[permaculture] politics and permies

Stella stella at finca-luna.com
Tue Dec 4 06:35:10 EST 2007


my understanding of lists is that its a dialogue amongts many people - 
if I were replying to you personally Scott, I´d do so privately or 
state that in my reply.   NONE of this is an attack, please don't read 
it as such.

i agree with many things that are being said, and perhaps focusing only 
on the parts I find interesting (where our perceptions diverge) gives 
the impression i´m disagreeing with the whole.
Not so.

I AM a permie, i DO all those radical self-change things, from time, 
and I am passionately engaged in my work as well as the permaculture 
community, and also in my surrounding community.   Which is a spanish 
community, and I am italian - if I deviate a little from anglosaxon 
forms of expression please don´t take it personally.   I have to do a 
lot of cultural adjustments to stay in this dialogue, please meet us 
half way and also try do some.

I am obvioustly (i hope) in PC because i DO think it´s the most radical 
path there is, but I would like to balance some attitudes because I 
just know they are not the whole story, and I think its important that 
people aren´t cocooned too much in their own class and culture.  I care 
about us a LOT.   I hope we don't have to question each others motives 
and can just move from a base of shared understanding that we are all 
just doing our best to shift things towards a sustainable planet (with 
humans in it) / embody our PC ethics.

i am giving my thoughts about a great deal of conversations I have had, 
not just this one.
if they are not of interest just skip them.
I am learning a lot from hearing many points of view and don´t think it 
at all necessary that we all suddently agree.  this is not how creative 
dialogue happens, in my experience.   I dont dialogue in order to stay 
with my original point of view, nor to convince others to adopt mine.   
  What I love about our community is that we have so many backgrounds, 
so many ways of seeing things, so many different main concerns, yet we 
have a huge and wonderful design culture in common.

As we are ALL severely limited by our own perceptions, the closest 
thing to 'reality' we can get to, surely, would be whatever we spin 
together, as we lend each other's eyes and ears in dialogue.

you are free to see this as a fight but I see it as an interesting 
exploration.    Comfort is diametrically opposed to creation.  And  
there is no need to teach me to read, really: my understanding of 
anything anyone says is filtered by my culture, my experiences, my 
reality, my life, my prejudices, and all the other dialogues am having 
and have had.
*And so is yours*

(of course I feel 'misinterpreted' too, muucho! - it´s just not 
particularly helpful to point that out all the time: just explain it in 
a different way.  How people hear things is just as interesting as what 
they say, I think - it´s all information)

I think the points are important and the ones you refer to below as 
being my personal beliefs were actually very clearly stated as my 
impressions from hearing MANY south american colleagues.  (What on 
earth is a 'profound fact'?  anything any of us state are just our 
opinions, no?)

Belive me, I have re-stated the points I heard a LOT less 'emotionally' 
than I heard them.
but I personally don´t feel any guilt, discomfort or victimization in 
hearing what they think of ME (us), because I understand this is just 
how things are: it IS a system, I am part of it, but it just happens 
that I am in the hyper-privileged part of this system... yet I was born 
there, how can I possibly be 'guilty' of anything?    What I AM though, 
is responsible, and a designer: we are all responsible, if we choose to 
be.   One thing I definately would disagree with is that we are all 
'equally' victims of it.   'Complementary' yes, but 'equally'... I 
don´t think so.

Saying what our colleagues seem to think (and its only my impression) 
is NOT designed to 'guilt-trip' anyone, it´s just a reality-check (as 
in: this is our reality, this is theirs, isn´t it interesting how they 
differ?).   Since it IS one of the main points that came up at IPC8, I 
would think it´s at least worth a conversation .. ("sweeping 
generalization", "dramatic ploy", "hell bent", etc. .. all sounds like 
emotive language to me, why not just talk about the core issues?)

Of course we are all 'victims' of the system, but to ignore or dismiss 
the profound significance of the fact that we in the west are the net 
beneficiaries, materially, of that system, is very misleading.    It´s 
just an economic fact (which reflects plentyfully in our mostly very 
comfortable lives, in comparison with how the rest of the world lives - 
this potentially gives us MUCH more room to move to change things).
I do happen to believe that our psychological damage is far greater 
than we can imagine, and more than 'makes up' for the material 
privileges we are heir to. (one indicator is precisely how difficult it 
is to just express opinions without all the emotional storms and 
resulting mis-understangings happening - it´s exhausting, but also a 
necessary part of the process perhaps)

I also happen to believe that staying comfortable is anti-evolutionary. 
  My perception right now is that there are perhaps too many feelings we 
are NOT having (= too many points of view we are NOT hearing = 
important design information, essential to shift this stuff) .. and it 
gets in the way of our work.

IF it´s of interest .. what my attitude is (at the moment) about what 
perceptions many third world colleagues seem to have of how we use 
permaculture in the west, it´s just what i stated: am just listening.
i don´t feel compelled to make a black and white decision about who is 
'right', but I DO very much value their perceptions.  I think it´s just 
basic respect to do so, ESPECIALLY when they are strongly felt 
opinions, and of more than one individual (one person can be mis-lead, 
two also perhaps.. but when u hear the same thing many times? .. it 
gets harder to dismiss all of those people).
It goes without saying that I´m also respectfully listening to other 
opinions, strongly felt or not.

