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  • From: "John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Walled Communities
  • Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 15:12:33 -0700 (PDT)

Aloha,

Here comes that culture thang again...

"Discrimination," along with "judgement," etc. are not inherently bad
activities. IMO we all do them 24/7/365, and if we didn't we'd probably
not survive long, as individuals or as a species.

There's the "discriminating buyer" (no fool or sucker, he or she!).
There's "Design judgement," without which Design IMO isn't.

We discriminate and we judge, pretty much in the same manner as we
breathe, eat, digest and defecate. Sometimes there's consequences we
don't like, sometimes there's consequences we do like.

How about looking at these relatings in other ways?

If money is used as a sole test of acceptability, the folks relying on
such a test may well miss out on the involvement of some amazing and
wonderful people. Those amazing and wonderful people can do (and often
have done)their own thing anyhow, as miekal points out.

The people doing the excluding may 'suffer' more from their choices as to
how to discriminate or judge than anyone else does (though they may not,
and they may not notice, or care).

So - if a culture chooses to value 'X' ('skills', 'money', whatever) more
than human beings, that culture may well miss out on quite a lot.

People excluded by someone else's choice of parameters are not victims,
unless they choose to be. They may still experience consequences they
don't like, of course, but that doesn't mean they can't create other
options. Camphill communities come to mind...as do 12-step
programs...other examples?

Also, I wonder what the differences would be (in practice, not theory)
when a group (or individual) focused on who/what they *did* want rather
than focusing on who/what they *didn't* want. Of course that would still
mean there were implicit who/what's they didn't want. I've observed the
patterns and relatings to be clearly different, though.



John Schinnerer, MA
-------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net




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