Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>]

I liked this so much that I continued thinking about it as I worked this morning.  Have to add one point:

 

Most, maybe all, tribes, villages, etc.  have had, by mutual consent, some "common" places and activities for their collective benefit.  Think lodges, town halls, churches, schools, barn raisings, fire departments.  I've never been much of a student of anthropology or civics, but I think it would be interesting to know more about which collective activities worked, and which didn't work.

 

E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.biz

----- Original Message -----

From: TradingPostPaul

To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 11:53 PM

Subject: [Livingontheland] What works/ the hippies were left

Reduced down to its essentials: what does *not* work is unrelated people
working together to provide for their needs on common property and sharing
in the proceeds. People just will not commit to such a communal
arrangement. It's not a matter of culture but of human nature.

What does work, and always has, is natural families and individuals living
on their own property or space in close proximity to others and cooperating
on a voluntary basis to meet their needs. It's called a village or tribe.
Societies have been organized this way for eons.

It's not a choice between modern society's alienation and communal living.
Neither is viable. People can group together in close proximity without
making it a communal arrangement, and can cooperate and have specialization
of labor. That will be needed far more in the future.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 5/10/2007 at 3:22 PM Bobby G wrote:

>interesting discussion about the hipsters here, and me
>being an aging hipster myself i'm finding it relevant.
>
>when we started our "community farm"--later morphed
>into a "land co-op"--in SE Minn, it was all hippie,
>24/7.  but the nucleus group were all macrobiotic (i
>know, another weird thing there), so it was NO DRUGS
>24/7 (didn't fit the macrobiotic philosophy).  and our
>work ethic was second to none. so i don't think that
>drugs or lack of a work ethic did us in. but the
>nucleus group sure did scatter.
>
>now, much older, living in Central Wisconsin, i
>thought i'd be able to organize another "land co-op"
>without making a huge deal of it.  turns out i was
>wrong.  after laying out the whole plan to various
>groups, the idea of people co-operatively working some
>piece of land using the bio-intensive principles was
>either: a) too hippie or b) too Maoist. or these days,
>perhaps too Hugo-Chavez [Venezuelan Bolivarist?]
>perhaps the idea of a producer co-op just sounds too
>"leftist."
>
>well, the hippies that i was part of, we were perhaps
>"too left", being too much into the collective effort,
>the co-op movement, all that. fast forward to now,
>when co-operation is going to be crucial to surviving
>peak oil, and very little is happening in that vein.
>
>and, oddly enough, most of the "sustainability ethic"
>activity now happening in Central Wisc. is being
>organized and led by the academics.  yup, the "$1000
>permaculture course" set.  it seems that, to be
>credible on sustainability now in our region, at least
>a Ph.D. in some Life Sciences graduate program is what
>you need. 
>
>funny how things change, yes?
>
>peas,
>
>bobby g
>central Wisc.
>
>
>



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