permaculture

[Thilo Pfennig <vinci@linda.alternativ.net>]

Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org> writes:

> We often think we've captured something once it's written down, but writing
> is a terrible Procrustean bed, cutting so much that is alive out of what
> people know (a very good book, "The Spell of the Sensuous" by David Abram,

You lost some perspectives. First, the internet is not reduced to
writing (also aural or moving pictures). Second, information could be,
that someone exists or gives a course. I would never heard of this man
without this list. What I make of it is my problem, then. 

If you stick to writing, than you mean books or ebooks. What I don´t
see is the need deprecating the use of internet or books We all no
what a personal contact can be, but we all cannot have those personal
contacts to all these special people.

> sometimes doesn't get considered at all. Writing is so powerful that it
> often supplants other forms; witness the lack of oral tradition in our
> culture. And I fear computers are even more powerful at this demolition,
> because it's easy to think they can do everything (wow, text plus image
> plus sound!). I know most permaculturists are aware of these issues. The

Permaculture itself is just an idea spread via books. So
permaculturists are those people who did more than using just personal
contacts. So i doubt, that permaculturists are very aware of these
issues. You yourself use email. Using the internet is very much more
oral, than books, because of the interactivity. It is true that many
people are consuming internet like mass-media, but that is, because
they cannot use the power.


> evolution of the design course (not that again!) into a very experiential
> format shows the importance of multiple ways of learning; only a few ideas
> can be condensed perfectly into 2-D words, spoken or written.

I would say: You might develop permaculture further (with books,
internet,...) or you leave permaculture and go back to more
traditional forms of teaching. As I said before. Permaculture itself
is just the product of modern media. And in a personal contact the
name of a concept like permaculture gets less attention.

-- 
Thilo Pfennig 
<http://Alternativ.Net/homes/vinci/>