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11/15/2005
About This Blog
Originally I thought this blog was only going to be about the progress we were making with starting an ecovillage but as I've thought and read more about the subject I've realised that I'm going to want to talk a lot about the philosophy behind the village and in fact even if no ones ever reads this blog it will still serve to help develop these ideas.
I'm don't like to use the word vision to describe what I'm trying to develop here. It sounds a bit totalitarian coming from one person when a vision is supposed to belong to a group. At the moment there isn't a group and I'm afraid that I'll be so keen on what I work out that eventually when there is a group I'll end up forcing my stuff on them and then the village won't have a genuine common vision and the whole thing will fail – so I'll refer to the vision as 'My Big Ideas' as a kind of ironic reminder.
I should also add that I am already uncomfortable using the word eco-village. 'Eco' has been co-opted by so much un-ecological stuff and comes with all sorts of baggage. I definitely want to live in a village though and I tend to take the eco stuff for granted. I just assume that it will be a permaculture design, that it will seek to restore the environment rather than destroy it, and that we'll use passive solar design and earth buildings. I'll talk a bit about those things but to be honest I am more excited about the village part of eco-village. I can't wait to live in a thriving community instead of these alienating suburbs (or alienating lifestyle blocks and farms) so I'm much more likely to dwell on the issues of what makes a village and how we can get alienated westerners to learn to live in a tribe again.
After reading 'Creating A Life Together' by Diana Leafe Christian it's apparent that this is the side of things we need to focus on. I know people who want to set up communities to get ready for the coming crash and they're like; “Well, I know how to build cob houses and we've got some people who can do permaculture but we'd like someone who can do biodiesel…” It's true that all these skills will be required but if that's all a group is focused on (and people as utility is how our culture tends to define it's members) it will more than likely fail.
90% of Ecovillages to date have failed because the people in them don't share the same vision. When it comes to making key decisions on the future of the village they can't agree because they're heading in different directions and it tends to get quite desperate and acrimonious. Normally if this happens in our society we would just walk away and get a new friend/wife/job/town but that won't work in a village – we're going to need to bring the level of commitment to it that people bring to a successful marriage.
I mentioned preparing for the coming crash and I'll talk a bit about this too because I think this inability to relate combined with the high level of woundedness we all suffer from is going to be a major bar to forming communities post-crash. We're going to have to rely on each other a lot more post crash and our culture's sorry psychological state could turn out to be a major impediment to our survival chances. Our instincts are to hunker down somewhere with stockpiles of food and ammo and see how long we can survive. Needless to say this won't work for very long. I'm not entirely sure but learning to co-operate could be as important for our survival as learning how to grow food.
23:30 Posted in Big Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
FAQ
1. What's with that picture of yourself?
I hate photos so I put up this picture drawn by my 3 year old daughter.
2. Why are there no more questions in this FAQ?
I haven't been asked any questions frequently, even that first one was made up.
10:40 Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this