Crop-rotation as a metaphor of more fruitful relationships between set elements

Enhancing the Quality of Knowing through Integration of East-West metaphors (Part #14)

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The tendency to focus on single explanations or vehicles of identity may be explored in terms of its policy implications. Linear thinking encourages adoption of policies without thought to the nature of the policies which will have to follow them to remedy the havoc they cause, however incidentally. Given the many feedback cycles essential to the coherence of the natural environment, a non-linear approach would suggest the exploration of "policy cycles" -- within which any "linear" policies are perceived as phases.

In searching for appropriate metaphors to illustrate the need for cycles of policies (or conceptual approaches) there is a certain appropriateness to using a process which has traditionally been considered basic to sustaining the productivity of the land, namely crop rotation. The rotation of agricultural crops planted in fields is an interesting "earthy" practice to explore in the light of the mind-set which it has required of farmers for several thousand years. It is especially interesting given the central role of the 'field' metaphor in knowledge work and the challenge of sustainability of yield.

Crop rotation is the alternation of different crops in the same field in some (more or less) regular sequence. It differs from the haphazard change of crops from time to time, in that a deliberately chosen set of crops is grown in succession in cycles over a period of years. Rotations may be of any period, being dependent on soil, climate, and crop. They are commonly of 3 to 7 years duration, usually with 4 crops (some of which may be grown twice in succession). The different crop rotations on each of the fields of the set making up the farm as a whole constitute a "crop rotation system" when integrated optimally. Long before crop rotation became a science, practice demonstrated that crop yields decline if the same crop is grown continuously in the same place.

There is a striking parallel between the rotation of crops and the succession of (governmental) policies applied in a society. The contrast is also striking because of the essentially haphazard switch between "right" and "left" policies. There is little explicit awareness of the need for any rotation to correct for negative consequences ("pests") encouraged by each and to replenish the resources of society ("nutrients", "soil structure") which each policy so characteristically depletes.

There is no awareness, for example, of the number of distinct policies or modes of organization through which it is useful to rotate -- or how many distinct perspectives are required to sustain an understanding of a complex whole. Nor is it known how many such distinct cycles are necessary for an optimally integrated world society in which the temporary failure of one paradigm or mode of organization, due to adverse circumstances (disaster) is compensated by the success of others. It is also interesting that during a period of increasing complaints regarding cultural homogenization ("monoculture"), voters are either confronted with single-party systems or are frustrated by the lack of real choice between the alternatives offered.

There is something to be learnt from the mind-sets and social organizations associated with the stages in the history of crop rotation which evolved, beyond the slash-and-burn stage, through a 2-year crop-fallow rotation, to more complex 3 and 4-year rotations. Given the widespread sense of increasing impoverishment of the quality-of-life, consideration of crop rotation may clarify ways of thinking about what is being depleted, how to counteract this process, and the nature of the resources that are so vainly (and expensively) used as "fertilizer" and "pesticide" to keep the system going in the short-term. The "yield" to be maximized is presumably human and social development.

Are there integrative insights that require more than two contrasting perspectives to encompass their higher degree of ordering? Might there be a third or fourth complement to the 'wave' and 'particle' insights into light?

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