plants 'Hate' Each Other . . .

In Michel Foucault's The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, the French philosophical genius describes the "birth" of modern scientific disciplines such as botany, biology, etc.

In perhaps the most humorous part of the book (I am about half-way through it), Foucault describes the pre-modern view of botany in which plants were thought to have almost human and/or animal-like dispositions. Although a modern botanist would explain how certain plants do not grow well next to each other due to chemical conditions of the soil, differences in root structure, etc., due to a view of similitude in which all aspects of nature were somehow intertwined, the pre-modern mind would think of plants as actually "hating" each other in the way that human neighbors may have disagreements or in the way that different animals might get into territorial squabbles (e.g. local stray cats fighting each other). Quoting the 1656 work De la subtilite by J. Cardan, Foucault describes this non-sensical scene thusly, "It is fairly widely known that the plants have hatreds between themselves . . . it is said that the olive and the vine hate the cabbage; the cucumber flies from the olive . . ." (p. 24).

What nonsense so it seems to the 'modern era.'

But is this the case?

Plants are indeed living creatures, granted lacking rationality, but in spite of a lack of cognition plants do respond better to conditions that are not simply reducible to chemicals. Granted, plants may lack the anthropomorphicized "emotional" qualities that we humans often ascribe to dogs, cats, etc., but nonetheless as the Jewish teaching on soil conservation shows (e.g. allowing fields to lie fallow in order to "rest"), perhaps the living aspect of creation (i.e. plants, animals, humans, microorganisms) are not simply the network of electro-magnetic energy, chemical interdependencies, etc. Perhaps creation is just that, the living, breathing (plants aspirate!) handiwork of God Himself!

Okay, so do plants "hate" each other? Well this question would be difficult to gauge. Plants do not speak. Thus, like the amoeba all that we can do is to live according to "stimulus-response." Thus, if your flowers seem to "perk up" in direct sunlight, then let them grow there! If they seem to wither in direct sunlight then place your potted plants in a cooler, less sunny place.

In care of God's Green Earth in Christ, Rob