permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: permaculture
List archive
- From: Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>
- To: "Gaden@ziplip.com" <Gaden@ziplip.com>, permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
- Cc:
- Subject: Re: [permaculture] On the edge
- Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 18:15:55 -0700
Delighted to hear your response, Gaiden, and I'm in thorough and complete agreement with just about everything, and enjoyed the post immensely--beautiful summary of Illich/Gatto/Toffler; I've read bits of all but it's been a long time. (We're sorta doing a kiss-and-make-up thing here, and I'm glad to.) I've been impressed with the intelligence behind your other posts and was thinking "Hey, here's someone I'd like to get to know (I read a lot of sci-fi, too)." Then our views diverged, and I was disappointed. And of course, now I see we're not so far apart. I'm not even sure we've had that different a set of experiences, just that we were looking at different ends of the horse. And it would have been helpful had I said "marketable skills."
Sure, training gets you a job, but I agree, a job doing what? Participating in a direct descendent of feudalism and serfdom. I gave up on being a hippie cabinetmaker at about age 30 and got a nice corporate job, and was making a bunch of money and getting fast promotions (I had an expensive education to make me a good "system player"), but was reallllly bored. Then I realized, "Wow, to climb the corporate ladder and make tons of dough all I have to do is exactly what's expected of me, plus have a good idea (useful to the corp.) a couple of times a year." That really woke me up--how unchallenging--and I quit before I'd used up my whole life there.
Skills: I live in a very poor county, that until the 1980s was almost totally dependent on forest products. The industry crashed, putting thousands of local loggers and millworkers out of work--people who really knew the woods, and many who knew they were destroying it but wanted the money. They stayed unemployed until the early nineties. By then, the local economy was recovering because retirees were moving here (southern Oregon) for the nice climate and lovely country. The ex-loggers were still poor but getting creative. For a while it looked like we might develop a novel, multiple-use forest economy based on the loggers' knowledge, with ecotourism, crafts, furniture, mushrooms, firewood, etc., that might have even been sustainable since there are so few people here. Then the Feds started a logger retraining program, and now a lot of loggers are hospice workers and nurse's aides, but a lot of them are just working at the Wal-Marts that sprang up to sell to the retirees. They are making money again, but the woods still get butchered with clearcuts instead of being stewarded, and now non-local corporations control most of our once-local economy, from retirement homes to hospitals to much of the timber. So I get the point about skillsets and their effects.
Good stuff. Speedy continued recovery from the tropical uglies, Gaiden.
Toby
-
[permaculture] On the edge,
Gaden@ziplip.com, 07/09/2003
- Re: [permaculture] On the edge, Bob Howard, 07/09/2003
- Re: [permaculture] On the edge, Toby Hemenway, 07/09/2003
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
- Re: [permaculture] On the edge, Robert Waldrop, 07/09/2003
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.