Future Thoughts / Vision

This is a cross post:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/derrickjensen_discussion/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ishmael-dc/
http://yoism.org/pipermail/discussion/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OurCultureOurCapitol/

Permaculture: I mention Toby Hemenway's book

DerrickJensen: his work is strongly anti-civ and pointed me
to John Zerzan (actually, it was Raphael of the
EcovillageBelize group)

Ishmael-DC: Yes I think my experience Sunday would have been
different were I female.

Yoism: lionizing Orion and Other Yos as leaders

OurCultureOurCapitol: That's what this is about!

-------

I recently sent out an email about an encounter with the 12
tribes:
http://yoism.org/pipermail/discussion/2003-July/001079.html

There was some discussion of it on the ISH-dc list and the
yoism list.

I've decided to share further some other related thoughts.

My thinking is simple, and not necessarily logical, but I
believe it leads somewhere helpful, otherwise I'd stay
quiet.

My interpretation of John Zerzan and other neo-primitive
theorists is that they suggest that civilization, even
language, ritual, dance, numbers, are symptoms of modern
humans' disconnection from living close to nature, symptoms
of our disconnection from the way humans used to live for
hundreds of thousands of years.

I've also interpreted neo-primitivism to suggest that if
humans were to return to that way of life we would be more
fully engaged in living and more content than we are now.

For me personally, I've taken this to mean: yes, I can head
to the woods or the rivers or oceans, and I can learn to
live close to the land, and I will be much more fully
engaged in living and more content and healthy than I am
now. (To the extent I've begun to do this already, this
hypothesis has been supported.)


But I've also considered, "What about all the other people
who like me will still be growing up in the suburbs,
unhappy, having to overcome what I overcame (don't laugh too
hard), while I'm out here in the forest living well and
physically active off worms and squirrels and pawpaw fruit?
Can I remain content out here aware of so much misery that I
might be able to help alleviate?" Or to remember a quote I
think I heard, "If you're not for others, then what are you
for?"

It has also occurred to me that my time in the wilderness
would be helped by being around others with similar goals
and skills I can learn from.

There are, in fact, projects which appear to address both
the desire to live primitively and the desire to work with
and to help others.


http://www.dreamwater.net/edu/desertpeople/ (or try the google cache)
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:v-9BpEnQ49MJ:www.dreamwater.net/edu/desertpeople/+desert+people+baja&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

--

Even as I think that though, It seems I may have benefitted
a lot from the internet, and that perhaps there are benefits
of civilization that I would miss (libraries, dance classes,
learning about primitive skills I wouldn't otherwise know),
simply because I am not someone who has grown up the way
humans used to grow up for 1,000s of years. The natural
world has not been drawing me as much as the internet has.
In part that is because I haven't been listening...

So I hedge my bets, putting my effort behind more civilized
projects, like carfreecity.us: working to build a carfree
city in US.

I practice my web programming skills so that I can be
helpful to others in ways besides squirrel skinning (but
mostly, though, because I have ideas I want to communicate
and realize and I want the capabilities to help me and
others do that on the internet). But, am I spending more
time at a sedentary activity causing others and my self to
be more sedentary than we would be otherwise? Or is my work
ultimately leading to, in myself and in others, action,
change, and living a life closer to nature?

here are some thoughts on the carfree city that came up
recently:


> I can imagine (don't know if it's possible) creating a broad
> coalition of all sorts of groups (as I mentioned in one
> early brain-storm to the BuildACarFreeCity list), from
> Indian tribes to religious tribes (e.g.
> http://twelvetribes.com ), to integral institutes
> (http://integralinstitute.org)... well, the list goes on,
> who all wish to have a site in the US carfree city. It could
> potentially be the physical location of the next
> renaissance.
>
> I wouldn't wish for one religious group to dominate, but
> rather for there to be a diversity of groups...
>
> Of course, all that is even more pie-in-the-sky than a city
> that simply has no cars. But, as I think I mentioned
> earlier on the BACFC list, a city without cars that has the
> cultural depth and diversity of Northern Virginia suburbia
> (if that is possible), does not excite me, while a CFC that
> has Buddhist Monks, Conservative Mennonites, Hasidic Jews,
> Dancers, and some Hydrologists, does.
>
> That is off-topic (although, vision and P.R. will be
> important), and I am enthusiastic to help even with
> communities that have the cultural depth of Northern
> Virginia (e.g., a factory town, where the product and
> customer is federal government and another product is
> adolescents who perkily say, "I'm a prep!"). The vision of a
> city I might dream of for myself has a lot more than no
> cars... Perhaps a city of ecovillages of different tribes- a
> Disneyland Theme Park, but with authenticity, including a
> section for the non-aligned (tribeless), where one day
> people will go to revisit what this culture was like (except
> without the cars).
>

Into that mix add my encounter with the 12 tribes last
Sunday.

