permaculture

["woody~debris" <woodydebris@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 6:51 PM, rafter sass <rafter@liberationecology.org>
 wrote:

>
>
> Permaculturists, the time has come to invade academia!


I work in academia and enjoy that life for its simplicity and intellectual
rigor but wonder...if permaculture is really suited for
institutionalization. Or if you'd want to to be...

Much of academic research relies on dissection- i.e. if we're ever going to
grok it, we need to tear it apart first.  A devitalizing process.  To me,
it's no small irony that the animal used to instruct biology students for so
many years- The Frog - also happens to be the most endangered class of
vertebrates on the planet.

A lot of progress in the biological sciences has suffered from too much
"physics envy", trying to boil down complex life processes into simple
atomic principles.  We've learned a lot in abstract but in the process we've
also lost a lot of our direct connection to nature, to the realities of our
local ecological contexts that make all of our diverse life pursuits
possible, whether that be playing with test tubes in a lab or playing the
bongos around a campfire.

The ideology of permaculture is a pleasant antidote to that sort of thinking
or at least a compliment to it.  I was attracted to permaculture because it
places so much value on intelligent design and information gathering (like
science) but also finds room for ethics and the intuitive processes as well.
 Permaculture leaves space for play, playful interactions with some of the
hardcore elemental realities that we all face.  There's hope in that.  That
playful energy makes life beautiful and over time works to evolve complex
traits, interactions and behaviors...without it we'd all be slime molds,
cyanobacteria or other protoplasmic self-cloning ooze creatures.

Perhaps as our culture evolves, permaculture-like sciences will develop.
 That's my hope. That's the only hope there is during this time of
ecological crisis.

Not to say that there isn't room for research and the scientific method in
permaculture approaches to creative ecological solutions.  So much
potential!

peas,
Steve Waldron