[Opinion: David Low] — My opening observation regards the use of ‘pesticiding’ in my title and in the image caption. My spell-checker immediately alerted me to the non-existence of this word … pesticiding is an impossible word — pesticiding does not exist.
Rejecting the advice of my computer, my second observation concerns the future of pesticiding. I want to talk about the people making pesticiding decisions, those responsible for pesticiding us to death.
This leads me to ask, rhetorically, "What does nuclear obliteration have to do with pesticiding?"
I have often been told that banning glyphosate, the world’s most commonly used pesticide, will lead to the use of something even more deadly.
This common pesticidal claim is in fact a variation of the nuclear deterrence argument.
nterpolating, we land up with the following statement: “Glyphosate only exists to prevent the use of something even more toxic”. Thus, without 'plant protection chemistry', we are assured, a cataclysmic toxic future will befall us.
As the famous rhetorical auto-immunologist Jaques Derrida has noted, in this statement there is a, “threat in the promise itself” (Derrida 2005, 82).==Also note that pesticide reduction (i.e., pesticidal criticism) has been made impossible through a rhetorical engagement with a catastrophic possibility. The logicality of the cataclysmic statement is made to seem undeniable. Without poisons, we are told, the world will be poisoned more!
I also note that an imagined loss of pesticides can therefore have no precedent and, therefore, it is a purely rhetorical manoeuvre that, “one can only talk and write about it” (Derrida 1984, 23).
Here I am, writing about it.
In my opinion, the pesticiding industry’s rhetorical obfuscation of the looming danger of poisoning ourselves catastrophically and irreversibly relies upon an impossible claim. Their claim is that avoiding the use poisons will poison us.
The reality of the above rhetorical invention is that it engenders the continued use of an arsenal of chemical weapons, each existing to, “persuade someone that something must not be done” (Derrida, 1984, 24).
Pesticiding relies upon a logic of deterrence and mutually assured destruction.
To paraphrase Casper Weinberger, the former Secretary of Defence to the Reagan administration—whom Derrida also cited, pesticides only exist to prevent the use of something more pesticidal.
Where does this land us?
The idea of pesticiding appears to have grown symbiotically with the logic of modern nuclear terrorism (cf. Sloterdijk, 2009). When we turn this logic around, we see that the impending catastrophe that pesticiding defends us against was created by chemical terrorists. They did this as a means to protect their chemical dominance from literacy criticism.
Pesticiding — the child of WWI gas warfare — was inaugurated by the unfortunate insight that it was better to target an enemy's environment than their body. Thus, the condition necessary for all life (an atmosphere) has also become a rhetorical weapon of choice.
The use of this powerful rhetorical weapon is defended, ironically, on the basis that not using it would cause us to all to evaporate in a toxic apocalypse.
By engaging with Derrida and Sloterdijk’s writing, it is possible to see that our faith in the natural is something that has been transformed by pesticidal rhetorical terrorists into a rejection of natural purity, but in the name of pesticidal purity. I have suggested it is a rhetorical auto-immunological manipulation that will destroy us.
The poisoned purity of pesticiding is an impossible purity. Its logical legitimacy relies on endlessly deferring our decision to poison to a future of more pesticiding (“something more toxic”).
The logic of pesticiding demands endless pesticiding in order for pesticiding to save us.
References
Derrida, J. (2005). Rogues: Two Essays on Reason. Trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford: Stanford UP.
Derrida, J. (1984). No apocalypse, not now (Full speed ahead, seven missiles, seven missives) Diacritics, 14 (2), 20-31.
Sloterdijk, P. (2009). Airquakes. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 27, 41-57.
