permaculture

[Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>]

"why is it that permaculture [as an example of decentralized ecological 
design] has such a small cult following in the US rather than having 
broad attention and appeal?". 

>I suspect because the educational system, does not support it

I learned about permaculture by going to college, and though the college 
didn't teach permaculture, it did teach a range of skills that I have 
retrofitted, and it gave me resources with which to make choices about 
how I apply my life energy to affect the fabric of human ecologies.  
There is a little of the chicken or the egg here, in that you need 
people who think ecological design to teach ecological design... I 
wonder if integration into primary and secondary education would be more 
powerful?  Over the last 20 years there are increasing academic programs 
teaching 'holistic' stuff, and this is because they are competing for 
students who demand 'holistic' stuff.  The populice and the dominant 
economic model doesn't support it, and the educational system is just a 
service provider.

I want to redirect the character of this analysis -- this idea that Pc 
doesn't thrive because of 'them' or 'the system'.  That is just the easy 
way out.  If we are such good designers, then lets design!  The problem 
is the solution, right... so show me!  Least action greatest response?  
Show me!  Why is it when we come to human systems we throw up our hands 
and say 'the system' is flawed?  Perhaps we are just ignorant of the 
actual design context?!

>there are not vast economic dependancies associated with it, in the 
minds of policy makers
>material returns of investors, rather than address the investments of 
the natural world
> you might find yourself working as a carpenter.

I think these combine -- Pc doesnt produce revenue that can be 
concentrated to produce a lobbying force or a political caucus.   
Pc offers guilt free subsistance but the potential for emotionally 
stressful isolation.  It is land dependant, but land ownership is 
concentrated, and it is difficult to own land outside the 
investment-mortgage system without fleeing population centers -- so 
again, isolation.  Then there is also increasing insecurity in becoming old.

>The uncertainties of business are being minimized by causing the 
customers to behave in a way to allow for a significant return beyond 
expenditures.

The horrific irony is that 'causing the customers to behave' part is 
very penetrating and pervasive.  It is a economic landscape phenomena 
that must be overcome.  The Pc idea is that you invest the surplus in 
the land -- not give it to a shareholder.  So you limit you 
'constituency'.  Pc has a very limited 'constituency'.  Economic 
interest groups use their surplus to influence the economic landscape 
for the benefit of their industry.  Pc is busy working on soil fertility 
on land they have barely secured, while the rest of the world is 
creating the cultural infrastructure in support of their revenue 
streams.  The Pc answer is that the rest of the word will fall apart and 
settle into Pc and so we focus on soil rather then 'the system' or 'the 
man'.  Is that a safe or accurate assumption?

I think land ownership is central to this thread.  If I owned land 
outright, I would have more options, but I trade work for land over a 
lifetime, and to squirrel away capital for future security.  Although I 
deviate from norms quite substantially, some of my behaviors are quite 
normal, because they are driven by economic insecurity context.

>If your not perceived by those pulling the strings in society as 
acceptable your going to be swimming up stream a lot.

But only when you are dependant on string pulling, i.e. you are not 
generating your own revenue, not generating your own power, rather you 
are trying to appeal to a non-functioning populist ideal and you go 
appealing to the string-pullers and find that they have no interest or 
use for you.  If you want to redirect the stream you learn the stream 
dynamics and start looking for weakness in the bank where you can cause 
an avulsion.

>Permaculture is a frontier and that is why you don't find lots of 
people out there. It is not what
>has been going on the last 10,000 in agriculture.

Perhaps I am an unforgiving perfectionist, but I am not convinced that 
our designs are so spankin' special at this point.

Paul Cereghino