Disconnectedness-
To talk positively about interconnectedness, a contrast needs to be made with the opposite argument, disconnectedness. Just like its antonym in this case, disconnectedness does not come down to specific events and ideas, but rather the essence of the dynamic between people and the world around them. Disconnectedness was not discussed in “Darwin’s Pharmacy,” but a case can be made for it by taking the opposite of every goal Dr. Doyle strives for: the opposites of harmony, compassion, empathy, tuning into the Other.
Environment-
Social-
How?
A Look at Disconnectedness-
Environment-
Social-
Perhaps the most alarming form of disconnectedness is incarnated in the present state of the environment. The year 2020 has seen record-breaking numbers of natural disasters around the world, most recently counting Hurricane Iota that ravaged Central America (“Hurricane Iota”). As Scientific American reports, 2020 was a “standout year for all the wrong reasons” (Thompson 2020). The 2020 season has seen disastrous record after disastrous record in the U.S., with California wildfires burning millions of acres of land, Phoenix setting a record for “most days with temperatures higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and hurricanes reaching a tally of 29 in the 2020 season, a new record (Thompson 2020). The year started with the unprecedented Australian Bushfires, burning more than 46 million acres of land, as large as the territory of Syria, decimating wildlife and burning people’s houses to the ground (Center for Disaster Philanthropy). And although wildfires are no novelty for the planet, their intensity and longevity is driven in part by the dryness resulting from global warming (BBC). Human hands are in part to blame for natural disasters at large, cutting the lungs of the planet for industrial purposes and “addressing,” as Dr. Doyle writes, instead of actively solving the problem of greenhouse gases.
The domestication of nature started with agriculture, and snowballed into observable damage to the environment. Humans are biting the hand that feeds them. Earth Overshoot Day, the day where human demand for natural resources exceeds supply, fell this year on August 21st(Earth Overshoot Day). Ever since August 21st, humanity’s been deepening the natural resource deficit. Natural resources and compassion resources seem to be dwindling.
The year 2020 has seen the burst of environmental and social bubbles alike. Especially within the US, deeply entrenched social divisions have come to the front page of the national consciousness. A new Civil Rights Movement sparked by the killing of George Floyd struck the last standing chord of tolerance for Black people, and the call for equality reached higher volumes than ever before. Protests erupted around the world, calling for an end to police brutality and an end to discrimination.
Names of people whose lives ended in the hands of a brutal police force were on the lips and Instagram feeds of citizens from Europe and North America alike (Taylor 2020). Across the globe, the soul of Hong Kong was alive with calls for harmony between the people and their government (Ives and Ramzy 2020). Humanitarian crises in Yemen and Venezuela also cracked through the layers of the lithosphere to reveal a rotten core of disconnectedness between governments and their constituents or between the citizens themselves (Center for Disaster Philanthropy).
Hans Rosling, the author of “Factfulness,” coined the term “gap instinct,” which leads people to think in categories and imagine a reality that is more polarized than it might actually be (“The Gap Instinct”). Although Rosling’s gap instinct is a behavior he observed in the interpretation of facts, it speaks to a broader psychological tendency to separate the world into groups and feed into polarization of these groups. In “Darwin’s Pharmacy,” Dr. Doyle calls for rhetorical practices that feature a more “diffused logic” than binary logic. In other words, people should stop thinking in terms of “good” or “bad,” “all” or “nothing,” absolute terms, and instead adopt a vision that does not discredit the Other. Hans Rosling’s gap instinct is the absolutist thinking that Dr. Doyle advises against. When there is a gap, there is little possibility for connectivity. Gap thinking is quite literally disconnected thinking. Even though Rosling was calling for a conciliatory approach to interpreting facts, which is less “us” vs. “them” and more middle-ground thinking, the gap instinct is inherent to how people think, and it is a rhetorical element that leads to prejudice.
From natural disasters to social prejudice, disconnect is as tangible as it is rhetorical. Working to create a more interconnected world also involves identifying the points of disconnect. Environmental healing needs to start at the rhetorical level, with a recognition of the planet as a superpower. Social healing, too needs to start at the rhetorical level, by recognizing the interdependence of human action and the health of the environment. The pandemic disconnectedness has yet to find its most efficient vaccine.
