Preface: of gardens and gardeners

My first post shall be on the preface to the book entitled "of gardens and gardeners". This book was cowritten by two authors, but each chapter is not cited as to which author wrote it. Each page could have been a continuous collaboration between the two, or it could have been broken up into sections. As I cannot know which is the truth, I will do my best to refer to the authors as "the authors."
In the preface, the authors make a series of single sentence statements, all of which are equally vague, obvious analogies to the purpose of the book, and all linked to gardening and generally good advice for such an activity. Each could fit nicely on Hallmark card, with pictures of sunflowers, tomatoes, or butterflies gracing the background. It makes me wonder whether the authors will actually give reasons for thinking of society as a "garden" or if they will simply assume that this is how we must think, and thus every rationale that follows must be true.
The statements start out universally appealing, and intentionally vague. "Effective gardening requires the right setting: fertile soil, good light, water." This, it seems, is absolutely true. Overall the preface does what it is supposed to do very effectively. It creates more questions than it gives answers, and it entices the reader to continue reading until those questions have answers. As one progresses down the page, it becomes more and more apparent as to where the authors' message is heading.
"It requires a strong view as to what should and should not be grown." Questions that arise from this statement: 1. How do the authors define strong? 2. How do the authors determine what should and should not be grown? 3. Who are the gardeners, and what are the plants? 4. Who decides what the gardeners should and should not grow? 5. Are these "deciders" also gardeners, are they plants, or are they something else entirely? I suspect most, if not all, of these questions will be answered either explicitly or implicitly in the contents of this 165-page book.
Further down, "It requires a hard-headed willingness to weed what does not belong." Again, what are the weeds? Are they actions, places, industries, products, or people? Who gets to decide what is a weed and what is a plant? And what kind of actions are allowed after those "deciders" have differentiated between the plants and weeds? In other words, what do the authors mean by the verb "weed?" Throughout history, those who were considered weeds were eliminated by many methods including coercion, isolation, slavery, intimidation, brute force, and extermination. If the "weeds" are harmful industries or products, are they banned, taxed, slandered, propagandized, or simply run out of town?
In a not-so-subtle dig against the idea of allowing individuals to live with the consequences of their actions, the authors make the statement "Great gardeners would never simply "let nature take its course." They take responsibility for their gardens." Some questions from me: Define "nature". Is it human nature, the climate, mother nature, economic activity, the rules of reason and rationality, or something else? Can you define "taking responsibility"? I feel that phrase, in today's society, is highly overused and highly misunderstood.
In a later statement, I see phraseology and political talking points used constantly by our current administration, and by my more liberal friends. "Sustainable" and "investment"are buzzwords just like "organic," "green," and "offensive." The statement reads "great gardens are sustainable only with continuous investment and renewal. Great gardeners turn the soil and rotate the plantings." This, to me, lays the groundwork for equating the President's investments in sustainable, renewable energy and "shovel ready jobs" with the proven scientific farming method of crop rotation and tilling.
Finally, in an obvious and shameless appeal to those with religious sensibilities, the authors state "Human beings, it is said, originated in a garden. Perhaps this is why all of us understand so intuitively what it takes to be great gardeners." The term intuitive makes me tread cautiously. It smacks of "self-evident" or requiring no actual proof because everyone accepts it to be true, and if you do not believe it to be true, you must be too dumb, uneducated, uncultured, or the like to understand; and your points, therefore, are irrelevant. I would bet a penny to the dollar that neither of these authors believes in the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Not that believing in this story is required to write a book about gardening, or to write a book on philosophy, but making a reference to said story as a reason for using gardening as an analogy for your philosophy, while not believing the story to be true, feels a bit disingenuous.
If the preface is any indication, this should be an equally fun and frustrating journey.
Thank you for reading, I look forward to your comments.
Objectively,
JC
Virtue of Selfishness By Rand, Ayn