permaculture

[Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>]

Lawrence,
My comment is clearly out of context on this listserv, which is why I said
it is somewhat futile. You misinterpreted my points without the context of
PRI site and my history disagreeing with them. I agree with everything you
said, and all my comments come in relation to the other comments on PRI. No
need to go there and get sucked in. I fell for that trap enough. I love
hippies and Bill Mollison, and everyone, yourself included. Just trying to
jolt some minds over there to see things a slightly different way. That was
probably futile too.
Jason


On Sat, Sep 7, 2013 at 9:51 AM, Jason Gerhardt <jasongerhardt@gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>



-- 

PO Box 4355
Boulder, CO 80306
720-496-9744