permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

Rafter-- as usual, I get and appreciate what you say and the tone in which 
you say it, and take it in the kind spirit it is given. I agree that I 
oversimplified and showed a lot of bias in my description of what movements 
are. Mostly because I see little upside, and a lot of downside, to 
permaculture being regarded as a movement. There have been many memorable and 
effective movements, of course: civil rights, anti-war, anti-abortion, German 
National Socialism, and others all over the map. Movements attract . . . 
what's a polite word for fanatic? Perhaps activist is. Some do immense good, 
some immense harm. Some movements increase the rights of one group at the 
expense of others. Some do better than that. Civil rights is the broadest and 
best model I can think of. 

But almost any movement comes with its own political framework and can 
usually be placed in a fairly small region of the political spectrum. If we 
look at permaculture as a movement, it's in the quite left-wing, 
Earth-worshipping, hippie-descended, middle and upper middle class, etc, etc, 
region, with a modest number of outliers included. A narrow slice. Who else 
would even be arguing about working with the army?

So what are the odds of a movement like this getting a wide reception? To 
anyone outside of permaculture's primary political clique, the "movement" 
baggage poses a huge hurdle. It's possible that as a movement permaculture 
can do the same for ecological consciousness that the civil rights movement 
did for racial consciousness. But there are some big differences. The civil 
rights movement as a whole was not a methodology or a set of principles; it 
wasn't primarily holding classes or looking to be taught in universities. It 
had one easily grasped central point: equal rights for all races. We can't 
define our central point, if we have one, in less than a fat black book or a 
two-week course. And a politicized movement is not going to be invited into 
schools or local governments or churches or other institutions except in 
those instances where the politics of the institution match that of 
permaculture activists. Civil rights had to batter its way in, at a very high 
personal cost to many. Is that what we want to do? I think that is an 
unnecessarily difficult road for us to take; the design standpoint will reach 
people much more quickly. Permaculture as a movement won't be invited 
anywhere that the politics or socio-economic groundings don't match the 
movement's. A design approach, however, will be welcomed almost anywhere. 
That's why I'd like to see the design side of permaculture emphasized over 
the movement aspect.

Also, I don't see the ethical basis of permaculture as an impediment. Who is 
going to argue against caring for the Earth and people? The ethics are bland 
enough to appeal to all. The fact that permaculture involves ethics is quite 
radical, but even very conservative groups grasp the need for ethical 
guidelines. That part can have wide appeal. A left-ish movement doesn't.

I do often think of myself as part of a movement--who doesn't want to belong 
to a tribe? But political movement design and process are very different from 
those of an ecological design system. Maybe our failure to identify and deal 
with the distinction is why permaculture has made so little progress in 30 
years. I think there are some good things to be learned from pursuing this a 
bit.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com



On Aug 16, 2010, at 4:28 PM, rafter sass wrote:

