permaculture

[Jono Neiger <neiger@csld.edu>]

Wow...well said Rafter. And I do appreciate Kevin and others for delving
into this hard topic and sticking with it. We do benefit -as a movement if
thats what this is-from the conversation.

I do hear a need to clarify the ethics/values of this movement. I dont
imagine a consensus arising so I dont know what this looks like. But there
are communities that may be using permaculture strategies, using the name
permaculture, and are definitely not within the ethics we hold to. Movements
get co-opted, watered down, and infiltrated. One defense (besides our own
military) is to be in discussion, move towards consensus, and know when its
not permaculture.

Good luck at your CSA workshop at the NOFA conference tomorrow Kevin...


Jono



On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 11:23 AM, kevin skvorak <k.skvorak@gmail.com> wrote:

> thanks rafter and everyone,
>
> i have to admit it is scary being name-called, even when it is actually
> your
> own name!
>
> one little quick thing inspired by rafter and that is at the heart of my
> motivation for 'starting' all this.
>
> This point about facists, self-identified racists, and other unsavory types
> embracing "Permaculture" :
>
> The way "we" communicate our current principles, (most often vaguely)
> leaves
> plenty of room for them to be interpreted or misunderstood (or ignored) by
> people who then take on the Permaculture "brand" for their own purposes.
>  At the heart of my original post, (i am being repetitive i know, sorry!)
> is
> my perspective/contention  that we would BENEFIT as a movement (or whatever
> we are)  by more clarity, by more detail etc.  By doing this we clearly
> exclude (which is ok imo) the white supremecist back-to-the (black peoples)
> land-movement.   Or, by adopting a "platform"  (not realistic, i know)  or
> in some way communicating, say, support for the carbon-reparations language
> worked out in cochabamba (see original thread) we are able to connect with
> and support folks doing this work.  Deepening our solidarity with others,
> improving our own PR etc etc.
>
> By being clearer, and more specific about what our principles are and are
> not in practice, we are not limiting the potential of PC to spread, but are
> in fact strengthening it.
>
> thanks,
>
> sorry for pissing folks off.
> i wanna be friends, really i do!
> kevin
>
>
>
>
> re:
> rafter sass rafter at liberationecology.org
>
> Many heartfelt thanks  to the folks who have been able to engage with the
> challenges of this conversation without descending into
> name-calling and other juvenilia.
>
> ...
>
>
> Kevin Skvorak has Problems.
>
>
> Two of them, for the purposes of this conversation. ;)
>
> One of them is a Personal Problem - he seems to have contracted the modern
> anarchist's allergy to leadership. The symptoms include putting critique
> before curiosity.
>
> I hope he works on this. I think he would be even more effective in raising
> critical topics and questions if he did.
>
> The other is NOT a Personal Problem. It's another kind of problem
> altogether
> - a Movement Problem.
>
>
> He wants to be a part of a movement that practices an engaged and ongoing
> dialogue about its own ethics and strategy - and the actually-existing
> Permaculture movement can't really be described this way. Not quite - not
> yet.
>
>
> What's standing in the way?
> Well, a lot of the movement leadership seems to have contracted the classic
> leader's malaise of allergy to critique.
> Juvenile defensiveness, on the part of our teachers and public faces, is a
> problem that is going to do us real harm, as a movement - if it isn't
> mitigated.
>
> Or maybe we all just need to get really good at gentle, soothing, critique,
> so that we don't insult or frighten them when we have hard questions to
> ask.
> ;)
> (And yes - I definitely respond better to that, too!)
>
>
> And if that weren't enough, a lot of folks in the movement - along with
> most
> everybody else in the world - don't have a great toolbox when it comes to
> thinking about design and strategy at different scales. What does it even
> mean to build a movement - or design one? We aren't well prepared to
> answer.
> And we, of all movements, might want to think hard about the question.
>
>
> I don't claim to know the answer, but I DO know that it requires more and
> different tools than the ones we use to transform an individual, or
> regenerate a landscape,
> or organize a project, etc. etc.
>
> Individual, project, community, movement, world...
>
> The principles I use to guide my behavior and my relationships are related,
> but distinct, from the ones that I bring to creating strategy for the
> projects I work on.
> The criteria I use to design my projects are related, but distinct from the
> ones I use to understand and work with my community.
>
> And the tools I use to engage and enliven my community are related, but
> distinct from the ones that I use to build and strategize my movement.
>
> So for me, arguments that we should go anywhere and teach Pc to anyone, for
> anyone, because Pc  is automagically transformative, are wrongheaded.
>
> A good PDC might actually be able to transform anyone that takes it - but
> that doesn't mean that teaching that class is good for the movement.
> As Annie Pollock points out, greenwashing is real, and we are already
> dealing with the challenges of the Permaculture label being applied to all
> kinds of things we don't
>
> want to be associated with.
>
> We could go and teach a PDC at a whites-only Afrikaaner "ecovillage" like
> Orania, and maybe it would have a profound impact on the people who took
> it.
>
> But (1) most of us would be, shall we say, reluctant? for Pc to be seen as
> a
> tool for building a racially pure Volkstaat, and (2) the Oranians already
> identify with Permaculture, so I guess an ecological holistic worldview
> WON'T necessarily guide someone out of an oppressive, ethnocentric social
> vison.
>
>
> Teaching Pc for, and to, white nationalists, would be bad for the movement.
>
> (For more evidence that fascism and ecology can survive in the same brain,
> look into Rudolph Steiner's theories on race. Or even more frightening,
> search Stormfront.org for entries on Permaculture. Note: the point here is
> to debunk oversimplified models of change, and magical thinking about
> Permaculture education - not to compare the National Guard project to white
> supremacy.)
>
>
> And vice versa: what's bad for the individual or project can be good for
> the
> movement. The lynching of civil rights movement workers James Chaney,
> Andrew
> Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, in 1964, was a horrific tragedy for them,
> their friends, and families - and a historic watershed for the civil rights
> movement.
>
>
> The point of these case studies is to say: we may not know how to design a
> movement, but
> it ain't entirely like designing a PDC.
>
> We are called, by our commitments, ethics, and desires, to figure it out.
> With each other.
>
>
> OK, I'm actually supposed to be packing and moving right now, so I'm going
> to cut this off.
> What are we doing to do with this movement of ours?
>
>
> all love, respect, and hard questions,
> rafter
>
>
>
>
> rafter sass
> Liberation Ecology Project
> liberationecology.org
> 518-567-7407
> skype: raughter
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-- 
******************
Jono Neiger
Regenerative Design Group
308 Main St, Suite 2C
Greenfield, Massachusetts 01301
413-658-7048
www.regenerativedesigngroup.com

Conway School of Landscape Design
Graduate Program in Sustainable Landscape Planning & Design
www.csld.edu

PINE; Permaculture Institute of the Northeast
www.thepine.org