Subject: [Permaculture] "Forward" and "Back"/ Discussing Solutions

From: eric + michiko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1999 22:38:03 -0700

This ended up long and rambling, but I think it goes somewhere - not
necessarily where I had intended, but . . .  : )

Greg wrote:
> Many utopian systems I've read about speak of essentially throwing
> away most if not all technology and basically shifting back to "the
> simpler times" of agriarian societies from hundreds of years ago. I
> believe this is dead wrong, and completely pointless, given the
> current state and size of the human population. We need to move
> forward, not go back. This means continuing to support and develop
> and embrace new technologies of all kinds to solve some of the
> problems we have created for ourselves in this current mess,

I do agree that some (many?) utopian visions are too quick to throw out
everything we have learned and done since the turn of the century or the
industrial revolution.  This is an overreaction to the problems we have:
"Things are bad, so let's start all over."  It also assumes that things
were "better" at the specific time they want to go back to; this is usually
overly romantic and often inaccurate.  I think it is possible and desirable
to take from all past and current societies those things that are good and
will help do what we are trying to do.  We aren't clear enough on what we
are trying to do to know which things are "good".

Greg, you used the phrase "given the current state and size of the human
population" to explain (one reason?) why you thought this was not a good
approach.  Then you said, "We need to move forward, not go back." without
explaining why _this_ approach is better.  Our current uses of technology
have not done well (I'm thinking specifically about the environment and
population).  Since I assume that you are not just seeing it as an "either
/ or" question, you must have chosen your ideas over some of the other
possible approaches.  Could you go into more detail about how you made that
decision?

The you said that going forward leads to, "continuing to support and
develop and embrace new technologies of all kinds".  If "forward" refers to
time, why would it lead to technological solutions?  I am making a large
assumption here; I assume that by "technology" you are referring to things
like computers, fuel efficient cars, solar wind and micro hydro power,
machines, industry, genetic engineering, space programs, etc.   

If "forward" means forward in time, we have no choice but to go forward.
"Back" could really only refer to some time or place we have been before,
so I guess it best refers to giving up more recent things and starting
again from a set of technologies and beliefs of an earlier time.  This use
of the word forward has little relevance, so I'd rather use it to mean, at
best, improvement, or, at least, stumbling along in a general direction.
Since we do not really know that what we will try next is an improvement,
it would seem impossible to purposefully move forward, and only possible to
attempt to move forward, if forward means improvement.  At best we could
chose a direction to head in that we believe to be better than where we are
or have been.  In the end we'll go where ever the combined tugs and pulls
of all forces take us.  This all leads me to think that "forward" and
"back" really aren't that useful for discussing these ideas, but they do
seem to hold some kind of idea because they do appear frequently in these
kinds of discussions.

John wrote:
> Quite a few wise folks have pointed out that it is unlikely that more of our
> "technology" (whatever that is) can save us from the messes we've made with
> our technology.

This reminded me of something I read recently.  It went something like this:

Without much forethought, a man drilled a hole in the bottom of his boat.
As the water rushed in threatening to sink the boat he had the brilliant
idea of drilling more holes to let the water drain out. Needless to say the
boat sank while he continued to drill holes.

John continued:
> . . .It's what we do with "technology," not what it "is," that
> matters - and the underlying manner in which we use it does not necessarily
> change with the creation of "new" technologies (it certainly hasn't
> lately...).  

I don't think it is that easy to write off the "what it is" part. Yes,
_how_ we use a technology is very important as well as to what purposes we
put it.  But the type of technology is also important.  With the _possible_
exception of a well thought out use over a short period to achieve a
specific goal when no other option is available, unsustainable technologies
are harmful and unfair and should be avoided.  Nuclear power / weapons and
genetic engineering come to mind as good examples of technologies that
should be avoided in general.  I can't see such technologies being put to
any good large enough to justify their negative effects.  I suppose this is
another way to look at _how_ a technology is used, since if we can't find a
good way of using them we shouldn't use them at all.  Perhaps these are
just two sides of the same coin.

