Good Solutions

In the previous post I reviewed Wendell Berry's two "bad" solutions, one pointing to unintended consequences, and the other pointing to amplifying feedback loops. Basically, both types of solutions make the problem worse because the systems nature of the problem was not taken into account. Berry continues his argument as follows:

Both kinds of bad solutions leave their problems unsolved. Bigger tractors do not solve the problem of soil compaction any more than air conditioners solve the problem of air pollution. Nor does the large confinement-feeding operation solve the problem of food production; it is, rather, a way calculated to allow large-scale ambition and greed to profit from food production. The real problem of food production occurs within a complex, mutually influential relationship of soil, plants, animals, and people. A real solution to that problem will therefore be ecologically, agriculturally, and culturally healthful.

In this paragraph and the next, Berry gets to the crux of his argument: Bad solutions are based on ignorance and greed; Good solutions, in contrast, are based on a deep (systemic) understanding of the problem, and a desire for healthy outcomes. Berry continues:

Perhaps it is not until health is set down as the aim that we come in sight of the third kind of solution: that which causes a ramifying series of solutions – as when meat animals are fed on the farm where the feed is raised, and where the feed is raised to be fed to the animals that are on the farm. Even so rudimentary a description implies a concern for pattern, for quality, which necessarily complicates the concern for production. The farmer has put plants and animals into a relationship of mutual dependence, and must perforce be concerned for balance or symmetry, a reciprocating connection in the pattern of the farm that is biological, not industrial, and that involves solutions to problems of fertility, soil husbandry, economics, sanitation – the whole complex of problems whose proper solutions add up to health: the health of the soil, of plants and animals, of farm and farmer, of farm family and farm community, all involved in the same
internested, interlocking pattern – or pattern of patterns.

There is much to like about this passage, but perhaps my favorite aspect is this: Good solutions instigate cascades of good solutions; healthy outcomes percolate throughout all of the connected systems. This reminds me of an article I read in The New York Times a while back about how when a Utah cattle rancher decided to reintroduce beaver into the creeks on his ranch, a cascade of beneficial effects ensued: more water in the creek and the water table, more and better water available to the cattle, more cover for animals and birds, more places to hunt and fish, and a more beautiful ranch. Importantly, the changes also affected the bottom line, by increasing his family's profit margin. Berry summarizes his argument as follows:

A bad solution is bad, then, because it acts destructively upon the larger patterns in which it is contained. It acts destructively upon those patterns, most likely, because it is formed in ignorance or disregard of them. A bad solution solves for a single purpose or goal, such as increased production. And it is typical of such solutions that they achieve stupendous increases in production at exorbitant biological and social costs.

In contrast,

A good solution is good because it is in harmony with those larger patterns – and this harmony will, I think, be found to have a nature of analogy. A bad solution acts within the larger pattern the way a disease or addiction acts within the body. A good solution acts within the larger pattern the way a healthy organ acts within the body. But it must at once be understood that a healthy organ does not – as the mechanistic or industrial mind would like to say – “give” health to the body, is not exploited for the body’s health, but is a part of its health. The health of organ and organism is the same, just as the health of organism and ecosystem is the same. And these structures of organ, organism, and ecosystem – as John Todd has so ably understood – belong to a series of analogical integrities that begins with the organelle and ends with the biosphere.

These first two posts – Bad Solutions and Good Solutions – set the stage for the next 3 or 4 blog posts, as well as everything else that will be done in this blog. Bad solutions reflect the "simplicity this side of complexity," returning to the quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes in the previous post; good solutions, in contrast, reflect the "simplicity on the other side of complexity." In the next post, we will review the example Berry provides as a case in point for his argument,

Note to Readers

Ghost gives me the ability to see how many of the Solving for Pattern blog posts have been opened, and I can see that no one has opened this one (Good Solutions). So, I am republishing it, along with this note. Please be sure to email me if you have questions, concerns, or problems with this blog, or if you just want to say "Hi" (d.cross@tcu.edu). Cheers