permaculture

[Keith D Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

Thank you Ben for your strong defense of Toby. I agree. Toby isn't "causing" 
polarization. People tend to do it themselves entirely by reaction and 
projection.


-----Original Message-----
>From: Ben Martin Horst <ben.martinhorst@gmail.com>
>Sent: May 13, 2010 5:50 PM
>To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Subject: Re: [permaculture] more on growing food
>
>On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Rain Tenaqiya 
><raincascadia@yahoo.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> I hate how discussions on this list (and everywhere else, I guess) get
>> polarized,
>
>
>Hear, hear. I'm constantly flummoxed by people's knee-jerk responses to
>something that they obviously didn't read carefully but onto which they've
>projected their own insecurities.
>
>
>> as I've mentioned before, and I think Toby contributes to this.
>
>
>I don't think Toby contributes to this at all. I don't always agree with
>him, but his posts -- whether original or responses to ongoing threads --
>are typically well-reasoned, measured, and insightful. Even -- no,
>particularly -- when I disagree, I find that he forces me to look at issues
>from angles I hadn't previously, and I come away with a better overall
>understanding. Toby has opinions, yes, and sometimes strong ones, but I
>don't think I've ever read anything of his that I would consider polarizing.
>Counterweights to polarizing opinions, perhaps, but not themselves
>polarizing.
>
>All Toby did in this case was to point out that the myth of self-sufficiency
>is one that has A) inspired countless thousands and B) bankrupted,
>disheartened, and burned-out most of those thousands. All of us know
>back-to-the-landers who gave it up and went back to shilling for the Man
>because it was just too hard. Toby didn't say "You can't be
>self-sufficient." If that's what you really, really want, go for it. But
>expect it to be infinitely harder than you imagined. Toby just realistically
>suggested broadening the question "How can I grow all my own food?" with
>"How can I obtain my food in responsible, satisfying, ecological,
>permacultural ways?" That's likely -- but not necessarily -- to include
>growing a significant chunk of it, and encourages thinking about our
>relationships with the ecosystems and human systems around us.
>
>With all the flak Toby gets on this list and others, it amazes me that he
>hasn't gotten defensive or dropped off entirely. I think it speaks volumes
>about his moral character that he ignores the personal attacks and sticks
>with the issues at hand.
>
>
>>   I know he wants to stimulate discussion, but he doesn't have to make the
>> issues sound so black and white (and I just got done reading all the
>> wonderful essay on your site, so I know you can do better).  On the other
>> hand, I do appreciate Lawrence's restraint in the tone of his responses.
>>
>>
>Really? I don't generally think calling someone a Monsanto PR hack --
>particularly in permaculture circles -- represents a "restrained response."
>Perhaps this was an attempt at humor. It sounds to me more like an ad
>hominem attack. It's language I'd expect from a troll, not a list moderator.
>
>
>> I feel the question about how much land it takes to grow one person's food
>> has been framed in a way that unnecessarily encourages this debate.  A more
>> interesting question, for me, would be, "How much area in food forest is
>> reasonable per person, given a certain climate and available gardening
>> time?"  Cities can probably typically grow 50% of their food.  If urban
>> areas were planted in food forest, a lot of the heavier food could be 
>> easily
>> obtained just outside your doorstep, reducing transport fuel needs.  New
>> aquaponics techniques also have potential for urban areas.  Growing food
>> doesn't have to be a grueling enterprise for the specialized farmers.  And
>> this leads to questions of social equity and justice:  if you don't grow a
>> substantial portion of your own food, who is going to do it?  This whole
>> debate has taken place with the apparent assumption that we are all equals
>> who can freely choose our work.  Not so.  Most of the people on this
>>  list are probably white middle class people who would be buying their food
>> from poor brown immigrants if they didn't grow it themselves.  According to
>> David Holmgren, the peasant class is only going to get bigger as fossil
>> fuels become more scarce.  Growing more of your own food is a slap in the
>> face to class specialization and the stigmatization of doing such "lowly"
>> work.
>>
>
>I didn't hear Toby saying anything that would argue with any of the above.
>In fact, the above paragraph seems mostly to follow directly from the sort
>of approaches Toby suggests.
>
>I know it's too much to expect of email lists -- and, given the history,
>this list in particular -- but I really wish folks would sit down with a
>post, digest it, and mull it over for a while before responding. Give it a
>couple hours before you click "Send." Yes, we'll still have a lot to
>disagree over, but I would hope we can do it in civil ways.
>
>-Ben
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