Subject: Re: Archy

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 10:39:30 -0500 (EST)

Ah, we seem to be clarifying our differences.

First, anarchy is not chaos, though they are seen the same by people whose
values are permeated by hierachical assumpts.  Bill, like many academics of
his generation, uses anarchy when he means chaos, and thus compounds the
confusion.

While I have to agree with Jack that of course words represent the way we
perceive things and what we think about them, nonetheless many words have a
useful correspondence to reality.  We can see anarchy in nature and hierachy
in human societal arrangements that invariably destroy nature.  

Perhaps a definition of anarchy is in order.  As used by people who practice
it, anarchy is a lateral and spontaneous organization of dynamic elements.
These elements function according to their intrinsic nature, in response as
always to circumstances.  

In a mature ecosystem, the circumstances or context is co-evolved with the
intrinsic nature of organisms and of course the physical environment is
modified to be generally more consistent and useful to the organisms, or
ecosystem as a whole.  Within the ecosystem are dances, if you will, where
apparent competition on the small scale promotes the health of the whole.  An
example that was slightly misused earlier in this discussion is the process
of succession.  Pioneer species, which are more adaptable, are displaced by
species characteristic of a more mature arrangement, which are less adaptable
but more efficient in their proscribed environment.  While this is tough luck
for the individual aspen tree that is supplanted by red maple and black
birch, it is useful for the system as a whole.  More total life evolves,
interestingly, on an inverse log scale, that is at a progressively slower and
slower rate of establishment.  Turnovers to new orders of efficiency in
ecosystems are not unheard of, for example where an entirely new biotic
arrangement increases the weight per unit area of fish that are possible to
support in a given pond.  However such instances are most rare.  Generally,
disruption of mature systems reduces efficiency (the ability to use, store,
and pass around resources against the tide of entropy) by orders of
magnitude.  

While a red maple may shade out an aspen and in turn be crowded out by a ash,
which loses its place to a sugar maple, they are all necessary because the
forest ecosystem, in this instance, like the rest of us, only imperfectly
blends the total environment to its will.  Drought, fire and worst, people,
disrupt things and so there are mechanisms within the forest for reverse
succession, beavers and porcupines, for example, and currants that can carry
white pine blister rust,e tc., depending on the degree to which the forests
potential can develop in a given site. (E.g., there are fire ridges
characterized by shallow soils and frequent lightening strikes where veins of
white pine were the final overstory species according to reports of early
European invaders to the east coast of North America.)  Through many, many
mechanisms, the forest (as one example) is self-regulating--it responds to
disturbances beyond its control by mobilizing its pioneer species.  And to do
this, it must create its own disturbances to be locally less productive, so
that the pioneer species have places to persist and set seed against future
"external" disturbance."  This is the sort of self-regulation we seek to
design into permaculture, in large part because Bill has drawn our attention
to it.  No species is in charge.  Everything need only respond according to
its nature.  The word anarchy is thus the closest we get in the West to the
concept of Taoism, wherein we do not pretend to control or ochestrate but to
fulfill what seems to be our natures.  Find a niche and fill it might be a
Taoist maxim, though it can be interpreted in other ways, as this discussion
shows.

While the ecosystem seems to have intelligence as a whole, again in my view,
based on deep immersion in ecosystems, no single species is in charge.  A
species disrupts and destroys existing arrangements at its on peril.  Note
the recent discussion on this list of exotics.  

Our species is clearly the most adaptive of the vascular organisms, though a
few symbionts such as chickens and dogs are right up there.  With the
capacity to imagine, we can envision what might be and affect events to bring
reality closer to the vision.  We can also imagine that it is possible to be
in charge.  This sets us, in our minds, outside of the system and has allowed
us to do the harm that requires permaculture to mitigate.  Permaculture, as I
have said earlier on this list, cannot succeed except if it is a transition
to a genuine culture of place, where we learn to fit in once again, and cease
attempts at domination.  

We obviously now have many different values within the general scope of
permaculture.  Bill is always prioritizing and setting hierachies.  I think
this is an error.  However in my own work, beign formed with roughly the same
influences than Bill though a decade later, I see myself automatically
prioritize.  Luckily, I have a wife who sees my inconsistencies and points
them out.  This is some help in the doing my best to be among the first
generation to take the permaculture laxitive and shit this control stuff out
of my bowles.  However only by admitting my struggle to I give encouragement
to the generations to follow.

This process of changing our world view is a slow one and the enemies of the
direction we seek control incredibly seductive resources of materialism and
media. If we seek to control these, in my view, we put our attempts at
integrity at risk.

One more note on hierachy and arnachy--well two.  First, sequencing may not
be hierachy or it may.  Staging is the most acute weakness of all
permaculture designs I have ever seen--building the bridge between now and
vision is far harder than the vision.  To the extent that the sequence comes
out of the inherent conditions and natures of the elements, it is consistent
with anarchy.  

The other point has to do with assumptions of abundance and scarcity.  An
anarchistic society assumes abundance overall and takes responsibility to
protect what is threatened.  Or at least it is in the scope of such societies
to do so and they have done so with remarkable consistency.  Even canabals
will protect a threatened mussel, as noted in the Maori accounts of their
background. Hierachy assumes that control is necessary to regulate scarce
resources.  The assumption of scarcity promotes scarcity.  It is possible to
take a simplistic view of these statements that I do not intend.  Starving
people in a degraded landscape will not, obviously, have plenty because they
"manifest" lots of food through a conversion of belief.  I think that sort of
nonsense is what provokes some of the bitterness regarding the "new age" that
we saw recently on this list.
However beliefe that overall the universe is a place of abundance is indeed
one necessary condition among many in rectifying the food shortage.
 Permaculture has many, many tools for self-reliance, as we all know, and
bringing them into play though careful thought and hard work is necessary.
 While the ultimate permaculture design may be self-regulating and permit
idyllic dewelling by human inhabitants, we have to work hard to put many of
the pieces back into place.  In my view, having survived, somehow -- well by
walking away when I saw my error -- control tactics such as legislative
lobbying and getting to write environmental and food system regulations, we
are best served by seeking a collective sense of direction, rather than
following a prepackaged one.  

I do not doubt the sincerity of people who differ and who are in the business
of prepackaging services, some of which I may well seriously consider as
better than the other prepackaged services available to me.  Had I, along
with the 2,500 other North American permaculturists, been consulted, some
very useful suggestions may have developed that can help insulate the very
dangerous corporate formate used, avoid the impression (and/or reality) of a
few making decisions for the many, and actually move us toward a collective
intelligence that characterized ecosystems, as well as some groups of our
species, at its best.

This is not design by committee, which I abjure as well.  It is consutation
of the parties involved before beginning on a design for them, including
soliciting their ideas.  My grown children solicit my views regularly on
various aspects of their life--they do so because they know that there is no
expectation other than they consider them carefully if they ask for them.  

Offering some form of advanced certification is of course a good idea, in
particular.  We have offered this for more than 10 years and there has been
little interest in paying for the personalized service required.  I'd love to
see someone succeed and it is better someone else as I have too much to do
already.  Though I will continue to be available as an alternative.  What I
have not done, and what I feel others should not do short of nomination by
some collective process, is presume that we are an offical permaculture body
of North America.  

I think we have pretty well explicated the differences here.  Anyone
interested in a discussion on pasture renvoation?

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
courses via email.  Next starts in Oct. 1997. Internships available.
Copyright, 1997, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192 USA
 [email-masked]  

If its not in our food chain, we're not thinking.