Add also this article in the washington post about
moveon.org

> http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A14925-2003Jun4&notFound=true
>
> Wes Boyd disagreed. As a newcomer to politics, he doesn't
> spend much time rehashing the internecine rivalries that
> have anguished the Democratic Party since the rise of the
> New Left in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He believes that
> grass-roots America is ready to support a liberal agenda if
> only "someone will get out and lead." Boyd counsels
> presidential candidates to spend less time in closed-door
> meetings with major donors and more time in direct contact
> with voters.

Add also my (perhaps perverse) inability to get excited
about a relationship with a woman where we spend a lot of
time together, perhaps get an apartment together, eventually
a house in the suburbs, maybe some children, and spend our
days gardening and tending our house and our acre lot (and
at work, making money) which we'll give up when we die or
head to the old folks home, which we've saved up for all
these years.

(If you're not for others who are you for? If you're only
for you & your significant other and kids and acre lot in
the burbs, who are you for?)

Reading books like "This Organic Life" (Joan Gussow) and
"Maria Rodale's Organic Gardening" and "Gaia's garden" (Toby
Hemenway), and "Coming Home To Eat" (Gary Nabhan) all of
which I recommend, offer the best of the best possible
single-family scenarios.

But all of Hemenway's permaculture design, all Rodale's work
on her garden, as with Gussow's and to some extent Nabhan's,
stop where their property lines end, and end with their
lives, unless subsequent proprietors care as they did.

They are not the best examples of the point I'm trying to
make: all are sharing by writing books, which live on, and
most are involved in communitarian efforts, most obviously
Gussow and Nabhan, but also Hemenway (editor of permaculture
journal).... but I think my point is still there.

I asked a question on the permaculture list: something along
the lines of: what does permaculture say about human
culture? Permaculture will not be permanent agriculture if
the humans who do it cannot last!

And I contrast the work on a suburban lot to the work that
might occur on a monastery... Or as can still be found in
California and Texas, an old Mission.

(All of this is a departure from living in the woods or
desert, which will leave few traces and involve little if
any agriculture-like practices)

Ok... So all that was in the back of my mind, and then I
come across the 12 tribes!

And here they are, these people with a male chauvinist
leader, suspect ideology, and many other evil traits (child
labor! Use of cane in child discipline!), are a successful
(success=continued existence) and even growing community!

And then I think back to that quote from the moveon article:
If only someone will get out and lead, people are ready to
support them!

add to that also this letter from Jan Lundberg of
culturechange:
http://www.culturechange.org/e-letter-money_and_materialism.html

---
I think that is the body of my thought, but where does it lead?


Clearly I'm leaning to living and working for a community.
On the largest scale, this community is the community of all
things, certainly not only humans.

I can get excited about helping David Ceaser with
http://carfreecity.us . I can get excited about helping
Orion Kriegman (or whoever) with Yoism ( http://yoism.org )
, and the urban ecovillage network (
http://urban.ecovillage.org/ )

When survival is easy, you become free.

I don't wish to pay taxes to a government which acts
contrary to my interests.

I do not wish to have my life force contribute simply to the
growth of a company... (a Quinn-esque pyramid)


I imagine a future where once again, people grow up in, live
in, and help, their tribes. But I imagine also that whatever
benefits there might be from "civilization" can be
integrated into this new tribal way... Anonymity and freedom
and access to information may lead to greater creativity and
range of possible behaviors of humans (is that good?)

But first, let's stop paying rent. Let's stop paying taxes.
Let's remind ourselves how capable we are of surviving in
nature, rent, and tax-free... Then lets choose what our life
force will go to help create. There's nothing wrong with
lingering in the forest, but if you wish to help others...

We can use the 12 tribes as an example. Not to follow
exactly what they've done, but that radical change within
our lifetime is possible.

