“Plant Blindness” — it’s an affliction you may well never have heard of. But plants play an important role in human health. Plant blindness prevents us from taking advantage of that health-giving. Unfortunately, it is an affliction of epidemic proportions in many modern societies.
When it comes to our relationship with plants, we are not talking here about plants ingested that may improve our health (food, naturopathic medicine or the like). Nor are we talking about plants that might improve our health if they are rubbed on our skin.
Author Sarah Elton, assistant professor at Ryerson University, situates “plant blindness” within a concept she calls “relational health” — how health is improved by relationships, and in this particular case, human relationships with plants.
As an example of the importance of this relationship, her article draws upon experience from aboriginal and other cultures, where belief systems are more inclined to accept plants as social participants and players. She compares this with the western view of plants as simple fodder to be exploited at best, otherwise worthy of being ignored or destroyed.
Elton points to the sudden increase in the interaction with green space that has occurred during the pandemic, with those fortunate enough to live near parks, or able to escape into the countryside, gratefully luxuriating in these possibilities. Read more of Elton’s thinking at The Conversation: How the relationships we have with plants contribute to human health in many ways
One aspect that Elton does not deal with are the class implications of the need for a healthy relational experience with plants. Middle and upper classes have their golf weekends, hiking or boating expeditions as well as private gardens to provide their interaction with plants. Lower classes, without these resources, are at the mercy of city planners and politicians, who may or may not favour green space over competing demands for housing1.
Some of the earliest public parks in the 19th century were created to provide the lower classes with a vaguely understood notion of the healthiness of fresh air, unavailable in slums racked with diseases such as cholera2. Ironic then, that after getting on for two centuries, such open spaces have proven to be important safeguards preventing ready transmission of the COVID coronavirus.
Footnotes
- Try: It’s Time to Let Central Park, N.Y. Be Built Over With High Rise Housing
- For a historic view, here’s an article from History.com: How Pandemics Spurred Cities to Make More Green Space for People
