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  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Educating the ignorant
  • Date: Fri, 16 Sep 2005 23:32:08 EDT

Graham writes "The more I see this header 'Re: [permaculture] Educating the
ignorant' the more deeply disturbed I feel by it. The more I look into
myself
the more I realise how deeply ignorant and uneducated I am."

I can understand the feeling. But then how should we characterise a culture,
such as the rural culture of South Africa, that fails to afford its members
the opportunity to prosper within their environment? Is it not legitimate to
say
that the culture has failed its members? After all, the people under
discussion are not being held up as members of a valid and satisfying way of
life.
They are poor, uneducated, unhealthy and have many atavistic cultural traits
that
from everything I've read and from what our informant here seems to be
saying, just do not help them toward personal fulfillment, wealth or
happiness. They
live, for instance, in fear of one another and have one of the world's
highest violent crime rates.

And if we assert that, is it not legit to say that for so long as they fail
to find a way out of their dilemma, they are "ignorant" in the sense of
lacking
a solution to their many problems? More specifically, are they not continuing
to be hungry and poor as they continue to degrade their environment?

I think it's a valid, although unflattering, approach. I think the culture
being described can usefully be defined as a "problem" in that doing so
admits
the possibility of a "solution", But I'm open to argument.

Michael




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