permaculture

[Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>]

I would say that permaculture is an ethical design method that is a 
significant part of a social movement for sustainable culture.  By itself, no 
organization is likely to be able to direct a social movement on its own.  
Even in countries that have had revolutions (such as Russia or Cuba), many 
groups, including the armed faction, had to cooperate in order to transform 
society.  Permaculture is not organized to lobby, lead demonstrations, or 
pursue direct action in the conventional sense.  We do offer education, but 
not in the typical way of political organizations.  Our direct action is 
mostly aimed at replacing the existing unsustainable culture with sustainable 
alternatives.  We do this with the help of innumerable other organizations 
and individuals who fill different niches.
 
Permaculture differs from other design methods in that it has an ethical 
basis.  It also is wholistic, at least theoretically, in that the principles 
are applied to all aspects of culture.  This makes a permaculturist more 
political and less restricted in focus than someone in a more technical 
discipline like an ecological designer or a landscape architect, though most 
our our designs do tend to be restricted to a narrow focus, such as a garden, 
landscape, or village layout.  My hope is that as we develop more 
permaculture sites, we will begin to expand our focus to broader systems and 
invisible (social and cultural) structures.  This happens organically as a 
permaculture household, homestead, or community becomes more established.
 
One area where permaculture would benefit from acting more like a social 
movement would be to organize permaculture projects into clusters so that the 
above process could be accelerated and made more efficient.  Anyone who has 
read Guns, Germs, and Steel should understand the necessity of connectivity 
for the creation of a strong culture with the potential to supplant another.  
The libertarians who have moved to New Hampshire seem to get this point, 
though I haven't evaluated the success of their effort.  It would be great if 
every bioregion had a permaculture oasis, a laboratory for experiments in 
sustainable culture that could offer solutions for the rest of the bioregion. 
 Funding could come from special loans from the Permaculture Credit Union, 
etc., etc....
 
Rain
 



>From admin@pri-de.org  Sun Aug 22 16:05:44 2010
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From: Killian O'Brien <admin@pri-de.org>
To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2010 16:05:39 -0400
Thread-Topic: [permaculture] WTF?
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Subject: Re: [permaculture] WTF?
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Yeah, I wasn't trying to comment on the issue, as much as remind that it is 
underpinned by research. Whether you are convinced or not does not make the 
information any less robust. You do make a good point about specific 
examples, but you have limited the N to a very small group of women as if the 
only way to measure this is to measure characteristics of women who have led 
nations, which is obviously inappropriate to the question. Also, you are 
talking about women who have moved into an area that is a male structure 
already, and in which taking on the more masculine aspect may have been the 
only way to achieve power. I think we can make the argument permaculture is 
not yet that.

However, I wasn't clear enough that I was talking more on the societal scale; 
matriarchal vs. matriarchs.

Cheers,

Killian O'Brien
PRI-De
admin@pri-de.org
(313) 647-4015

killiankob@yahoo.com
(760) 617-4693

-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Lee Flier
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2010 10:58 AM
To: permaculture
Subject: Re: [permaculture] WTF?

  Like I said, I don't deny the research, but I just don't know that 
it's constructive to frame communications problems in those terms.  I 
think it's enough to simply say that there are different styles of 
communication (which are affected by a lot of factors including gender, 
culture, language, and individual upbringing) and it's probably 
constructive for everyone to work on their communication skills, 
especially in today's globalized culture.

I also don't necessarily agree that female leadership tends toward more 
cooperative or peaceful results.  We haven't had too many women in power 
throughout history to use as examples, but those we have had haven't 
necessarily been shining examples - Margaret Thatcher and Marie 
Antoinette come to mind. :D  Women are just as susceptible as men to 
being corrupted by power.

I realize there are some generalities that hold true in a lot of cases, 
but since I've personally been victimized by generalizations far more 
often than I've been helped (and know many others in the same boat), I 
tend to poke holes in them much more often than accept them.

On 8/21/2010 3:19 PM, Killian O'Brien wrote:
> Lee,
>
> This is basically an FYI comment, but I think if we are bothering to have 
> this conversation, we can't dismiss what is an important aspect of it, even 
> if not a central point of contention therein.
>
> Research, experience and history do show fairly large differences in 
> communicative styles which also translate over to problem solving. Of 
> course, these are generalizations, but they are real issues and the 
> generalizations apply to a large percentage of the population. Essentially, 
> women problem solve via relationships, men via practicalities.
>
> The results of female leadership because of this tend to create more 
> cooperative, more peaceful results... including societies. Like I said 
> before, I'd love to study with permaculturists such as Starhawk, but would 
> likely never teach in a similar style... though I might have 20 years ago.

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