Re: ecovillage and sustainability

Jean Claude,
Thanks for your cautioning.
I see that the idealized 'traditional village' is in danger of succumbing
to the 'noble savage' delusion.
But there are no real villages in the USA. We went straight from rural to
urban (then suburban), laying down arbitrary square grids all over the
landscape, as fortifications first; eventually they grew into well-oiled
machines.
There are many, many people still living in these mechanistic mistakes,
and that effects their outlook on life. Some of these people are 'in
charge.'
After the fossil fuel peak (see Holmgren's new book), coming down the
backside (see H.T. Odum), the entire settlement patterning of the USA will
be realized as dysfunctional: it will need to be retrofitted. Under those
circumstances the 'ecovillage' becomes the quintessential organic model
for envisioning the re-organization - permaculture design at village scale.

>activelly participated to the desertification of their regions (
>mediterranean basin is the most striking ex ).

Excuse me, but the desertification of the Med. basin was a consequence of
the rise of CIVILIZATION - CITY-based culture, along with its concomitant
and inherent militarization and social stratification. VILLAGE-based
cultures are benign; they endure (see Critchfield). Much more sustainable
to design at village scale.

"Other villages have been part of hunter gatherers cultures" 

I understand that hunter-gatherers made use of seasonal camps. If any of
these camps were to organically grow through the stage of enclave then
hamlet then onto village size, characteristic of a sedentary lifestyle,
then hunting and gathering would already have been abandoned.

Wouldn't it be possible in our retrofitting to bypass agriculture and
instead design and institute horticultural systems?
How many people would be ready to return to hunting and gathering?

It was that Whole Systems Design degree that made me think of the
importance of scale.

Thanks for this dialogue,
Best wishes for a future beyond sustainabilty,
Chris Mare
VDI



<[email protected]> writes:
>
>> ...referring to 'traditional villages.' Yea, sure, they are (or were)
>the
>> ultimate models for sustainability: ecologically integrated into the
>> landscape, self-reliant local economies, organic growth patterns and
>> morphologies, size dependent on carrying capacity, social taboos
>limiting
>> population and growth, equable distribution of resources, accountability
>> of 'leaders,' deep knowledge of local biota, trans-generational decision
>> making, place-based culture, etc., etc., etc....they certainly could be
>> "continued into the indefinite future" but could we say they were
>> "full-featured?"
>
>what is a traditional village ?
>
>many of them were fully participant in the diverse empires that have risen
>on earth then fell , since the neolithic revolution . as such they have
>activelly participated to the desertification of their regions (
>mediterranean basin is the most striking ex ).
> the main technology used in those villages have been the cultivation of
>soils with plow . it have the disturbing effect to hinder the natural
>fertilisation process that is dependant on the integrity of the ecology of
>soils .It can takes centuries , but tilling the ground is necessarelly
>depleting soils overtime and in some more fragile conditions will
>precipitate desertification .
>
>monoculture of grains is also a decisive factor in depletion of soils (
>removing the forest cover , compromising the biodiversity,  making peoples
>addicted   to their opioids molecules and insatiably hungry and angry for
>more allways more,  leading to a fear based culture ).
>
>Other villages have been part of hunter gatherers cultures who have been
>way
>more sustainable for way longer period of time than neolithic cultures but
>have also participated to the desertification thru the misuse of fire (
>australia ), extinction of games ( many species hunted by paleo hunters
>disapeared .)
>
>we didn't have to wait the industrial revolution to see allready a very
>disturbed earth by human activity since we began to HATE the hunter
>gatherer
>life style (This life style doen't allow hierarchisation of social
>structure
>easelly ).
>In fact inherently in traditional agriculturist villages there was the
>seed
>for the madness of the industrial revolution .
>work was so harsh , exploitation of womens chidrens and mens for the
>benefit
>of few was the norm, health was desastrous, social arrangement so
>painfully
>repressive of the aliveness .it was not sustainable and gave birth to the
>industrial revolution to "progress"
>
>now that we have reach a stage of realising the "poverty" of our
>consciousness we are presented with a new revolution that is called the
>information age that supposelly will deliver us from the misery of having
>to
>be bound by our physical limitations ( virtual reality ) but in fact is
>going to impoverish us even more from our god given attachment to LIFE and
>will brainwash us into docile and willing servant of a sytem of
>exploitation
>to an extent never seen before .
>
>In all those progressive stages what we don't see it is what we have
>slowly
>but constantly lost along the way ( each revolution giving a  false sense
>of
>improvement)
>
>To give a concret ex of this phenomenon :organic farming have seen
>traditional farming as something to go back to . yet fertility of soils
>went
>so down after centuries of exploitation of the fertility built up by
>forests
>before deforestation, that chemical farming came at a rescue to "restore "
>some fertility .
>this didn't last long as now even chemicals start to not work anymore in
>exhausted soils .
>
>it doesn't stop organic farmers to believe to be sustainable despite
>having
>to deplete fertility from somewhere else to concentrate on their land .(
>organic fertilisers manure etc...).
>
>from my point of view as long we don't question the fondation of agri
>cultures that is reduction in biodiversity ,plowing of soils ,and
>hierarchisation of social structure , there is no way to stop the
>impoverishment of EARTH no matter which form human settlements takes.
>
>jean-claude
>
>
>
>
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