Alanna Moore’s reply November 1, 2007
Posted by Graham in : General, Permaculture, Science and Rationaltiy , trackbackJust read Graham’s blog….
He’s entitled to his opinion. But so are others entitled to have other ideas. Not everyone likes every article in a mag and no-one is forced to read them.
I do detect a form of cultural imperialism here. If it’s all ‘woo-woo’ - as Bill Mollison put it, then that makes all Aboriginal etc lore also woo-woo - right? Respect is the key. Respect for other people’s beliefs, even if they clash with your own.
If the permaculture media doesnt keep challenging peoples’ ideas, then it’s probably dead on the ground. So bravo for Maddy Harland for going against the dominant pc grain!
Respectfully yours,
Alanna Moore
Dear Alanna
Many thanks for your response.
I am relieved to hear that you consider your article on Geomancy and Permaculture to be challenging to the “dominant PC grain”- I have been quite concerned that in fact the opposite is true, that what has become the dominant grain of thought in Permaculture is in fact an unquestioning belief in anything non-rational, from Angel Cards to Astrology, talking to Nature Spirits, Dowsing or belief in faerys.
But I do still wonder, who is challenging who’s ideas? I have marginalised myself amongst many in both the permaculture movement and the wider environmental movement by daring to challenge many of those beliefs and am frequently met with shock and incredulity that I dont, for example, teach that we should speak to nature spirits -”ask the carrots where they would like to be planted” on my courses.
Nor do I include teaching climate-change denial, the merits of unending consumerism or the popular idea that if we just think positive, everything will turn out just fine. The reason I dont cover any of these topics is because they clearly have no role to play in permaculture ethics or principles, nor do they have a place in ordinary common sense.
I wonder, Alanna, if you consider yourself to be fighting the great fight of “going against the grain” and “challenging people’s ideas” that you find yourself as much a heretic in the permaculture world as I find myself.
There is no danger that Permaculture will stop challenging mainstream ideas, from belief in the industrial growth society to the techno-fantasy of belief in the coming of free energy.. Some of the other ideas that permaculture can play a useful role in challenging include:
-animistic beliefs held by early people’s who did not have the benefits of science to understand the world;
-the belief that feelings and sensuality reveal more truth than rational enquiry;
that tribal hunter gatherers and other early peoples had superior understandings of the natural world than we do (for example, nearly everywhere humans migrated to out of Africa, including Australia, they hunted to extinction many animals and had other significant environmental impacts);
(that’s not to say that they dont have great knowledge and wisdom that we should learn from- but it would be a mistake to take all their beliefs literally);
that we can get closer to nature by projecting our human-centred values, concepts and language onto plants and animals.
These beliefs and others like them keep us shackled to a kind of cultural childhood, a make-believe world like Disney Land, where the true majesty and mystery of the natural world is reduced to a cartoon with all the birds trees and animals talking to each other in our language, the same way that we talk, because what is important to this world is that we are there in the centre of it to be talked to.
As Richard Heinberg says, we desperately, desperately need to grow up fast if we are to meet the challenges ahead of us in any way effectively.
These beliefs are also hypocritical, because we could do practically nothing of what we currently do- use computers, fly in aeroplanes, eat industrial food or even have the knowledge that we have about other cultures that we are discussing without the benefits of the modern world.
It is not a question of respect or lack of it for other people’s beliefs; it is a question of the search for understanding and the development of critical thinking.
Given the extraordinary times we are living in and the reality that we are facing collapse in both human and natural systems, I just dont think it is good enough to shrug and just say “you’re entitled to your opinion and Im entitled to mine”;we would hardly find that approach acceptable when discussing the reality of climate change or species destruction.
We are all called upon now more than ever to debate these issues and try to come to some agreement on our understanding of the world.
If we see ideas and opinions that we think are false, misleading or distractions about what is important- be they issues of climate change, resource depletion, economic growth or tree spirits- we are duty bound to speak out about them.
Yours respectfully in the interests of deeper understanding
Graham
Comments»
‘Woo woo” or ‘WO WO, hold on a minute’
This ‘hole’ ‘debate’ has lost the plot.
i mean ‘What is the point again?’
Are we talking about Permaculture(ie whole systems theory or ecology applied to agriculture practice)
Geomancy(Earth energy patterns)
Deep Ecology(philosophy that considers humankind an integral part of its enviroment)
Paranormal Research
Folklore
Free Energy(try tai chi)
Ethics
Antropology
Sociology,
Two halves of politics
And what ever your having yourself.
A reflection of our post modern world is’ way, way, way, too much going on here’
Way too many topics being covered.Most of which are half truths.
The rational mind as great at putting 2 and 2 together and getting 44(thats push the first two digits beside each other,and pick a random number as the answer)
Any one point of discussion should be well worked before we move on,I feel a clash of ‘thought processes’ was throwing our rational scientific approach off the mark(need to recalibrate)
Fortunately,we are using the internet so no ’sensitivety’,or emotional frequencies can affect the instrumentation.
Somebody hit the reset button.and all we might learn something.