permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

> Many (could one say most?) permaculture
> certification course graduates DO NOT UNDERSTAND PERMACULTURE DESIGN.

I agree that many who have taken a PDC don't understand what Pc is. Some of
it is because lecture courses are not very effective relative to other
formats. But I believe the reasons have much more to do with 1) a 72-hour
PDC offers less time spent on the subject than a single college course (a
tough college class is roughly 32 hours in class with 2-4 hours of
homework/study for every hour in class--far more than a PDC and another
reason I can't accept the 9- or 10-day format); and 2) Pc often is so wildly
at variance with any other knowledge that the student has that there is no
place for Pc knowledge to "sit." It doesn't fit, and takes more than one
exposure for most people to grasp it. So given the very short exposure to
some hard-to-incorporate ideas, it's no wonder that many students simply
don't get it. I mean, a basic drawing course doesn't create many artists. I
don't think the PDC curriculum is a major reason people have difficulty
"getting" it. (Though I'm glad to see the curriculum evolve; yield can
always be improved through better design).

> The Ecopsychology, Ecological Design, Natural Capitalism,
> and Natural Steps folks came well after us and have managed to really get
> their message out there in a great way, tackle significant projects, and
> generate credibility. We have not.

I've often wondered about this, both as to why that is, and also to what
extent it is true. I'm not so familiar with eco-psychology, but ecological
design has had some very powerful advocates in this country from the get-go:
Whole Earth Review, Bill McDonough, and other vocal and charismatic voices;
the Natural Step has Paul Hawken and a wide pool of scientists and
financiers, and was specifically created at a high political level with
their input and needs in mind. Pc, on the other hand, had a virtual
sociopath as a co-creator, someone who deliberately alienates his audience
and followers, and appears at major presentations with hand-drawn
flip-charts while the other presenters are doing PowerPoint--not a good way
to get your message across. Its followers are often unwashed, angry,
deliberately impoverished, and nearly as alienating as Mollison.

Is it simply that Mollison started us off on the wrong social footing for
widespread acceptance? I wonder about that because Pc's ideas are no less
radical--and in my mind more coherent--than those of Eco-design and the
Natural Step. But unlike other fields, we have never attracted, at least in
the US, a nationally charismatic spokesperson or a major financial backer.
There is no reason Pc couldn't have been used to redesign Ford's River Rouge
plant instead of McDonough's approach. I suppose some would consider that a
good thing, as if mainstream acceptance and financial prosperity somehow
impugn our purity, but I think the ideas of Pc can coexist with prosperity.
After all, nature is very materially abundant and constantly increases its
own capital (biomass, energy capture, etc).

But also, I don't think Pc has "failed" to the extent Michael does. Pc is a
grassroots approach; Eco-design and Natural Step are top-down approaches
introduced with huge funding and big fanfare by famous people. One makes a
big noise and get glitzy results; the other builds slowly. One could also
say that the entire environmental movement is a failure: most Westerners
still drive cars, eat fast food, buy non-organic, pollute grossly, and
little significant legislation exists in the US to support it; yet its ideas
have seeped into the culture. The same with Pc: I am seeing the word on the
covers of magazines, in catalogs, in newspapers, and in schools in hugely
greater numbers than ever before. Just as it will take a while to break our
addiction to oil, it will take a while for Pc's radical notions to tunnel
into the collective consciousness. They don't fit anywhere yet. But I'm
willing to be patient.

Thought-provoking stuff; thanks for re-opening what might at first look like
a stale topic.

Toby
www.patternliteracy.com