permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

Scott Pittman wrote:

> Don't know what to tell you Paul, my grandmother would say "that boy would
> argue with a fence post!"  

I don't even think the fence post is necessary. Thanks for that wonderful 
Texas-ism, Scott.

Jason and Paul, you boys play nice, now. Blame the frickin' internet and its 
infinite capacity to sustain misunderstandings! You're both doing awesome 
stuff. Paul, I've seen Jason in action, and I'd definitely give him the title 
Duke (or Prince, even) of Colorado permaculture (I think Jerome Osentowski's 
got the kingship sewn up for now). 

Paul, thanks for this clarification:

> So then I encounter a farmer that loves his herbicides.  And I wish to
> persuade him about a quarter pound of stuff that would guide him away
> from the herbicides.  He is starting to beleive me and is starting to
> see a path where might stop using the herbicides ...  mostly because
> his net income would improve ....   and then somebody jumps in and
> says "you don't get to use the quarter of a pound of stuff, until you
> eat all of the infinite pounds."

That helps me see where you are coming from (I was pretty sure neither one of 
us was an idiot). I do occasionally see zealots who say you have to drink all 
the Kool-Aid or you can't have any, but they are pretty rare. Your focus is 
on getting people to take any step in the right direction, and you're good at 
that, and I'm with you there. My main focus tho, because of the way my mind 
works, is to crank out fully trained permaculture thinkers and actors. So 
we're looking at different parts of the elephant (or I'm trying to train the 
whole elephant and you're trying to get him to lift his foot off of your 
bike). 

So you're right in that we need to meet people where they are. In your 
(other, useful) terminology, you are trying to get the pesticide-using farmer 
to move from level 9 to level 8 (with Mollison et al being at level 1), or 
even just to level 8.9999. So you don't even need to use the word 
permaculture, let alone mention the ethics. And I'm looking for people who 
want to end up at level 3 or 2, no matter what level they're at now. So they 
need to know how to use to guide their decision-making: how does their action 
increase earthcare, how does it do peoplecare, and how do they design for the 
surplus that it will create? But, yeah, like Jason says, all that farmer 
needs to know is a little soil science, not the ethics. When he's ready to 
practice permaculture design, they we can hit him with the ethics, as there 
will be a niche for it in his mind by then.

I think Koreen and Jason are right in that permaculture is well used as an 
adjective. It's a process, not a thing. The ethics and principles guide the 
process, and keep us from using cookie-cutter solutions, which is what 
happens if you think it is a thing.

Sepp's adoption of the word "permaculture" for his work is something I've 
wondered about. I know he didn't use permaculture design to create his place; 
he did it out of his innate skill in observation and understanding natural 
systems. Because of that it ended up looking much like a permaculture design. 
I suspect that when he encountered permaculture, he made a shrewd 
decision--and boy, is he shrewd. Rather than reinvent and try to market his 
work as "Holzerism" or whatever, starting from scratch, he saw that it made 
much more sense to use his work to jump high up into the permaculture 
hierarchy, and was able to immediately become one of the most highly regarded 
permaculturists. I don't mean that as a criticism or opportunism (in a 
negative sense), but it worked out very well for him. His site seems more 
"permaculture in hindsight" than permaculture design, if I can quibble. And I 
doubt if he mentions the ethics, or even the principles.

Congrats to us all for surviving another end of the world prophecy. Happy 
2013.

Toby