Cross-Language Relations in Composition

17. Sustainable Writing

236 17. Sustainable Writing Marilyn M. Cooper All my thoughts now about writing are inspired by taking literally what I used to think was a metaphor—the ecology of writing. Ecology was how I first encountered what is now commonly known as complexity theory, and for me the environmental forms of complexity are still the most accessible . The understanding I’ve come to is that writing is structured and given life by the same dynamics that structure all living systems and that the most significant aspect of systems that thrive or survive is their complexity, that is, complexity in a particular sense that I will define presently. The advantage of thinking about cross-language writing in terms of complex systems, I believe, is that it enables a compelling answer to the question of why diversity in language matters. The authors of the chapters in this collection have all suggested answers to this question: Scott Richard Lyons and Elaine Richardson argue that it is because language is a carrier of culture, that systems of language represent ways of being in the world; John Trimbur argues that more widespread multilingualism enables reciprocal exchanges; Paul Kei Matsuda, Kate Mangelsdorf, and Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe with Yi-Huey Guo and Lu Liu state that multilingualism is a twentyfirst -century reality that cannot be ignored by writing teachers; Shondel J. Nero and A. Suresh Canagarajah argue that diverse languages offer diverse resources to writers; and Min-Zhan Lu argues that engagement with diversity in language is a way to resist the logic of fast capitalism. These are all good answers. But I want to suggest an answer that underlies these: that diversity in language is necessary to survival—not just the survival of cultures and identities but perhaps the survival of the human species. Complexity theory offers an explanation of why change is inevitable in real world systems and how it comes about. It posits that organization arises out of dense interactions in systems that are sufficiently complex, systems that consist of a very large number of frequently interacting agents. Through these interactions, the agents change in response to one another as well as to the ambient conditions, which are, in turn, modified by the changes in the agents; they become “structurally coupled,” in Humberto R. Maturana and +RUQHU&KLQGG $0 Sustainable Writing 237 Francisco J. Varela’s terms (75). Because the organization that arises depends on the particular, contingent sequence of interactions, it is not predictable. It is also, therefore, dynamic—in other words, changeable—and not amenable to control. Complex systems are also open to inflows and outflows of agents, products, and energy, and thus “by trading their stuff they collectively produce a [larger system], one that inexorably becomes more complex” (Kauffman 129). One of the main theorists of complexity, physicist Ilya Prigogine, explains the implications of seeing social systems as complex in this sense: We know now that societies are immensely complex systems involving a potentially enormous number of bifurcations exemplified by the variety of cultures that have evolved in the relatively short span of human history. We know that such systems are highly sensitive to fluctuations. This leads both to hope and a threat: hope, since even small fluctuations may grow and change the overall structure. As a result, individual activity is not doomed to insignificance. On the other hand, this is also a threat, since in our universe the security of stable, permanent rules seems gone forever. (Prigogine and Stengers 312–13) In the field of writing studies, we are coming to understand more fully that stable, permanent rules offer security only to some and that, as Lu concludes, “all of us interested in the future of a world sustainable for not only the few of us benefiting from the logic of fast capitalism but also the majority grossly impoverished by it need to get involved in living-English work.” Like cultures, languages are immensely complex systems, but adherents to the doctrine of standard language try to treat them as if they were the closed systems of classical physics, systems that are predictable and can be controlled. Reading Trimbur’s, Lu’s, and Matsuda’s critiques of the monolingualism assumed by U.S. writing classes and Trimbur’s and Lu’s explanations of how that assumption arose from the economic situations of the merchant-planter coalition that was the Founding Fathers and from the current structure of fast capitalism, I was continually reminded of Michael Pollan’s...