To: "Gaden@ziplip.com" <Gaden@ziplip.com>, permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc:
Subject: Re: [permaculture] On the edge
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 18:15:55 -0700
Delighted to hear your response, Gaiden, and I'm in thorough and
complete agreement with just about everything, and enjoyed the post
immensely--beautiful summary of Illich/Gatto/Toffler; I've read bits of
all but it's been a long time. (We're sorta doing a kiss-and-make-up
thing here, and I'm glad to.) I've been impressed with the intelligence
behind your other posts and was thinking "Hey, here's someone I'd like
to get to know (I read a lot of sci-fi, too)." Then our views diverged,
and I was disappointed. And of course, now I see we're not so far
apart. I'm not even sure we've had that different a set of experiences,
just that we were looking at different ends of the horse. And it would
have been helpful had I said "marketable skills."
Sure, training gets you a job, but I agree, a job doing what?
Participating in a direct descendent of feudalism and serfdom. I gave
up on being a hippie cabinetmaker at about age 30 and got a nice
corporate job, and was making a bunch of money and getting fast
promotions (I had an expensive education to make me a good "system
player"), but was reallllly bored. Then I realized, "Wow, to climb the
corporate ladder and make tons of dough all I have to do is exactly
what's expected of me, plus have a good idea (useful to the corp.) a
couple of times a year." That really woke me up--how unchallenging--and
I quit before I'd used up my whole life there.
Skills: I live in a very poor county, that until the 1980s was almost
totally dependent on forest products. The industry crashed, putting
thousands of local loggers and millworkers out of work--people who
really knew the woods, and many who knew they were destroying it but
wanted the money. They stayed unemployed until the early nineties. By
then, the local economy was recovering because retirees were moving
here (southern Oregon) for the nice climate and lovely country. The
ex-loggers were still poor but getting creative. For a while it looked
like we might develop a novel, multiple-use forest economy based on the
loggers' knowledge, with ecotourism, crafts, furniture, mushrooms,
firewood, etc., that might have even been sustainable since there are
so few people here. Then the Feds started a logger retraining program,
and now a lot of loggers are hospice workers and nurse's aides, but a
lot of them are just working at the Wal-Marts that sprang up to sell to
the retirees. They are making money again, but the woods still get
butchered with clearcuts instead of being stewarded, and now non-local
corporations control most of our once-local economy, from retirement
homes to hospitals to much of the timber. So I get the point about
skillsets and their effects.
Good stuff. Speedy continued recovery from the tropical uglies, Gaiden.