I completely agree that changes in perceptions take time, and they are 
what ultimately change things.   Absolutely.  And the same about 
revolutions and evolutions.
Evolutions towards climax forests also take centuries.  But the whole 
point of permaculture design is that we think long and hard how to 
interfere with the length of that process, because we don´t want to 
die.   Are we seriously thinking about how we do that with societies? 
(it's a genuine question. Meaning "I don´t know", ok.    If you really 
wanto know what the 'core of my concerns' is, as far as I can tell, 
this is it)

I would disagree that the role of outstanding people (pioneer species) 
in human evolution should be belittled however - we have much to learn 
from them, as DESIGNERS: how did they achive those changes, WHY were 
there no equally outstanding successors to their work? what is great 
leadership about? why don´t we have many more?

But changes in perception, or evolution, don´t happen if we sit smugly 
in believing we are 'right', surrounded by others who agree with us: 
creation happens in an empty, uncomfortable space - of doubt, humility, 
much questioning, feeling 'horrible' (and wonderful) feelings, silence, 
listening ..

I think it´s great that we have SO many different perspectives now in 
the PC world movement - enough to keep us  'uncomfortable' (creative, 
evolving, moving) forever.
Unfortunately 95% of them aren´t represented on this list, nor could 
be.   So it´s great when a few get a peek, I should think.     I think 
our basic PC boat is sturdy enough that we can rock it a bit (with 
dancing!), no need to throw anyone overboard.

I really love everything we have achieved and are doing in 
Permaculture, as a world-wide movement.  it´s a very impressive ship.
And see no contradiction whatsoever in also believing we are MUCH more 
powerful, much more creative and much smarter than we are expressing, & 
than we have been so far.

If you have feelings about that, great.  I hope so.
But please don´t hear "what you are doing is wrong, "bad", you should 
go into politics" .. whatever.  NOT what is being said!

please lets' keep the dialogue on principles, not personalities.
shooting the messanger rarely helps.

It doesn´t do US justice to 'individualize' these points of view,  it 
just comes across as an intimidation tactic.    But the effect is 
precisely to intimidate the most different of opinions, which are often 
very needed.  edge and all that ..


El 04/12/2007, a las 0:10, Scott Pittman escribió:

> I don't know what email you read Stella but if it was mine you did a 
> fine
> job of misinterpreting it in your response. So I will take it point by 
> point
> for you....
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
>
> Stella Wrote:
> given what ONE Ghandi was able to do, or one Martin Luther King, in
> terms of social change .. I think we should seriously ask ourselves
> why, with so many permaculturists loose ... we haven´t re-designed
> society yet.
>
> Scott wrote:
> Because the conditions that obtained during both Ghandi and King's 
> time were
> different than ours.  Just as the work of Ghandi and King was 
> accomplished
> over many many years, so too our permaculture "re-design" will and is 
> taking
> time.
>
>
> Stella wrote:
> it´s only  a revolutionary system of design if some revolution actually
> happens.
>
> Scott wrote:
> There has never been a revolution that happened overnight.  Karl Marx 
> wrote
> his tome many years prior to the Cuban revolution, and that revolution 
> is
> still revealing itself - unfolding over time.
>
> Perhaps it is only when one thinks of revolution as the overthrow of a
> government and way of thinking that the act is valid; to my mind we 
> are in
> the midst of a major change that I would call revolutionary in terms 
> of its
> long term impact, and permaculture is certainly in the forefront of 
> that
> movement.
>
> Stella wrote:
> evaluations are not necessarily excercises in one upmanship, nor
> put-downs of anyone.
> Maybe they are just evaluations.   They can be used to improve the
> design, instead of dismissing the people who aren´t feeling served by
> the design as emotional, backward or not seeing the 'real' reality
> (i.e. yours).
>
> Scott wrote:
> Your previous email did not present this as an evaluation but as a 
> profound
> fact - I disagreed with it as a factual statement.  And does 
> evaluation in
> your lexicon read as opinion?  I certainly didn't take Lucy's 
> statement as a
> put down but a sweeping generalization of third world versus first 
> world
> perception of permaculture.  While this is great for dramatic effect in
> front of an audience it does not necessarily lead to any profound
> understanding or action.  I don't recall mentioning anything about a 
> design
> being emotional or backward, just that I saw things differently.  You 
> seem
> to be hell bent on putting meaning to my words that aren't mine so 
> they must
> be yours or at least triggered something that really got you going.
>
>
> Stella wrote:
> And I really hope we're well beyond the attitudes that if feelings are
> involved the people having them must be irrational, or what they say
> isn´t ALSO 'real'.   In this case the very opposite is very likely
> true: centuries of brutal colonization doesn´t make you just angry, it
> also makes you very perceptive of the subtleties of the workings of the
> system that has your people enslaved.
>
> Scott wrote:
> It feels as if this is at the heart of your concerns - that I am 
> somehow
> dissing emotional or feeling statements as invalid.  That is your 
> projection
> on my words and perhaps you should reread them.  I'm saying that it 
> may feel
> that way but it isn't necessarily so!  The whole bit about brutal
> colonization, and slavery is another dramatic ploy to carry your 
> argument
> and doesn't do you justice.  If you think about it we are all 
> colonized, we
> all are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and we all have 
> to
> save ourselves from our historic past no one gets a free pass.
>
> Stella says:
> Maybe we should just listen.
> It would be very strange if the opressed and those benefiting from the
> opression actually agreed on 'realities'.
>
> Scott says:
> This is an incredible materialistic rhetorical statement that tries to
> induce guilt in lieu of any thing substantive to say.  It would have 
> been
> more honest to call me the oppressor and that I should agree on the
> oppressed view of reality.  I am not and I consider that the reality of
> Lucy's statement is as I stated it in my original email.
>
> To try to use emotional and rhetorical language and imagery to put 
> down an
> opinion that you do not share is demeaning to honest dialog.
>
> Scott Pittman
> Director
> Permaculture Institute
> www.permaculture.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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