permaculture

[ChildrensPeaceGuild <childrenspeaceguild@yahoo.com>]

Jason,
I'm not commenting either on the original article or your response, but just 
letting folks know that it can sometimes take a day or two before comments 
show up on PRI's website. Perhaps that's responsible for the delay?


Best wishes,
Roman 

Children's Permaculture Guild




________________________________
 From: Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org 
Sent: Saturday, September 7, 2013 8:51 AM
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Trojan Horses and Permaculture
 

Toby's new article was posted on PRI's website, I tried to comment, but am
guessing I have been censored since I didn't bow down to Geoff Lawton. Just
trying to have my comment heard, somewhat futile to post it here, but in
case anyone is interested. It might seem out of context without reading the
comments on PRI. Craig Mckintosh (PRI editor) if you are reading, maybe you
can tell me what happened to my comment, and if I am wrong in my assumption
I apologize in advance.

---
Geoff I am so surprised you would claim that the PDM is basically a
flawless toolkit that can be applied wholesale. You should research the
numerous errors in that text (I’m aware that a lot of what is in there
works too)? I absolutely love Bill Mollison (and PDM) and respect your
teaching a ton, but what good does it do to insist that something with so
many flaws is perfect? This book is a main reason, in my conversations with
agro-ecologists, why scientists discount permaculture as phony science.

It’s not actually the hippy memes that are discrediting permaculture for a
lot of people; for a ton of people it was Bill Mollison himself.
Sustainable/Organic agriculture conferences are full of obvious hippy
types, and they are often the ones paid to speak! Scientists abound in
these conferences as well, and they all listen to and learn from each other
(gasp!).

The Permaculture I know and have worked in for the last 10 years embraces
all the contributions that people have made to the field, not just blindly
following Mollison. Mollison is a genius, obviously, but the founders of
new fields are often eccentric and prone to exaggeration, so there is no
need to accept his words as the holy gospel.

How I read Toby's article is that we need strategies, recipes, etc, that
can lure people beyond the following-the-steps-approach and become pattern
literate critical thinkers. If all we ever do is follow the recipes of PDM
and others, we miss our chance to develop new ways of doing things (and
will make a ton of errors in the process). Basically the PDM has taken the
work of tons of pattern literate critical thinkers and put it into a manual
(I will hesitate to call it a recipe book). Yes, a lot of it works and is
sheer brilliance, and we should replicate that, but we should also be
encouraging the development of new ideas and thinking in our students
rather than just telling them what to do. It’s the old adage ‘don’t just
tell me WHAT to think, teach me HOW to think’.

Lastly, permaculture obviously means a lot of different things to different
people. I no longer hope we can agree on what the term actually means. We
have to remember that Permaculture is not the goal, it too is a Trojan
horse. The goal is to make our actions have positive effects on ecosystems
and to make such action and skills a regular/normalized aspect of human
culture. Permaculture is a finger pointing to the moon. If you get stuck
looking at the finger, you miss the whole point.
-- 
Jason Gerhardt

PO Box 4355
Boulder, CO 80306
720-496-9744
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>From christopher.nesbitt@mmrfbz.org  Sat Sep  7 17:11:14 2013
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Jason,

I posted an article there, and they moderate comments to avoid spam, so until 
someone reads it, it won't get posted.

Best wishes,

Christopher


_____________________________
Christopher Nesbitt

Maya Mountain Research Farm
San Pedro Columbia, Toledo
PO 153 Punta Gorda Town, Toledo
BELIZE, 
Central America

Country code 501-630-4386

www.mmrfbz.org
www.facebook.com/MayaMountainResearchFarm




On Sep 7, 2013, at 2:10 PM, ChildrensPeaceGuild wrote:

> Jason,
> I'm not commenting either on the original article or your response, but 
> just letting folks know that it can sometimes take a day or two before 
> comments show up on PRI's website. Perhaps that's responsible for the delay?
> 
> 
> Best wishes,
> Roman 
> 
> Children's Permaculture Guild
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org 
> Sent: Saturday, September 7, 2013 8:51 AM
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Trojan Horses and Permaculture
> 
> 
> Toby's new article was posted on PRI's website, I tried to comment, but am
> guessing I have been censored since I didn't bow down to Geoff Lawton. Just
> trying to have my comment heard, somewhat futile to post it here, but in
> case anyone is interested. It might seem out of context without reading the
> comments on PRI. Craig Mckintosh (PRI editor) if you are reading, maybe you
> can tell me what happened to my comment, and if I am wrong in my assumption
> I apologize in advance.
> 
> ---
> Geoff I am so surprised you would claim that the PDM is basically a
> flawless toolkit that can be applied wholesale. You should research the
> numerous errors in that text (I�m aware that a lot of what is in there
> works too)? I absolutely love Bill Mollison (and PDM) and respect your
> teaching a ton, but what good does it do to insist that something with so
> many flaws is perfect? This book is a main reason, in my conversations with
> agro-ecologists, why scientists discount permaculture as phony science.
> 
> It�s not actually the hippy memes that are discrediting permaculture for a
> lot of people; for a ton of people it was Bill Mollison himself.
> Sustainable/Organic agriculture conferences are full of obvious hippy
> types, and they are often the ones paid to speak! Scientists abound in
> these conferences as well, and they all listen to and learn from each other
> (gasp!).
> 
> The Permaculture I know and have worked in for the last 10 years embraces
> all the contributions that people have made to the field, not just blindly
> following Mollison. Mollison is a genius, obviously, but the founders of
> new fields are often eccentric and prone to exaggeration, so there is no
> need to accept his words as the holy gospel.
> 
> How I read Toby's article is that we need strategies, recipes, etc, that
> can lure people beyond the following-the-steps-approach and become pattern
> literate critical thinkers. If all we ever do is follow the recipes of PDM
> and others, we miss our chance to develop new ways of doing things (and
> will make a ton of errors in the process). Basically the PDM has taken the
> work of tons of pattern literate critical thinkers and put it into a manual
> (I will hesitate to call it a recipe book). Yes, a lot of it works and is
> sheer brilliance, and we should replicate that, but we should also be
> encouraging the development of new ideas and thinking in our students
> rather than just telling them what to do. It�s the old adage �don�t just
> tell me WHAT to think, teach me HOW to think�.
> 
> Lastly, permaculture obviously means a lot of different things to different
> people. I no longer hope we can agree on what the term actually means. We
> have to remember that Permaculture is not the goal, it too is a Trojan
> horse. The goal is to make our actions have positive effects on ecosystems
> and to make such action and skills a regular/normalized aspect of human
> culture. Permaculture is a finger pointing to the moon. If you get stuck
> looking at the finger, you miss the whole point.
> -- 
> Jason Gerhardt
> 
> PO Box 4355
> Boulder, CO 80306
> 720-496-9744
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> subscribe/unsubscribe|user config|list info|make a donation toward list 
> maintenance:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> message archives:  https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture/
> Google message archive search:
> site: lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture [searchstring]
> Permaculture Institute USA http://permaculture.org
> Avant Geared  http://www.avantgeared.com
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> subscribe/unsubscribe|user config|list info|make a donation toward list 
> maintenance:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> message archives:  https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture/
> Google message archive search:
> site: lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/permaculture [searchstring]
> Permaculture Institute USA http://permaculture.org
> Avant Geared  http://www.avantgeared.com