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  • From: Stella <stella@finca-luna.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] designing societies
  • Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 14:39:42 +0100

this is in reply to what Krystle wrote (below)

PC textbooks very clearly state that good PC design is the beneficial assembly of all types of components, not just site or energy / technology components, but abstract and social components too.

The problem is that there are so few examples of successful designs that really do all that, and so many great examples of great designs that just take into account the 'earth' stuff, that the overwhelming impression is still that PC design is about gardening techniques, or designing 'things' like buildings and such.

From what I can see the majority of our designs that fail do so mostly on forgetting to include and / or skillfully design with the social components (which include laws, political realities, people, cultures, economics, etc.). And what Mollison calls the 'abstract' components which are ETHICS, data, timings, sequence, etc.

Overall this does seem to be our weak point, but it´s not at all surprising: it's difficult enough to design good systems with just the first two types of components - and we can touch and see those directly at least.
Even at this level what happens a lot is not really designing with all local factors, from first principles, but a kind of "copying & pasting" other's designs.

Really good holistic design involves moving on to incorporating the other two successfully, requires a real grasp of the underlying models used in designing just earth-based systems or / & a hugely multifunctioning mind & / or really well communicated design groups (a good 'group mind', where people cooperate instead of compete, in figuring out how to design with a stunning variety of components and situations).

I love that B. Fuller quote you gave Krystle, and believe that he would agree with this because he did a lot of good permaculture, which requires real direct learning from Nature: learning, applying, perfecting and re-inventing the MODELS we can under-stand from Her designs. (Just copying can work, but doesn't get you very far, especially with very complex systems).

the quote ."... To change something, you have to create a new MODEL that makes the old models obsolete." is simply a statement of the overall pattern of evolution, and what he is saying is that it is such an important basic patterns that it applies at all scales.

Nature abhors a vacuum, so just as new noses, limb adaptations and even species come about because they are better models than the previous ones, so do new laws, new social structures, new tribes ...

Daniel Quinn made an impassioned plea in a great lecture he gave to commercial designers to think of politics and society as DESIGNERS.
http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/environdesign/

- I think it might have been more productive to have given that lecture at a permaculture design conference, but hopefully enough that enough of us read this transcript. It´s very very good.

He ends by saying "For the sake of the human future, don't take your designer's hat off when you leave the office. Don't limit your work or your thinking to the objects and physical structures that people need and want. Look at everything that's going on here with designer's eyes. For the sake of the human future, go after it all like designers."

I agree with what Tommy says in "Fuller was right. But someone has to keep existing reality from destroying the resiliency that allows for new models. "

A very crucial component in the 'invisibles' sections we have to take into account (or die), are the great forces set against the kind of evolution that is in the interests of Life, by a hyper-privileged class of humans, who have their own - man-made - definition of "better" and (SO FAR) have simply been better designers, strategizers and organizers than ourselves.

But only because we've failed to truly learn and understand the patterns of their greed and organizing structures, and deal with those in our designs AS WELL.
They DO design using the 'intangible components' (especially myth, psychology, fear, etc.), and extreemly well: good design (in terms of THEIR ethics, visions, principles, etc.) is how they control the planet, according to their patterns.

The first and most crucial thing for us to learn would be that those same patterns - although we don´t agree with them or don´t´like them - exist also within ourselves, and are very effectively used to get us acting against each other and against our own interests, whenever required (like when we're 'too threatening' to the system). The Matrix modelled this very well.

.. but this is still a little too advanced and perhaps we're somewhere between 1 & 2 with this one, on the natural succession for truly revolutionary ideas, which goes something like

1) ignore them ...
if they don´t go away..
2) ridicule them ...
if that doesn't shut them up
3) try to kill them (first try their reputation and if that doesn't work, their bodies)
if u start suspecting they might have a point .. (often after they're dead or discredited)
4) attribute the ideas to some more 'respectable' person or institution
then eventually
5) integrate them and say we all knew this anyway.

of course even though this succession is observably true not everything that is ignored or ridiculed is revolutionary. You have to make your own mind up ... and if it´s a good designers mind it learns lots even from ridiculous things.

I haven´t heard much about the Zeitgeist movie amongst permies and am wondering if it´s being ignored or it´s just ridiculed at the moment... I´ve no idea when it came out so it could be that i missed the comments, but if you havne´t seen it you really should:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dmPchuXIXQ
(this is the part on money design, which is particularly crucial for permies I think)


politics IS design too.
anything that humans create is through design... or de-fault (lack of conscious design)


El 03/12/2007, a las 1:36, Krystle Chung escribió:

I'm just learning about permaculture, but so far I'm under the impression
that permaculture is more about design than politics (although they're not
mutually exclusive; simply a different emphasis). I associate permaculture
with Buckminster Fuller's belief that "You never change things by fighting
the existing reality. To change things, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."

Best,

Krystle

Notes/research - http://selfmadefarmer.wordpress.com/
About me - http://www.selfmadefarmer.com





  • [permaculture] designing societies, Stella, 12/03/2007

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