Muted Everyday Disasters

Abstract

Amost subtle scourge is menacing the world, the sort that threatens and deceives all at once. This is the scourge of soil degradation. Its sheer existence undermines many lives, yet it is tough to discern, shrouded as it is in tales of untold scarcities and dissembled as it is by a fog of recycled scarecrows. This shrouding and dissembling, the politics of soil degradation, is what amplifies the subtlety of its often gradual and nearly imperceptible nature. Yet the ambiguity belies its menacing power, which is juxtaposed with actually existing or potential devastation, with imponderables effaced by sensationalism. Paradoxically, many of those decrying both the inadequate attention to soils and their degradation contribute to perpetuating what they decry, for they decry not the social relations of power that undergird the scourge. On the other hand, when it comes to soils, leftists¹ have been mostly on the inattentive camp or have borrowed uncritically from the scarecrow-mongers. Traversing the fog and deciphering the tales requires research on biophysical processes, where leftists rarely tread, and critical appraisal of research on biophysical processes, where leftists have excelled. There are a number of incentives to undergo this double task of research and critique of research. One is to contribute to overcoming the reckless disinterest in and the overshadowing effects of scholarly fastidiousness over nuance and another is to resist the corollaries of depoliticizing environmental sensationalism (like catastrophism or “peak soil”) and technocratic scientism (like blaming soil degradation on population growth).