John again:
> This is a challenge permaculture faces...a big one, I think...how to avoid
> becoming another bundle of technologies, methods, and techniques without
> adequate attention to *how* they are being applied (underlying cultural
> habits - the "culture" in permaculture?) and the consequences thereof.

I think this gets at what John was saying (correct me if I'm wrong!).
There need to be ethical guidelines to help guide a society's actions.
Without them many seemingly harmless technologies or activities can become
meaningless or even harmful.  I always had some trouble with the idea of
using large machinery to get a Permaculture system up and going quickly
with the rational that over the lifetime of the system it would be worth
it.  I see such a system starting out with an "environmental mortgage" to
pay off before the real benefits can be counted.  It seems to have the same
problems and root causes as the house mortgage and credit card overuse.  Or
another example I heard last night, "There might be 5000 square foot
environmentally friendly homes, but not 5000 square foot socially
responsible homes."  These kinds of "mistakes" come from shallow thinking.
We need to learn to be more deeply consistent and consistently deep.

In our society we have become afraid of ethics because of fundamentalists'
abuse of them.  But this is an overreaction.  We _need_ ethics to make
sense of what we do.  We don't have to agree on a lot of details, but as a
society, we do have to agree (or at least keep an open debate going) on
some basic ideas.  Without some form of guidelines, a society will drift in
the direction of the most powerful, which in our society that means
wealthy.  I was glad to see that Bill Mollison included ethics in
Permaculture, but I do not see them consistently applied or even considered.

(Warning - short tirade ahead!)

Too many people take the easy (seductive but harmful, in my opinion) route
by adopting the ethical relativism that says, "What I believe to be right,
is right for me; You may have a different belief, and so what is right for
you may be different".  It sounds very diplomatic, democratic and tolerant,
but look deeper at it.  It's basically saying that nothing is "right", and
we can do what ever we want.  Some will generously add, "as long as it
doesn't hurt anyone else", but this is often not followed through very far,
ending up "as long as I don't do anything worse than what others are
doing".  If nothing is right in a general sense, then how do I decide what
is right for myself?  Doesn't it just lead to some other definition of
"right" and lead to an avoidance of discussion about what is right because
we might not agree?  This seems like a childish way of avoiding something
because it is difficult.  I recognize the difficulty of agreeing on what is
right, but the nice thing is we don't have to agree on everything.  By
avoiding such discussions we weaken our abilities to think about ethics,
which certainly does not lead in a very good direction - as I think our
current society proves.

(End of tirade)

So where am I going with all of this?  It's not a question of going forward
or back.  Instead we need to begin an open on going discussion in our
society (homes, communities, schools, offices, clubs, churches, political
campaigns, media, etc.)about what is right, what direction we'd like to
head toward, what is important, what do we value, how we will go about
making the changes we feel we need to make, etc.  Once we clarify some
basic guidelines, or at least get a sense of the general direction and
values, the steps become clear and more importantly the motivation to move
in a given direction becomes stronger.  Along the way we should keep the
dialog, and our minds, open as we see what happens, so that we can react
and adapt and further clarify what we are trying to do.  We'll still end up
where ever the combined tugs and pulls of all forces take us, but the tugs
and pulls will reflect our values and intentions.

I better stop here!

Live, Learn, Laugh, Love!

Eric Storm

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From: John Schinnerer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 13:19:49 -0700

Aloha,

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	eric + michiko [SMTP:[email-masked]]

Close enough, and...I make a distinction between "ethics" and "morals" as
follows:  when I tell someone else what is "right" for them (how "it" should
be, how they should act, live, think, etc.) or they do likewise to me, I
call that moralizing - dealing in morals, desiring to specify (and control)
the behavior of others.  When I decide what is "right" for myself and live
it, act it, etc. those are my ethics.

I make this distinction because these are two very different manners of
living and I find it important to distinguish them using different words.
If I like, adopt and live the permaculture ethics "by example," as best I
can, great - they become part of my ethics, for better or worse, and
hopefully I am attending to the consequences of my actions and setting what
I feel is a positive example for others.  If I use them as a club to batter
other people's behavior and tell them how they should live, I become a
moralizer, just like countless political and religious organizations,
individuals, etc.. 

