Share the culture, share the pattern language; I can dig that!

Timely too, considering the other debate

Now I imagine that if the full PDC was taught in schools, as part of the curriculum, we would be a lot closer to the world we would all like to see within a generation.

Has this ever been pitched politically at a national level? Now seems a good time to try to influence policy, all the main political parties (in the UK at least) are setting out their “green agenda” for prosperity, they all seem to think green jobs will save the economy. Personally I don’t think anything will save the economy, but it’s worth using their green agenda stance to tip policy towards this goal IMO.

Ethan Roland made a good point; (paraphrase) “Landscape design is the easy part. Internal landscape design is a very difficult thing.”

While that is certainly a necessary pursuit – identifying and implementing these systems – it’s a bit more complex than simply installing a better, more efficient, more egalitarian “OS(operating system)”. We’re not dealing with computers.

Because human beings figure in somewhere, we ultimately have to have a means to produce better, higher quality PEOPLE to interact within the context of the OS…we need ways to better navigate and manage the human condition – as individuals. Otherwise, the problems we all deplore will continue to arise.

But I’m afraid that’s beyond the scope of permaculture…

Our collective sociopolitical/socioeconomic situation is dictated by how those questions are answered.”

True. This is why we must investigate new ways of addressing these ‘longstanding historical dilemmas’, or risk being mired in the status quo (i.e. capitalism), or worse, falling back into those ’solutions’ that have proven so costly in the past to the wider ecology as a whole (i.e. theocracism, communism, socialism, ad infinitum).

Therefore, I propose that we revisit communalism, because:

“…our decision to create a better society, and our choice of the way to do it, must come from within ourselves, without the aid of a deity, still less a mystical “force of nature” or a charismatic leader. If we choose the road toward a better future, our choice must be the consequence of our ability – and ours alone – to learn from the material lessons of the past and to appreciate the real prospects of the future. We will need to have recourse, not to ghostly vagaries conjured up from the murky hell of superstition or, absurdly, from the couloirs of the academy, but to the innovative attributes that make up our very humanity and the essential features that account for natural and social development, as opposed to the social pathologies and accidental events that have sidetracked humanity from its self-fulfillment in consciousness and reason. Having brought history to a point where nearly everything is possible, at least of a material nature – and having left behind a past that was permeated ideologically by mystical and religious elements produced by the human imagination – we are faced with a new challenge, one that has never before confronted humanity. We must consciously create our own world, not according to demonic fantasies, mindless customs, and destructive prejudices, but according to the canons of reason, reflection, and discourse that uniquely belong to our own species.”

Source: Bookchin, M. (2002) ‘The Communalist Project’. Available at http://www.communalism.net

A NEW KIND OF WORLD

* A world in which we experience, daily, our unity with the universe

* A world which is made like nature – and in which we are daily making nature

* A world in which the daily process of making, adapting, and deepening is a vital part of our lives

* A world in which there is something to believe in – not a religious thing – but a believable vision of God as the unity behind all things which guides us and impels us to act in certain ways. God not conceived of as a construct of any organized religion, but as a fact of nature and its wholeness.

* A social and political world which contains (and explicitly provides) the freedom for us to act in this way – something we rarely have today.

* A world in which we feel the cultural trace of human beings before us who made and loved every part

* A world in which we value ourselves according to the beauty of the places we have carved out, and modified, and taken care of, and in which we have woven our lives together with that of other people, animals, and plants.

* A world in which buildings are shaped according to these principles, and laws governing the shaping of buildings in this way, are the laws most precious to us, and those to which we give most weight.

* A world in which we have an entirely new understanding of what it means for the world to be sustainable: not a technical matter, but a matter in which respect for the whole governs.

* Above all, there is a world in which meaning exists. The deadly and frightening state in which we do not know why we are here, is replaced by a world in which there is a natural and accurate and truthful picture — an answer to the question ‘why am I here’ – one that is not made up, but that stems from and accords with the true nature of things.

Often people are placated by the often heard solution, that all we need is further investment, yet they fail to realise Big Oil is not investing, because there are very few fields left worth drilling, those that they think may be worth it are already being drilled, often coming up with dry holes and no fossil fuels (Falklands for e.g.).
Exxon spent over $50 Billion buying back it’s own shares, obviously this money was available for new prospects, but they choose to buy back their own shares and hand dividends to shareholders instead, they choose to downsize for a reason, because they know any money spent on prospecting will be wasted with no net return.

Øyvind: many thanks for that link, some useful design tools well explained.

I wish that the entrepreneurs and bureaucrats had to use the design systems of Permaculture and Alexander too, to make meaningful lives for people and save the nature. For me I feel some sad these days, the most beautiful place here by Lake Mjøsa was bought up from a huge entrepreneur here in Gjøvik two weeks ago, a superb site to create an ecovillage. I’m sure they’ll destroy the place completely! But what can one do, when they put millions, I guess tens of millions (N.Kr.) on the table? Money roles!