permaculture

[Cory <cory8570@yahoo.com>]

I've had similar experience with mainstream and to me, time is so short we 
have no choice but to focus on policy makers and those in power. We must 
bring them to understanding, and I've met a number of them who really get it. 
They have been advised about the water and soils situations and they know we 
are screwed and they are downright panicky about the situation. They would 
like nothing better than a solution that is cheap and doable and will 
actually work. 

Slow and small solutions would include getting a CEO to agree to implement 
water catchment and reuse and other sustainable water use methods in all his 
100 facilities world wide. Yes, he still uses toxic chemicals- that's the 
next project. But he is now saving 1 million gallons of water per week. I 
appreciate those veterans who are addressing the mainstream. I also 
appreciate the radical "edge" that is pushing the rest- tthey both have their 
place in a diverse system and to the degree we cam find beneficial connection 
amonsgt ourselves and other elements of the system, we will sustain, grow and 
regenerate. 

Cory  




On Oct 24, 2010, at 5:39 PM, Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com> wrote:

Okay, this is one of my lengthy screeds. The more meaty stuff is toward the 
end. 

On Oct 23, 2010, at 4:23 PM, Killian O'Brien wrote:


Oh, Toby, do be careful when putting words in other's mouths.  . . . Read 
again, more carefully, or ask for clarification, please.

Well, here's what you wrote-

By making permaculture about money and formal certificates, you are 
preventing/slowing its spread . . .
. . . makes it the playground of the (relatively) elite. And I guess the 
assessors are chosen by acclaim or are self-appointed...? . . .  engage in 
cannibalistic behaviors . . . Unless this more rigorous certification process 
is going to be offered essentially for free, and that seems unlikely, it will 
do more harm than good.

It's impossible for me to take this in any other way than as condemnation of 
the Gaia U program and certification; if you meant it as support for multiple 
options, those words don't convey that. I don't think I've failed to read 
carefully. Whatever you were meaning, when we lead off with negative, 
emotionally loaded language, it gets people's hackles up from the start, and 
makes it likely that any calmer, constructive points made later--as you did 
make--will be lost. It's the same thing that happened with Kevin's original 
post about the Army PDC; he started with condemnations and complaints, and 
then wondered why the thoughtful questions he asked later were ignored. 


Money is just a proxy for all the various reasons people can't make it to 
courses. Got course fees covered? What about air fare? Lost work hours? Child 
care? And on and on. Your point is moot, imo.

No, it's not moot; it's at the heart of what you wrote: How do we spread this 
stuff? What I see from you is a list of perceived impediments that have been 
easily overcome.  People offer courses on the weekends, on a string of 
Saturdays, we offer child-care done by spouses (teachers or participants) who 
trade off, we offer local courses so there's no airfare, we offer parallel 
courses for their kids. There are people out there getting 30, 40, 70 
students, because they are creating those solutions. And those who hold cheap 
PDCs in crowded living rooms and advertise on the co-op bulletin board--maybe 
not you, but lots of teachers--complain that they can't fill their courses. 
They ignore useful tools that work, see only impediments, and then complain.

Certification, far from being an impediment, is what attracts people to these 
courses. You have to give people a tangible take home. The certificate is 
exactly that for most people, much more so than making a compost pile or a 
general grasp of systems thinking. Non-certificate courses tend not to 
attract as many people, and I hear that from all the teachers I talk 
to--which is quite a few. The answer is not to give it away and lower 
standards, not in this culture.

See, here's where I think we differ, and I'm going to say something very 
politically incorrect: I don't think that an effective way to spread 
permaculture is to target the poor or the radicals (although I won't 
discourage someone from doing that). You only change one person at a time 
that way. I think it is far more effective to offer it to policy makers, 
universities, planners, CEOs, developers--the elite, if you will. One CEO who 
pushes permaculture through to all employees, one Hollywood star who gets on 
Oprah, will make far more difference than a blockfull of anarchists or 
impoverished. It is still a top-down world; I don't like it but I will use it 
to my advantage. I know I will be pilloried for that, but I'm looking for 
leverage points, and that's where I see them. I've done the other--I've done 
PDCs for $40, and almost nothing came of them, maybe a keyhole bed in a 
backyard. My PDCs to professionals result in amazing projects that go on to be
 implemented in schools, go
vernments, neighborhoods, and businesses.


