May 15, 2024

VIDEO: Diversity is certain death for Permaculture Community


From a the Regenerative Permaculture Farm and Garden Podcast. PLEASE READ! before you listen to this podcast, please don’t jump to conclusions. If you try and pick everything apart you will be missing the point. I use the military as an example. Don’t let your view of the military cloud the example of a group having a like mind set and culture. If the military is good or bad has nothing to do with point. Im bringing up this topic as a personal observations from the military , life and business. It seem to me that permaculture needs to have adult conversations about the people that want to be in a community. Can or should we design the human mindset into a community? Also, please understand that I don’t see true diversity as skin color or place of birth, but the mindset and culture. http://www.thefarmersgrove.com

15 thoughts on “VIDEO: Diversity is certain death for Permaculture Community

  1. Thoughtful insight. I was also in the military and see your point on diversity. I feel like our competitive economic landscape and individual struggles to make money is a huge inhibitor to creating community. More than that, making community with strangers is hard. But the biggest impediment to community that I see is a lack of honesty. People need to embrace radical honesty and non-violent communication to set clear delineation of what community means and as a means of addressing things before they fester and infect others. If you have airy-fairy folks' that will make emotional decisions and have absurd beliefs by comparison, it will fail even if you share many thoughts. Other than that, all I can think is that a sort of "peaceful warrior" mentality of mandatory community training or exercise to reaffirm beliefs and sentiments. But that sounds like it could easily mutate into a a cult… lol. Well, thanks for the talk, sorry to ramble… Interested in creating intentional neighbors with lifelong friends, a few steps below true community. Salutations from the central Wisconsin!

  2. What people need to understand about the "progressive left" is that there are Libertarian leftists and Authoritarian leftists. I consider myself to be very far left (and Libertarian) and former military, build big farms in a concrete construction outfit, help care for my sick father-in-law, married, hard-working, thrifty, college educated, etc. Some might claim you can't be a far left libertarian but that simply isn't true. We paint in such broad strokes when we say "socialist", "capitalist", etc. I'm both, it depends on the topic. Not to nit-pick your points, but I feel this would better be explained as authoritarian or libertarian, mature versus immature, experienced versus inexperienced, sheltered versus exposed, critical thinker versus espouser of convenient data (though I really like "little bitch" (haha)), etc… Each time we use a uber-general term we aren't using the degree of incisive explanation that we could. Kind of a non-point I'm making other than trying to say there are sane, accomplished, hard-working, and financially independent progressive leftists who celebrate the use of little bitch as you eloquently said. 🙂

  3. I think you are confusing diversity with focus. In other words, a community will succeed if it has one (or few) common focus, it will never succeed it's focus is diversity. This is evident in permaculture societies, if they focus of success, or one or a few products to sell and become sustainable, they succeed.

  4. It may work for small groups. But people are to varied in there thoughts, wants, beliefs, culture, etc. The groups I see are much too restrictive. They are not diverse enough. I have looked at them and I know I would never be welcome. Because I am disabled. None of them make allowances for people who have differing needs. That is not how life is, not how people are. I think that is what turns people off. I think it would be far better to have a community that allows for diversity. With just a few guild lines as in most in town. It could be a town based on the premise that each person wants to live a permaculture lifestyle. But that no one has to conform to what another thinks their life should be. It would have to be with people that respected everyone and their beliefs. And did not try and enforce their believes on others. I think it would be better for people to agree to share certain tools or equipment, to help each when needed, like for big projects. But let individual families live their own lives. They don't have to agree on everything. The biggest thing is respect and that is what is the hardest for so many to do. Yes there would have to be some agreement on what the community wanted. Like with me I am not able to do everything I want to physically, but that doesn't mean I expect people to do everything for me. I do need help for some things, but that is what the community could do for each other. I could help with things they would not be able to do or offer trade even pay. I do see what you are saying about people needing to agree on main issues.
    Yes it would have to with people who agree with certain fundamental rules.
    It would have to be with individuals who do no want to force their believes on anyone else. Or then yes it would have to be with people who agree on most everything.
    For me it would be for those who don't want to control everything. Live and let live. Now if only it could be.

  5. It's about Companion Planting = Companion Culture that compliment each other.
    It's NOT about Diversity >>>> You can't plant an Apple tree with water spinach. It's just not going to work. You can't plant Cactus with a water loving plant because the cactus will drown, or vice versa, the water loving plant will dry out. I don't recall a Desert Cactus thriving in a Tropical Rainforest or Wetlands. It is the same with people's culture.

  6. I totally agree, it’s about common belief systems and variances that are too different tend to not burgeon a cohesive culture with shared beliefs that glue a group together. That’s just the reality. All wars are fought over people trying assert their cultures dominance over another. People sayin he’s racist haven’t listened. It’s about shared belief systems to make a cooperative group work well together.

  7. As much as I wanted to disagree with you, you're right. There can't be diversity in terms of culture, but there can be diversity everyelse. For example, the best permaculture community I lived in, we had the most diversity in terms of crops. I started a mens group and there was this new age vs anti new age culture and it was the crux of the community.

  8. "Social Justice Warriors" are authoritarians who can't listen to anyone else's viewpoint. Farming communes have existed without Permaculture, and Permaculture can exist without farming communes. Communes tend to break up due to personal disagreements, rivalries, etc. The restrictions of living in communal groups get to people after a while–especially spoiled, wealthy Americans. Everything has disadvantages. Most Americans would have trouble with the restrictions in religious Amish or Hasidic communities, too.

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