> Hey Toby,
> 
> As usual, I'm crazy about your response, in tone, quality of thinking, and 
> content.
> 
> All except for the third paragraph where, for reasons I can't fathom, you 
> redefine
> the concept of "movement"  - and by implication, movement participants -
> as simpleton ideological cliques. It bears no relation to any recognizable
> definition of social movement. 
> 
> Why, Toby, why? [insert wringing of hands]
> 
> Why work to isolate Pc from the inspiring history, and critical present-day
> reality of global social movements? Advocate for your vision of Pc, please.
> It's needed. Plus I mostly agree with you. ;) 
> 
> But don't paint this distorted picture of social movements. 
> 
> Do I agree with you about avoiding evangelism, self-righteousness,
> and "purity vs. pollution" thinking? Absolutely. And the distribution of 
> these
> traits - on this list alone! - makes it clear that there is no correlation 
> with 
> the trait of movement thinking. 
> 
> Permaculture is a design approach and a movement at the very same time - if 
> you use
> a recognizable definition of movement. (I guess I'm camping in both of your 
> camps.) 
> 
> It is certainly not unique among movements. It's a fellow traveller with 
> many other 
> examples of: large numbers of people working together in a more-or-less 
> organized, 
> more-or-less spontaneous fashion, to make the world safe, just, and 
> sustainable. (Check out Hawken's
> Blessed Unrest to see this point made in vastly more detail.) Like other 
> grassroots movements, it's
> not pure, it's not objective, and to the degree that it's adherents are 
> self-righteous evangelical
> nincompoops, it will fail!
> 
> Every significant historical gain in freedom, worldwide, has been fought 
> for and won -
> not through some idealized, objective, design practice, but through messy, 
> difficult social movements.
> Furthermore, they've been fought for with tactics of disruptive protest, 
> among other tools in the toolbox. 
> It's bad form, to say the least, for white males in the North, like you and 
> me, to foster ignorance of that fact.
> 
> Likewise for so much of the significant defenses of ecological health that 
> we've been able to accomplish - 
> c.f. the success of the disruptive, law-breaking, anti-nuke movement here 
> at home. Do you think
> that we'll get decent climate treaties, or stop mountaintop removal mining, 
> without
> the pressure brought to bear by disruptive protest, and the movements that 
> make it happen? History tells us, decisively, "No."
> 
> We can't do an end-run around the need to think about the Permaculture 
> milieu as a whole, by focusing
> on practice alone. And we need to regard ourselves, our whole movement, as 
> part of a greater whole -
> and not only ecologically. We do this so that we don't isolate ourselves 
> from our fellow travelers, so we 
> can share the crucial and unique resources that we bring, with the folks 
> most prepared to make good use of them. 
> 
> And also because we need those other movements that we are making this path 
> with. 
> Permaculture alone won't get us the world we want - a world that's worth 
> living in.
> 
> Thank for all your incredible contributions, Toby. I'm confident that you 
> will receive this in 
> the spirit of collegiality and respect in which it is intended.
> 
> Best,
> Rafter
> 
> 
> 
> 
> rafter sass
> liberationecology.org
> 
>> From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
>> Date: August 16, 2010 10:38:59 AM EDT
>> To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
>> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Designing a Movement (was: Ethics of whatever)
>> Reply-To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
>> 
>> 
>> rafter wrote:
>> 
>>> Teaching Pc for, and to, white nationalists, would be bad for the 
>>> movement. 
>> 
>> I think this gets to one of the central confusions of this discussion, and 
>> why at times we are talking past each other (and BTW, I know someone who 
>> taught a PDC for white ideologists, who told me that a lot of important 
>> insights came out--for the instructor as well). 
>> 
>> I think we fall into two camps: those who view permaculture as a movement, 
>> and those who view it as a design approach. Of course, most of us--myself 
>> included--hold portions of both views, but I think one will predominate in 
>> each person. 
>> 
>> If you think of Pc as a movement, then we are activists who are trying to 
>> transform people's view of the world, and we need everyone to see it our 
>> way. We are right. Permaculture is then a worldview, an ideology of sorts, 
>> and people need to do it our way, or the wrong side will win. And our 
>> ideology needs to remain pure and uncorrupted.  If the wrong people 
>> infiltrate us, permaculture will become tainted, ruined, and it will turn 
>> into something we don't want. You are either following it or not; you're 
>> with us or against us, and if you are against us, you need to be 
>> transformed.You can see that I don't like the idea of Pc being a movement, 
>> even though I'm often caught up in its evangelical qualities. And it's not 
>> a big step from being a movement to being a cult, which some accuse 
>> permaculture of being. Some of the arguments made here are almost 
>> cult-like: we have secret knowledge that needs to be kept from the army or 
>> they will do harm with it. 
>> 
>> Or the other view: If permaculture is a design approach, then at its 
>> essence it is a set of tools for Earth- and people-care that is not 
>> dependent on belief or ideology. It can't be corrupted because its use 
>> either does or doesn't follow the ethics and principles, and it stops 
>> being permaculture when those are not being adhered to. Or at least we can 
>> say it is a poor or incomplete use of permaculture. A person is either a 
>> good designer or a poor one. You use the principles in your work or you 
>> don't. You use ecological and social metrics to assess whether you've been 
>> successful: As biodiversity up? Are people healthy? This puts the 
>> responsibility on the user, and not on permaculture as a movement that may 
>> be corrupted by bad people.
>> 
>> Larry Santoyo's phrase is useful here: We don't DO permaculture, we USE 
>> permaculture in what we do. Activists in a movement do permaculture. 
>> Designers use permaculture in what they do. If the army uses permaculture, 
>> it will result in Earth care and people care. If it doesn't have that 
>> result, then they aren't using permaculture; they are ideologists applying 
>> capitalist/corporate ideology to yet another tool they have made poor use 
>> of. If we don't teach them permaculture, there is no chance of them doing 
>> the good it can do. It cannot make them worse, in my view. It will either 
>> be abandoned by them, or it will make them good designers of healthy 
>> systems.
>> 
>> Again, I think "go where you are invited" applies. I have no intention of 
>> trying to transform the army with permaculture: that's ideology.  But if 
>> they come to me to ask how they can use permaculture to have ecologically 
>> and socially successful and sound projects, I'll be there. The student 
>> must be ready for the teacher, or there will be no learning. 
>> 
>> And incidentally, I've really appreciated what Rafter and manyy others 
>> have written here, especially the Rafter/Scott dialog. Thanks for a 
>> thought provoking thread. 
>> 
>> And, Cory and all: Permaculture is already being taught in over 25 
>> universities in the US alone, at last count.
>> 
>> And: I absolutely approve, as Kevin suggested, of making the ethics, 
>> principles, and curriculum much clearer and less subject to wild 
>> interpretations. Hence the need for organizations that link 
>> permaculturists together,
>> 
>> Toby
>> http://patternliteracy.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Aug 12, 2010, at 2:55 PM, rafter sass wrote:
>> 
>> 
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