życie roślin | the life of plants
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[Fragment książki Michaela Mardera, Myślenie roślin. Filozofia wegetacji, przeł. Łukasz Kraj, słowo/obraz terytoria, Gdańsk 2024.]
THE LIFE OF PLANTS [Excerpts from Michael Marder’s Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013]
“Vegetal life enlivens plants, as well as, in different ways, animals and human beings; the common life at its barest, it is in equal measure an end-in-itself and a source of vitality for us. An offense against vegetal life harms both the plants we destroy and something of the vegetal being in us. Besides annihilating the plants themselves, the highly aggressive extermination of the flora, which has currently put under the threat of extinction up to one-fifth of all plant species on the planet, impoverishes a vital element in what we call “the human.”
“Plant-thinking does not oppose the use of fruit, roots, and leaves for human nourishment; rather, what it objects to is the total and indiscriminate approach to plants as materials for human consumption within the deplorable framework of the commodified production of vegetal life. If one is to respect vegetal existence, one will facilitate, not restrict, the proliferation of its various ends, not to mention celebrate the lack thereof.”
