This is another essay in a series of explorations into what I’m calling “mechanical thinking.” By that, I mean the use of metaphors from the machine realm to describe people, things, and concepts that are organic in nature.
When a machine breaks down, we replace the broken part. If it’s bad enough, we may swap the machine itself for another of the same model. Since components are mass-produced by other machines, or at least assembly line-style processes with tight tolerances, one part is as good as any other. Our cars, computers, and tools are interchangeable.
From this pattern of use, we extend those properties via metaphor to other realms of life. Things that are not mechanical take on a hue of sameness. We can get new friends, lovers, or coworkers if the old ones don’t work out. There’s no need to take care of one source of energy, because others can replace it. This forest may fall, but trees can be regrown. Some new product or technique promises to reduce meat consumption and methane emissions by giving us the proteins, fats, and B vitamins we require.
We can see how there is only one Jerry Schultz, but when we think of him as “customer service agent,” we see a position with few hard skills and many experienced workers, so it’s easier to lay him off. To that extent, we think of a person as a function. Of course Jerry has a personality and many life experiences that aren’t shared with anyone. But that’s irrelevant to his job, because a certain pattern of behavior called “customer service” can be dissected from the whole. This pattern is not influenced by the rest of the whole, and many others are capable of the same pattern—or at least, that’s the operating thoery.
In fact, the high-tolerance components of our cars are also individuals. There are a few stinkers that slip by quality control, and atomically, there is no overlap. We are again speaking of function. But machines are made for specific functions, and have no inertia of life weighing on what they do for part of a day. When we think of a tree in the yard or a species of insect as a function, we think only of how it relates to us and what we care about. The rest is discarded. As such, it’s easy to come up with a replacement. Replacement, however, differs from interchangeability. Some functions can indeed be replaced, and maybe the company won’t miss Jerry. But organic things are never interchangeable. What happens is that we willfully refuse to consider differences until we are left with comparable things. Those things are then treated the same, which saves us the energy it would take to get to know a set of nuances and adjust our behavior.
Even nonliving things fall victim to this kind of thinking. I may believe that any arrow will do, but a professional archer is likely to have many different types at his disposal, all of which perform noticeably differently. To the extent we see things as “same,” we are beginners. A musician knows that the tone in two guitars of the same model can differ. A forester knows there are many kinds of “trees” in a forest. Young ones don’t behave as old ones. It matters which species arrives first, and what others find their way into the mix. And a mature forest ecosystem depends on much more than trees. Planting one or two species in neat rows does not come close to substituting for old growth, not unless it’s thought of merely in terms of the function of “making trees present.”
The notion of interchangeability applies only to functions. Something’s function, in turn, depends entirely on an observer. There is no absolute, eternal function of anything. We decide what something that we’re interested in does, and ignore the other things it does. When our understanding deepens, we see a broader range of functions, and eventually, individuals.
When dealing with living things, we have to consider not just the functions we care about, but also other potential functions, both in the present and future. A layoff may account for work functions, but fails to consider how the action affects the mood of those who remain, their trust in management, or how the reorganized entity will alter its actions to avoid further pain in ways that make sense to a wounded animal but not a business consultant.
While we may exchange parts in the lawnmower, changing any part of anything changes the whole. It takes sensitivity to see how. Living individuals and organic systems may prove to be better modeled with organic metaphors. A new hire is less like a new carburetor, and more like a new species introduced into a vacant niche of an ecological biome at a particular seral stage. At the least, viewing it as such will spare us from the trap of sameness that finds us in the same gray situation again and again, even as it fails to march to our expectations.