permaculture

[Ben Martin Horst <ben.martinhorst@gmail.com>]

Perhaps I didn't express my meaning clearly. Yes, personal responsibility is
essential to our own health and that of the planet. Yes, each of us should
be striving constantly to improve our relationships with our landbases.
That's been my goal for years, and I readily admit I'm nowhere near as close
to achieving it as I need to be for my own peace of mind or the health of
the broader living community. But I am trying. The fact that we are having
this conversation electronically shows that all of us -- while
well-intentioned and progressive in our relations with the Earth -- are
dependent upon unsustainable, ecocidal technologies. In your terms, my
lifestyle is "against life," but I'm attempting to change that. Do I need a
permacultural community to hold me accountable and spur me to further
action? Absolutely.

But accepting personal responsibility does not relieve us of the sometimes
greater need to assign responsibility where responsibility is due. There are
highly powerful and influential persons and organizations who are held to
little or no account for their roles in ecocide. Their share of guilt is
often far greater than any "average citizen," and certainly greater than the
average permaculturist. In the context of permaculture, finding leverage
points to make the least change for the greatest effect is a key principle.
In the context of broader society, those leverage points may involve
attempting to change or eliminate the behavior of the highly powerful and
influential, whether through petition, coercion, direct action, or other
means

It's not about evading responsibility. It's about accepting a broader
responsibility to care for those who come into direct contact with our lives
as well as those more distant from it. If my neighbor decided to spray
glyphosate on the gardens, pasture, and woodlands I tend, I would rightly
call him or her to account. That doesn't ameliorate my own responsibility to
do no harm to the land where I live; rather, my responsibility to the land
dictates I do all I can to ensure the neighbor won't spray again. My
responsibility to the broader Earth is the same. If the rich, powerful, and
influential desecrate, maim, and rape it -- as is happening right now in the
Gulf -- personal responsibility dictates that I try to ensure they can't do
it again. To wait until I achieve ecological sainthood, avoiding any
possible semblance of hypocrisy, is a luxury the ecosystems of this planet
simply cannot afford.

-Ben

On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 2:12 PM, jamesdavid Sneed
<harvestcircle@hotmail.com>wrote:

>
> Your statement about "the least changes" is pure malarkey, and dodging
> personal reaponsibility. Either you are for life, or you are against it.
>
> > Date: Sun, 2 May 2010 20:40:47 -0700
> > From: ben.martinhorst@gmail.com
> > To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Subject: Re: [permaculture] Drill Baby Drill becomes Burn Baby Burn!
> >
> > On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 12:40 PM, jamesdavid Sneed <
> harvestcircle@hotmail.com
> > > wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I, to am responsible for the spills and the mining disaters, and so are
> > > you. It is not just the greedy corporate owners, but all of us. I can't
> stop
> > > them, so I must change myself, every bit of myself that does not live
> in
> > > harmony on this planet.
> > >
> >
> > Well, yes, we're all guilty, but to paraphrase Orwell, some of us are
> more
> > guilty than others. I refuse to accept that my footprint, at perhaps 5
> > metric tons of CO2/year, is somehow equivalent to BP's 1,376,000,000
> > tons/year (that's the 2004 number). Personal sustainability is something
> all
> > of us should be seeking (and I'd really like to be able to get my own
> carbon
> > footprint down into negative numbers), but even if everybody subscribed
> to
> > this list were to become an ecological saint, it still wouldn't make a
> dent
> > in the globes crises. We need to look for the least change for greatest
> > effect... it seems to me that some of those "least changes" involve
> > reforming broader societal systems, including the way corporations are
> > chartered, structured, and held accountable (for example, dismantling
> > corporate "personhood" and ensuring that the precautionary principle is
> > observed in corporate charters), rather than trying to go individual by
> > individual.
> >
> > In their own personal practices, many permaculturists have created
> solutions
> > that have broader impact beyond their own daily lives -- personal change
> can
> > be influential to broader society. But while I've been progressively
> making
> > changes in my own lifestyle, it's defeatist to think that I can't be
> > politically or socially active until I've got all my own issues perfectly
> > figured out. Sometimes it takes concerted action against vested interests
> --
> > in this case Big Oil -- for alternatives to gain any broad traction or
> > acceptance.
> >
> > -Ben
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>
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