They and most new movements feed off two things:
dissatisfaction with the way things are, and a belief that
an alternate course of action is better.

In all likelihood, as long as there are people, there will
always be a little of all that is out there right
now...(actually some behaviors and cultural practices do go
extinct). But what will change are the relative
distributions of behaviors. 10 years ago, fewer people were
studying yoga than are studying yoga now (perhaps).  (and so
on, with whatever behavior might be your interest).


When I'm not in the woods, I'll be working to increase the
behavior-share within the US (unless I bail on the US) of
carfreeness, people growing their own food, and people
choosing not to reproduce. (Note the low birthrate in Europe
combined with a failure to allow immigration is already
showing the hazards of a non-tribal, constant economic
growth system: many people over 50 having no money and no
place to go, because no one is paying taxes for them to
live off of!)

Maybe I'll follow Orion's example, and help start an urban
ecovillage in San Diego. Or maybe the US Carfree City will
succeed, and I'll work on projects there.


Everyone, if the Twelve Tribes can have over 20 communities
around the world and 3,000 members, and get themselves a
block on the Washington DC Mall during the Smithsonian
Folklife Festival, we, given some people who go out there
and lead can do all that and a whole lot more.

I've mentioned a few of the leaders I'm aware of in this
email. Are we dreaming big enough? Could we dream bigger if
we knew more people were there who support us? How can we be
most effective?

How, if we are leading, can we remind ourselves that we
could stop now and go into the forest? (remember:"Road to
heaven: encounters with Chinese hermits" - some, when
begged, came down from the hills to help lead.) How can we
avoid rebuilding the same systems that we wish to change
now?

Here's a try: by teaching, learning, and maintaining
survival and wilderness living skills first, as well as good
places to do them, "civilization" can always (more or less)
be kept in its place-- It is an option we can choose a
degree of, but we can leave it if we wish, and tell stories
about it around our camp-fire (though those stories, in that
case, will probably be of the least interest).

Here's another try: Just as the primitive skills movement
has been revitalized by the internet (more information about
more skills available in more places)... Maybe, somehow,
technology can be made to be something we no longer have to
fear and defend ourselves from: nuclear weapons, genetic
engineering, nanotechnology, CARS.

I think I'm done, and wrote as I've been moved to write in
the vast silent meeting of the Internet.

Where our collective attention is focused is the essence of
our humanity: whether it is on Britney Spears' navel (where
has she been?), the politicians on the front page of the
paper, or on learning the local edible plants of our
region...

To adapt a new-age saying of one of my friends (Sandrine!):
by choosing where our attention (and time, effort, and
money) goes, we are creating (some of) our reality and
creating a bit of the environment of those around us.


Since anyone who has read this far is possibly a member of
"our culture," I'd like to conclude with a self-serving
health notice:

(1) Do weights! http://joycevedral.com (and other weight
bearing exercises, as well as flexibility and high-intensity
aerobic daily)

(2) Beware of raw food vegan diets! They seem to work well
for some, but I find many who've switched back. Including
notable carfree people Jan Lundberg and Martin Kreig (
http://www.bikeroute.com/S2KNewsletter/S2k-2Food.html
username: nbg passord: transam). Of course, Ofek has not (
http://economads.com/index.php ) nor apparently has Doug
Graham ( http://doctorgraham.cc/ ).
http://www.beyondveg.com/cat/psych/ and
http://www.westonaprice.org/myths_truths/myths_truths_vegetarianism.html
. Both Maria Rodale, Jean Gussow, and Gary Nabhan, seem to
offer sane dietary advice. Of course, I just read in the
paper about scientists recommending people to eat less
animal fat due to dioxin content... but-

(3) Dance intensely if you can... And practice something
mind challenging.

Why self-serving? Most likely you'll be a part of my
community when I get older, and I'll be more likely to take
care of myself physically if I'm around a bunch of people
who look and act like Frank Zane
http://www.frankzane.com/images/frankdbsm.jpg or Joyce
Vedral , or one of my former dance instructors (Phoebe) in
their 60s as opposed to , well, just about anyone else you
can think of. Believe me, I can use a lot of help!


---

But then- I see why change won't happen, and why leaders
won't step forward: a lot of us are reasonably happy with
the way things are, including myself, some of the time.


Colin
http://carfreeuniverse.org