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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Why is permaculture more about selling books, DVDs and training courses?

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  • From: "Robert Waldrop" <bwaldrop@cox.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Why is permaculture more about selling books, DVDs and training courses?
  • Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:39:33 -0500

----- Original Message ----- From: "David Travis" <djtravis@hotmail.com>
Perhaps if permaculture had started out as being more >centralized and democratic (as opposed to decentralized and >autocratic a la Mollison), it would have developed the sort of >infrastructure needed to move beyond demo sites and a handful >of NGO projects, but who can say?

The present way that permaculture is "organized" mimics natural systems. Nature is not centralized, nor does it work via a democratic process. Centralization promotes bureaucracy and renders the organization vulnerable to leadership mistakes. Permaculture is not an organization, but it certainly is an organism, or rather, a collection of organisms.

Since there is no central organization with control over all permaculture activity, everyone is free to gain and give as much permaculture education as possible, without the necessity of getting permission from anyone, including Bill Mollison. We have no permaculture pope, and that's a good thing. Any actual "status" that people may have in the movement is entirely a result of their beneficial actions towards others.

The lack of central authority also promote the blossoming of many different permaculture paths. I have my own unique pathway, and I wouldn't expect anyone to follow my trajectory with any exactitude, I expect them to develop their own paths to colonize their ecological niche with permacultural concepts.

Central authority also inevitably makes for a weaker organization.organism, since if the center is compromised/destroyed/coopted/removed, then the branches die.

I think "permaculture on the internet" is kind of like an iceberg, you only see about 1/7th of what is going on, if even that.

Robert Waldrop, permaculture rhizome in Oklahoma City






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