>meaningless or even harmful.

And the *scale* of the technology, or the scale it is applied at if it is
variable, can be a deciding factor in the harm/no harm equation... 

>I always had some trouble with the idea of
>pay off before the real benefits can be counted.  

In wanting to use heavy equipment to swale millions of acres somewhere (as
one example, from Scott's post), we *may* make a mistake of understanding
and/or scale because 1) we assume that that is the thing to do, and 2) if a
little of it is good in some contexts, more of it will be even better (and
even in other contexts).  

This is a *pattern* of thinking and acting that I see as having gotten us
(and plenty of previous cultures!) into our current ecological messes, to
wit:

"If X is good (and we know it is, because we are the pinnacle of knowledge,
understanding and civilization), more of X is better, and we know enough
about everything (because we are the pinnacle of knowledge, understanding
and civilization) to be sure that more and more of X will not be harmful.
Oh, and the faster we can do X, the better."

If I do X "to da max" within the limits of human/biological power, harm will
be limited by the scale of what I can do using that power source and/or the
time it takes, if it turns out I have made a mistake.  If I utilize
non-renewable power to do it on a huge scale and/or very quickly relative to
the systems affected, and I have made a mistake, the consequences will
likely be huge as well.

Also, looking at biological systems, I observe that there is an *optimum*
for everything in such systems.  More is not necessarily better, and will
sooner or later be fatal.

David Orr refers to "slow knowledge" and "fast knowledge," and I extrapolate
corresponding modes of action with corresponding attributes...

>It seems to have the same

Ah-HO!  I'd say to stop questioning all that we do *and* how we do it is to
go looking for trouble.  To rush is also to go looking for trouble.

John Schinnerer

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From: Scott Pittman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 11:26:36 -0700 (PDT)

>go looking for trouble.  To rush is also to go looking for trouble.
beyond the obvious of being deeply consistent (though I wonder if you are
consistently involved in destructive behaviour wouldn't deeply consistent be
a little much?) and consistently deep with your thought process and trying
to understand all of the repercussions of your acts could you then, perhaps,
move beyond the digging stick in an attempt to restore what has been destroyed?

I've just returned from a month in Africa where deserts are being created
systematically and shovel technology is just not an option if one wants to
begin the process of pushing the desert back.  It is very difficult for me
to go along with the school of minimalism in the face of starvation,
dessication, and loss of plant and animal life.

Of course! we have to be very careful and thoughtful. Of course! we need to
do small trials before engaging in vast experiments.  My point is that the
thinking, care, and trials have been done and now it is time to get off our
timorous butts and get to work. I hope this doesn't mean I am a "shallow
thinker"
Scott
 
Scott Pittman

Permaculture Institute, USA
PO Box 3702, Pojoaque, NM 87501  US
phone 505.455.0270

*********
Ingenio Patet Campus

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From: John Schinnerer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 13:02:17 -0700

Aloha,

> From:	Scott Pittman [SMTP:[email-masked]]
>...could you then, perhaps,

I don't recall either Eric or myself mentioning limiting ourselves to
digging sticks (although a shovel is just a digging stick with shaped metal
on one end... ;-).  I don't imagine that I know how to "restore" what has
been "destroyed" at an industrial scale.

>My point is that the
>thinking, care, and trials have been done ...

Well, I simply disagree, and I'm happy to leave it at that.  A couple of
decades or so of small-scale exploration and experimentation in systems that
spent hundreds and even thousands of years evolving the complexity that we
observe them to have seems woefully inadequate preparation for
industrial-scale intervention into those systems.

>...and now it is time to get off our
>timorous butts and get to work.

No question about that!  I'll stick to grassroots, primarily human-scale
work and let others attempt the industrial-scale work if they feel they
must.  It will be interesting to see what comes of it.

John Schinnerer

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