Who Are Our Cassandras in Agriculture?
Whether you believe its real or not, Greek mythology continues to have aa profound cultural impact even today. From the term Achilles Heel to Pandora’s Box, to everyday words derided from the tales like narcissism (named after Narcissus), you don’t have to go far to see its impact. A more recent(ish) entry into the cultural sphere is the Cassandra Complex. Don’t remember Cassandra? Come on, rack that brain and dig deep, remember middle school history! Still don’t have anything? I don’t blame you, I didn’t recall either, but the theory is a very interesting lens to view events through.
Cassandra was a daughter of the King of Troy, Priam. The God Apollo was taken with Cassandra’s beauty and gave her the gift of prophecy as long as she accepted his romantic advances. However, she refused his advances and as a result he allowed her to keep the gift of prophecy but was cursed so that nobody would believe what she saw. This left her with a knowledge of future events without the ability to convince those involved to take the actions needed to prevent or change it. Makes one feel pretty powerless, doesn’t it?
In 1949, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard coined the term Cassandra Complex in reference to a belief that things would be known in advance. He had studied some examples from the past, such as the Hungarian Physician Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. Dr. Semmelweis foresaw deaths in the medical field in the 1840’s due to handwashing. Infant mortality rate was very high, and as a result doctors were doing autopsies on the deceased to try and gain insight and prevent future deaths. The problem that Semmelweis saw was that they were performing these autopsies and then going directly into delivering babies without washing their hands. Yes, you read that right, poking around in dead bodies, then thinking it’s a good idea to touch someone during a vital medical procedure. Wow.
Semmelweis was widely mocked for his (correct) theory that handwashing could prevent this. The medical community found his ideas to be so wildly preposterous that he was shunned and ended up dying in an asylum for the insane. Later, it was found that handwashing did make a difference and as the practice was widely adopted the mortality rates plummeted.
Since there, there have been many public and self-labeled Cassandras. History proves those Cassandras right, but usually only after the event has occurred. Investor Warren Buffett was labeled a Cassandra for correctly predicting the dot com crash of the early 2000’s, but only after it happened. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” creates an interesting test case. Was he right, but just early? How do we know? Therin lies the problem with identifying these “truth tellers” in advance; who do we believe? There are sides to every issue, with people on both ends vehemently defending their stance and its society altering effects. The stock market is a daily example of this. Fortunes are made daily by betting for or against the future of goods and businesses. “The Big Short” showcased investors who were able to capitalize on foresight into the development of the financial markets. Were these just risk tolerant individuals who were willing to gamble big? That’s the inherent problem; is a person a Cassandra with a prophecy or just someone who is willing to lose it all on long odds with a massive payoff?
Another problem that exists is how Cassandras go about trying to prove they are right. Do they present what they know in a way that is digestible to the intended audience? Are they willing to take measured steps to prevent some of the calamity but not all? Or do they stand on street corners with microphones telling everyone they are right and that the world is ending? Who knows. It is not outside of human behavior to believe that the truth will sell itself, but unfortunately that’s not always the reality. When new knowledge shakes people’s perception of reality, it must be taken in doses or the issuer of the message has to be profound.
There are two contrasting examples of this in the Bible. Noah knew the flood was coming and was mocked, while Moses led the masses across the desert to their Promised Land. How a message is communicated is often as important, if not more important, than the message itself. In a real-world example of this, is my dog Sammy. Sammy has had a unique response since he was a puppy to the phrase “do you want to”. He will cock his head sideways and perk up his ears, excited for what’s to come. I could say go to the dog park, which he loves, or go to the vet, which he hates. The response is always the same and excited. Its not because of what I say, but how I said it.
The final, and potentially largest problem, is that the fear of being ostracized for being early to a conclusion leads to ideas being withheld from society. We could be losing time with life altering solutions because of a culture of fear of our own design. Nicolaus Copernicus had this fear hold him back from advancing planetary theory for decades. In the early 1500’s, he proposed that the Earth orbits the Sun. However, because of fear he didn’t proclaim it publicly. He waited until he was on his death bed to even give life to his theory. Galileo developed the same theory more than 100 years later and what did he get for his (correct) theory? He was forced to recant his statement under the threat of torture and was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life.
While we don’t necessarily face the fear of house arrest for an incorrect opinion, we are potentially more susceptible to buying into the wrong messaging. Thoughts spread at such a rapid pace now because of social media and other communication methods that being first is considered more important than being right. This overwhelm of information has its own type of danger. It drowns people in information while it starves them for wisdom. Now instead of everyone being on the same incorrect page, there are 75 options and no consensus can be created, leading to different but not less important issues.
In agriculture, I wonder if farming methods have their own Cassandras putting the call out into the world. Regenerative farming has become a hot topic centered around soil health. While this call for blending soil conservation practices and production agriculture is new, the name has changed in recent years. Practices that fall under this agronomy plan include no till, strip till, cover cropping, and incorporating animal agriculture into row crop production. It has been trumpeted by farmers for around 40 years in various methods. Their philosophy is prioritizing the soil so that it can stay viable for decades to come. Regenerative farming and philosophies are not widely adopted in agriculture. They are typically more time and capital intensive and require an increased hands-on approach. The results of an improved soil base are hard to quantify in an industry that is increasingly about the numbers. So, it raises the question; will we look back in 30 years and realize that the regenerative ag movement was filled with Cassandras?
Where else are we missing Cassandras in farming? Chemical use? Pesticide use? Growing ingredients instead of food? I don’t have the answer, which is kind of the point. There are a lot of things that we are doing right in agriculture, but will we only notice the things we are doing wrong when it’s too late to change? When the hand has been played and all that’s left is to see how you measure up? What about with demographics in farming? We discuss it a lot, but we don’t move legislation forward enough to make real change possible. So, what are the consequences? What is at stake? How do we identify a Cassandra? Do we chase all improbable leads with the expectation that they will be proven right? How does the knowledge of the Cassandra Complex put its thumb on the scale? This is the dangerous part about complexes; it skews our rational thought to reach a preset conclusion. In “The Big Short”, the lead investor, portrayed by Christian Bale, saw the housing crash before it happened and bet against it. He watched as all the markers went in his favor, but the value of his bet against housing remained unchanged. He was starting to worry if the system was corrupt and he was early. But then the market tanked, and he made many multiples on his initial investment. He was right, and it paid off. But did we only hear about the entire story because he was right in the end? What about all of the people who made similar sized bets against other industries and lost? Knowledge is the key to most of these answers but unfortunately, we won’t know until the book is written. I just hope that we look back and listened to the right voices when the time was right
