[permaculture] Similarities between the Jesus Movement atitsorigin and the

Dieter Brand diebrand at yahoo.com
Thu Dec 27 07:00:34 EST 2007


Vital,
   
  Points well taken.
   
  I said that "love thy ..." was a simple social precept
  (meaning: not complex like the European Constitution for 
  example). I didn't say that is was easy to practice.
   
  Romantic notions of utopian societies where the lamb
  will sit alongside the lion are all very fine as far as they
  go, yet things never work out quite like that, do they? 
   
  Don't you think that the founders of socialism didn't have 
  the highest ideals and (at least in their opinion) the best 
  way of achieving paradise on Earth? They certainly didn't 
  intended it all to culminate in Stalin's Gulag or to end
  in the massive waste of state planned socialism.
  

  It is the prerogative of youth to live out an idealistic élan, 
  yet reason is needed to keep it all from degenerating into
  chaos and destruction, of which there are too many 
  examples in history for me to list here. 
   
  You want to give every unemployed a piece of land? 
  Get real! I live in a region that used to be home to a great 
  number of small farmers. There is hardly anybody left. 
  They all leave for the city as soon as they can get a buyer
  for their land, many even before that. The young certainly 
  don't want to stay on the land. Much too hard to make a 
  living. I can live here because I have a second job which 
  allows me to survive even if there is a crop failure. And 
  since I spent my live in the major capitals of this World, 
  I do appreciate the remoteness and am willing to put up 
  with innumerable inconveniences. But I don't blame others
  for seeking the comfort of the cities.
   
  I didn't intend to misrepresent your lines, anyway not
  more than necessary to get my point across ;-)  And
  I'm certainly not a hardliner of any description.
   
  Sorry if I can’t resist the urge to use a little irony here
  or there. I know I shouldn’t, since irony like humour
  doesn’t travel easily across national or cultural boundaries.
   
  In neighbourly love,
   
  Dieter
   
  
Vital Scherrer <vital233 at hotmail.com> wrote:
    Dieter,

I agree with you that love is more than a fleeting "emotion" - it's my 
failure that I didn't mention its possibly most important motivating quality 
- though obviously and unfortunately too often it is just that too. But then 
again, aren't all feelings more than just something transitory and fleeting 
as well?

I don't agree with you though that to "Love thy neighbour" is simple. It is 
simple to command it, but a whole different story to do it. Would we have 
social conflicts if it would be simple?

Of course I didn't mean "sharing" in a sense of a politically centralistic 
dictator-socialism, which was forced upon people. Just like capitalism, it 
only works with understanding, if people don't feel forced and if the 
majority support it. Not to mention that people without a piece of land, are 
basically forced to serve the industries and other employers. It's just so 
subtle that obviously most people are not aware of this fact.

>"To give everybody a piece of land to grow
> their own food on, sounds like a gigantic waste that could
> easily dwarf even the worst excesses of socialism and
> capitalism combined. Most would not and could not grow
> their own food."

Why could they not (learn to) grow their own food, with some help of a 
suitable task force and plant material, instead of unemployment payments? 
Your are giving rather little credit to the unemployed. - It seems like you 
are associating some rather awkward emotions with this topic.

...Nor did I mention any trampling 20th century tourists, which might, by 
doing so, destroy the basis of life. In other words, I wrote about a kind of 
transformation of the fertile lands into a food jungle - which is what 
permaculturists do anyway, right? - where people could stroll, discover and 
see more of this planet, whatever you would call it. The word "ravishing" 
may not necessarily be a good choice.

But I admit this must sound a bit too far fetched - still - or like science 
fiction, especially for settler- and planter hardliners.

I just hope you are the only one who misinterpreted my lines. If anybody 
else didn't get the picture, I'll be glad to explain.

Vital

       
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