permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

jedd <jedd@...> writes:

   > and then use the corrupt example of US
   > plutocratic/corporate/media/military run political system as
   > justification for this.  (i am honestly having some real trouble with
   > this one)
     

>  Is this a dig at me?
Naw, don't take it personally. There were a couple of people who equated 
democracy with the corrupted processes of some governments, and a couple 
of others who took it as majority rule. Like communism, it's a great 
idea that doesn't seem to manifest as positively as the theory promises.

Michael Burns wrote:
> These are  
> good questions that could be part of the design process for a  
> national organization... if we need one (oops, that's another question!)
>   
[snip]
> Now we are not discussing the viability, form or need for a national  
> organization but rather having a pissing match about democracy while  
> participants dig in to protect their egos, project their agenda,  
> while most retreat from the discussion losing interest in a hardened  
> debate between a bunch of sectarian ready-to-escalate-the-rhetoric men.
>   
Wow. And I thought people were making some pretty good points about 
national and regional organizations. I mostly missed the pissing 
contest. One observation about a national (US) organization: Scott 
Pittman has had one (a registered non-profit) ready for years. The fact 
that it hasn't been used or developed by more people suggests that we 
haven't needed one. But just as Jamie suggests that Pc is limited by its 
overt ignoring of spirituality, I could suggest that Pc has suffered 
from a lack of organization. There's no way to prove it since we can't 
rewind history. I think we are closer to a national organization, or 
more organization in general, than we were the last time this discussion 
came up. It's a perennial topic, and it's heading more towards more 
structure.

David wrote:
> I keep in mind when reading the views on this list concerning the direction of permaculture;  there are 10's of thousands of graduates of pc design courses around the world and this listserv comprises what, 700 to 1000 people? 

I take your point is that these lists are an insignificant portion of 
the permaculture community, that "organizing" Pc is a fools errand. The 
thing is,  a majority of PDC grads have little further involvement with 
permaculture as a movement. They have little effect on its direction. So 
these lists comprise a lot of the people who are active in Pc, and many 
are significantly affecting both its theory and practice. I've seen the 
issues discussed and clarified here ripple fairly quickly through a much 
greater segment of the community than those who post here. Tip of the 
iceberg, 80/20 rule, critical mass, and all that. What happens here is 
influential. People here helped me work out a lot of the ideas in 
"Gaia's Garden," which has reached 30,000 readers at minimum. And I'm 
only one of the 700 here. Or am I missing the point?

It's odd to have a vigorous meta-discussion about the progress of a 
discussion. I'd prefer to just have the discussion.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com