I said the solution proposed maintains structures of the past that are 
unlikely to apply in the future, as well as limiting access, so why not do it 
differently? 

Okay, this next is triggered by, but not a direct reply to, the above. On one 
hand, the way many current management and decision-making processes are used 
is indeed dysfunctional, overly hierarchical, based on continual growth, and 
all those other points. On the other hand, most of the replacements for them, 
like consensus, NVC, etc., are either little-tried, not well understood or 
understood in conflicting ways, easily mis-applied or stonewalled, and have 
other serious problems. There is, indeed, huge urgency in moving forward. But 
if we wait for these new tools to come on line, for everyone to agree how to 
use them, it will be too late. So it's a mistake to throw out the old tools 
right now, and that's why I think certification, clear rules, and common 
decision-making processes still have plenty of value. I doubt that the future 
will be so radical that certificates, degrees, committees, voting, listening 
to leaders, and other familiar ways of getting
 things done are going t
o disappear. There's the short version of the problem. Here's the long 
version, if that's not clear or you want more:

Having survived the sixties, I watched over and over as communities and 
groups would form, unhappy with the old ways, and they'd throw the rules out 
completely, and try to design a new way to be together.  Almost none of them 
lasted more than months; a fraction of 1% survive today. The impetus was 
honorable: end the patriarchy, etc, etc, but they had no functional tools to 
replace what they threw out, and in most cases, their efforts devolved into 
the ancient pattern of a few people under a charismatic leader, and everyone 
who disagreed with the boss left. We've learned a lot since then, and there 
are formal processes such as consensus that show promise. But hardly anyone 
really understands those new tools. They are counter-intuitive, and I would 
argue that in many cases, egalitarian methods like consensus go against our 
essential tribal nature as social pack animals who inherently look to strong, 
competent leaders. And I see us in a similar position to
 where we were in 1970.
 I hang around a lot of communities, and the complaint I hear over and over 
is that they love the community but consensus and related tools 
suck--"Nothing ever gets done, so why can't we just appoint committees and 
managers and move forward? I trust my peers to make good decisions without 
me." 

Years ago, I ran a business, and had a crew of really gifted employees. I 
went to them with a profit-sharing, co-management plan where they would have 
equal power in the business, and they said, "We just want to come to work, 
then go home and forget about the job. We see all the work you do, and we 
don't want to share it." If we wait until everyone is empowered and is a 
leader, we won't get there in time, and we will suffer from the "too many 
cooks" problem, which I see constantly in new endeavors. The process of 
reinvigorating the national permaculture institute right now is hamstrung by 
exactly this defect in consensus: no one is allowed to move until we all feel 
equally empowered. So we are stalled. I think the idea that we will evolve to 
"decentralized leadership structures" flies in the face of our human and 
animal nature; we respond to and need clear, focused leadership. What's 
lacking is accountability, not decent tools. God, the last thing I want
 is to have to partici
pate in every decision that affects me. I trust other people to be competent. 
So while we continue to hone newer and more equitable ways of sharing power 
and responsibility, many of the current methods, applied at the right scale, 
work very well, are comprehended by the mainstream and thus are more likely 
to be followed, and will get us there faster.

Another example: there are tours in many cities of "sustainable living 
examples" or the like. The ones that look like hippie houses are scoffed at 
by most of those on the tours. The ones that look like familiar houses get 
people excited. They aren't as "sustainable" as the hippie houses, but they 
get far more people on board. And then, once they are on board, we can move 
them yet farther. We need to meet people where they are, start with what they 
are familiar with. Few can make a giant paradigm shift as the first step, and 
it's a pipe dream to expect it as prerequisite for a solution.

We know that the big parts of the system are broken: national government, big 
corporations and banks, etc. But the same tools that work so badly at huge 
scale, when they are applied at small scale--local government, small 
non-profits and business, independent schools, committees, charismatic 
leaders--still work very well. I think we need to work with what we have at 
the same time we work on the replacements. If we insist on everyone learning 
new tools before we start, we will not get there in time. You cannot get 
anywhere if you don't start from where you are.

This is written fairly quickly; I hope that instead of nit-picking over the 
parts that aren't well developed you'll try to follow my intent. 

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


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