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“We are enjoying the planet’s war machine” (55)



I love how Ackerman juxtaposes the ways in which we use and enjoy smell against the biological, evolutionary, reasons that those smells exist. Flowers are trying to attract pollinators and animals are trying to attract a mate or mark their territory. And in our infinite wisdom and power we harvest and use those smells to perfume our bodies and homes. It makes me think of all the other things that have come about as adaptive, evolutionary, traits that we use in different ways now. It relates, at least in part, to taste too. I think (though I am not a biologist) that much of our tastes may have been developed as tools to help guide us in knowing what to eat and what not to eat. Poisonous foods taste bad and nutritious foods taste fresh and palatable. But as time went on, we developed more sophisticated pallets and ways of cooking and could grow the right kinds of mold and fungi to eat. We’ve taken the different tastes from the natural world and manipulated them to taste the best, overpowering the need to eat nutritious food and survive, with the desire to eat tasty food and enjoy. And while that's a theory about the taste of foods, like we read, taste really wouldn't be much without the power to smell. 
--Caleigh
https://pixabay.com/en/stilton-blue-cheese-blue-mold-mold-3491/

Comments

  1. Jonathan Brumberg-KrausFebruary 4, 2018 at 12:47 PM

    Great quote! But which features of "our planet's _war machine_" specifically are we enjoying through smell? I didn't quite see the conflicts in your examples.

    ReplyDelete

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