Mycophobia
Mycophobia, the fear (phobia) of fungi (myco), is a cultural phenomena which manifests in fear or anxiety of mushrooms, fungi, and/or mycelium.
As a cultural phenomenon, mycophobia's strongest manifestations have been in Western European countries such as England and Spain, often becoming most acute in colonial and spiritual conflict.
"Fungi disrupt the Western cultural values of individualism, predictability, and control. By embodying collective, unpredictable, and uncontrollable biologies, fungi have been perceived as antagonistic, and the priority was not in understanding them but in eradicating them" [1][2]
Cultures
Spanish
Mycophobia in Spanish culture has acutely manifested in Spanish propaganda attempting to justify the colonization of Turtle Island, on the basis of Indigenous spiritual practices involving psilocybin mushrooms being heretical or evil. The widespread use of mushrooms for medicinal and spiritual purposes amongst many Native communities was heavily demonized and suppressed by Spanish from the onset of colonial rule.
English
Few, if any, cultures expressed such a low opinion of all things fungal than the English at the start of the 1600s. Several writers referred to mushrooms as "excrements of the earth." Cultural examples expressing this disdain for mushrooms include:
1. A common English proverb that "the best of mushrumps are worth nothing";
2. A mid-century satirical poem advised prospective mushroom-eaters to “Dress them with care, then to the dunghil throw’um / A hogg wont touch um, if he rightly know um."
English doctors in the 1600s also repudiated mushrooms as categorically unhealthy.
1. Dr. Tobias Venner:
"Many phantasticall people doe greatly delight to eat of the earthly excrescences called Mushrums; whereof some are venemous, and the best of them vnwholsome for meat: for they corrupt the humors, and giue to the bodie a phlegmaticke, earthie, and windie nourishment … Wherefore they are conuenient for no season, age, or temperature.”
2. Dr. Stephen Bradwell:
“Some have (from strangers) taken up a foolish tricke of eating Mushroms or Toadstooles... let them now be warned to cast them away; for the best Authors hold the best of them at all times in a degree venomous.
3. Dr. James Wise:
Referring to mushrooms as "excrements of the earth," advised readers "altogether to abstaeine" from them. He opined: "Who then that is wise... will venter on a doubtfull dish, when God of his infinite goodnesse hath affoorded us such plentie of profitable and pleasant food?”[3]
Irish Potato Famine
Though often attributed to a "fungal" blight, this saga in Irish history was not due to the failure of potato crops but to the theft of the many other vegetables and meats that the Irish produced by troops of British colonizers. While potato crops were wiped out at this time due to heavy rains and the infection of Phytophthora infestans they brought, the loss was only a small percentage of the country's self-sufficient food system. And yet, contemporary mycophobia has enabled this lie to seep into history books unquestioned, effectively perpetuating a fungal fear while covering up a forgotten assault on the Irish people.[4]
Implications
Fungi play a vital role in maintaining the health and balance of ecosystems across the planet. They provide humans with food, medicine, and numerous ecosystem services. Both mycorrhizal and saprotrophic fungi are essential allies in building soil and sequestering carbon. Other fungi can help regenerate degraded ecosystems through mycoremediation. Many fungi play a sacramental role in spiritual traditions or are otherwise given great cultural value.
The extent of mycophobia in Western European culture, and the colonies established by countries such as England and Spain, has surely been an impediment to the spread and acceptance of accurate and vital mycological science, medicine, and culture. It was not until 1969 that fungi were identified as a kingdom distinct from plants[5]. Mycophobia has resulted in mycology being chronically marginalized in European and colonial science for centuries.[6]
This lack of understanding, cultural bias, and aversion to mycology has led to the threat posed by The Sixth Mass Extinction to fungi be drastically understudied. Despite there being more than one million species of fungi, only 551 have been listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, compared to 25,452 species of plants and 68,054 species of animals (an underrepresentation by a factor of 100x).[7][8]
This underappreciation of fungi could have cascading implications for endangered plants and throughout the ecosystem. Mycorrhizal fungi can shield endangered plants against extinction, facilitate the dispersal of plants from unsuitable environments, alleviate the effects of abiotic stressors, enable plants to adapt to new climates, and otherwise facilitate their growth. [9]
Index
- ↑ https://sempervirens.org/news/underground-allies/
- ↑ https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/33523/26712
- ↑ https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2019/08/20/mushrooms-in-early-modern-england-excrements-of-the-earth/
- ↑ Radical Mycology, p. 76
- ↑ https://fundis.org/resources/blog/137-justice-for-fungi-through-project-fe-and-the-3-f-s
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/23/the-future-is-fungal-why-the-megascience-of-mycology-is-on-the-rise
- ↑ https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/33523/26712
- ↑ https://theconversation.com/beyond-flora-and-fauna-why-its-time-to-include-fungi-in-global-conservation-goals-181226
- ↑ https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/life-on-a-changing-planet/article/impact-of-climate-change-on-fungi.html