permaculture

[Andrew McSwain <aeromax.way@gmail.com>]

Most radicalists and political acitivists are too immediatist in trying to
"design" their movement. First and foremost a movement is not controlled--
so it can hardly be designed. Second of all, and more to the point, a
movement is something that grows over time.  Most activists are often self
righteous and immediatist, that combined can lead to some serious
intolerance and violent outbreaks.

Violence and exclusion aren't elements, techniques, or principles
inherent anywhere in permaculture's application or theory, so why put it
into the "design" of the movement? Not to say that you guys here are violent
in nature, but an exclusionary movement almost unanimously will predicate
violence to some degree-- even if passive.

Based on the theories, principles, practice, and ethics. Exclusion simply
does not work, and should not be considered an option. It's part of the old
paradigm.

You cannot just tell everyone that disagrees with you that they are wrong--
they aren't going to listen to you just because you have an systems-design
technique that you think works better than what they've got already. Don't
ask them to swallow the whole hog just yet.

Think about designing a movement based on the principles of permaculture. A
movement will not happen overnight. People will not suddenly snap to
attention once they have taken a permaculture course.

Principles of a Permaculture Movement that uses permaculutre principles
would include the following assumptions:

It needs to be inclusionary. You need people, all sorts of people. Even the
ones you don't agree with on ideological grounds, you want them working with
you on *actions* real actions that produce ends that you both want.  to do
that you must first build a foundation:

Foundations:
it must be something simple to digest into the pre-existing paradigm and
offer novel solutions to their perceived needs. (i.e. crazy gun-nut wackos
and army outfits and country rebuilders and United Nations NGOs and
corporations and people who want to live more healthily, archietects, middle
aged families, home gardeners, homesteaders.. who else?) All of these people
can't agree to politics (at first) but they can probably agree that food
security and ubran heat island effect and environmental degredation and
terrorism prevention and green washing are all problems that permaculture
addresses better than any other

Momentum: Right before martin luther king was assasinated, if you research
closely, you will find out that all of his speeches were religiously
charged. He was focused on creating a religious transformation of America.
He stated it right out as his goal. Civil Rights created a watershed, it
created motion, out of which grew many other movements with potential
magnitude many orders greater than the watershed that created it. The same I
am convinced will be so with permaculture: after they have swallowed the
pill, and everyone is very well dosed on permaculture, that we can start
making moves to converge people politically.. to align them along the
principles of permaculture design in ways that extend beyond the garden and
into the more abstract realms of society like foreign policy and federal
domestic budget allocation. Everyone united and moving in the same direction
will create more difference than you can imagine or control (which is why
you can't design a chaotic system outside of a computer program)

The movement must be centralized on a simple theme or concept or technique
or technology, that can be widely adopted by the current paradigm to solve
the problems that IT sees as the priority. Then, and only then, once their
paradigm is effectively changed can you start talking about what will
compose the new one.

Andrew


On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 1:04 PM, Lee Flier <leeflier@comcast.net> wrote:

>  Perfectly stated, Toby.
>
>
> On 8/21/2010 1:21 AM, Toby Hemenway wrote:
>
>> I can't make the distinction between teaching for institutions or
>> individuals that you and others can. I cannot think of an individual or
>> institution that I would refuse to teach a PDC to, with the exception of
>> straight out hate groups, which the army is emphatically not. Overall, I
>> don' t think a corporation or military can be made any worse for learning
>> permaculture, and I think I personally am engaging in Earth and people care
>> when I teach them, even if their own mission isn't. Institutions like
>> corporations are way ahead of us in thinking up clever ways to screw up the
>> world; we won't make them better at that. But by being exposed to the
>> ecological and ethical basis of permaculture, individuals in the
>> organization will be transformed, and perhaps even the organization itself.
>> I've seen it happen. One at a time; that's how I do it. If that's outside
>> your ethical framework; so be it.
>>
>> ...
>>
>>
>> Re my remark, "who else would be arguing about working with the army," I
>> think you underestimate the compassion and tolerance that many people have
>> for those who have harmed them. My friends who are vets speak of how well
>> they are treated when they return to the countries where they killed 
>> people.
>> If you asked those relatives of millions of dead if they would want the
>> attacking army to be taught a system grounded in ethics and ecological
>> wisdom, I bet many would say yes.
>>
>> We do agree on much. I am glad that you (Kevin) started this thread. It's
>> helped me clarify my dislike of the idea of permaculture as a movement,
>> something I hadn't articulated. And it's helped me grasp that I would teach
>> almost anyone, but wouldn't do design work for everyone.
>>
>> Toby
>> http://patternliteracy.com
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> Google command to search archives:
> site:https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture searchstring
>



-- 
Andrew Edwin McSwain
055(11)6785-1176 (São Paulo)
01(501)681-0439 (United States)