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  • From: Sean Maley <semaley@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Why Bother With Permaculture? An essay by Ted Trainer
  • Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:15:18 -0800 (PST)

I didn't take the article as being critical of Permaculture, but rather
critical of the lack of understanding of invisible structures within the body
of certified Permaculture designers.

We could speculate that this module get's pushed out of the course being at
the end. However, I think many students "world view" coming into the PDC may
blind them as to the significance and understanding of invisible structures.
It may be that some go on to teach and still miss this key concept, as Scott
suggests.

There is nothing wrong with Permaculture or the PDC course with regards to
these key concepts. Perhaps we need some follow up courses (not modify the
PDC) to help fill gaps left by deficient PDC courses?

Having the Design Manual at my side as I write this, I can also see some
regional terms that mean different things, depending upon legal jurisdiction.
This may make the content confusing for some students in this part of the
world, especially when importing teachers from another part of the world.
Like the confusion over a "Dam" verses a "Pond".

For instance, I see on page 518 in figure 14.4 a description of "Charitable
Trusts" A & B. To get a 501c3 determination letter from the IRS, one must
demonstrate on the huge 1023 IRS form, among other things, that the
"non-profit" isn't a "private trust" and does not participate in "normal
business risk". Additionally, each of the 50 states have independent laws
adding nuances to this discussion.

If there are any Lawyers and/or Accountants that want to explore some of
this, I'd really appreciate the dialog. Several Lawyers I've engaged in
dialog, so far, immediately point out there specific area expertise (never
running the full breadth of what gets covered in the Design Manual) not
covering all of what I wanted to discuss (I've been told about a lot of legal
"friends" that know more about what I want to discuss).

For the record, we did have the invisible structures module in my PDC. I, of
course, hoped it would be more thorough, though we did spend a reasonable
amount of time (some infiltration of non-Design Manual content) going over
strategies for our specific bio-region and attempting to explore why global
economics works the way it does.


-Sean.
Scott Pittman wrote:There is a whole other part of the design system called
"invisible structures" that deals with economic, social, and financial
aspects of life and it is within this section is the true opportunity to
offer new strategies to deal with corporatism, capitalism, and rampant
consumerism. If this isn't happening then it is the
fault of the teachers who either don't understand the implications of
"invisible structures" or are too lazy to give it the depth of thought and
creativity to be able to teach it to their students.


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