I could do with a hand here if anyone wants to get back to the land.
I can’t pay you but I can guarantee it’ll be more fun and satisfying than working as a ministerial advisor, or for a think tank, or a newspaper, or one of the big NGOs 😁
Thanks for this Dougald. I think it's worth picking up on your link between growth and helplessness from another angle - namely that those whom we view as having the "most power" in our societies (leading politicians and the like) actually possess the greatest degree of helplessness, and therefore, in some ways, the least power. They are so completely invested in growth and the way things currently operate, it is almost impossible for them to create change. They cannot even apprehend the need to dispense with our current economic metrics and social fixations, so how on earth could they lead us into new ways of doing things?
"Not everyone who is displaced knows they are displaced. In fact, most of the displaced are unaware of their displacement. Merriam-Webster defines ‘displace’ as “to remove from the usual or proper place.” The place we’ve been removed from is a place in which our means and mode of livelihood intimately connects us with the natural world. It is this disconnection which is our modern displacement. Industrial modernity is essentially a condition of displacement. A symptom of modernity is that the displaced tend to experience the vexatious symptoms of displacement without knowing the root cause of these symptoms."
Thank you for writing such an informed piece. It helped bend my mind this morning ever so slightly toward understanding how to help change perspectives. We have so much work to do.
I just read this (quoted) bit of text, and it reminded me of you, Dougald. I suspect you'll understand why.
"Albeit a regular misunderstanding, Rojava doesn’t aim for a Kurdish nation-state. To the contrary, it rejects nationalism and is an experiment for how people of different ethnicities and religions can peacefully live together and self-organize beyond the constraints of the nation-state."
When the future you outline arrives (and I think it will) what role will money then play?
As you point out, at the moment it is the nexus - the measure point - through which all production and consumption passes. The use-value of food is transformed to become a positive quality of money. And that quality of money has become determinate of our future. It has created the very situation you're writing about. Without changing money it's hard to see how we could avoid an eternal repetition of the history that has brought us to our current precipice.
This is music to the ears to small farm futurist such as myself, the answer to the question are we better off no longer growing our own food is a resounding no. Like you say, quite beside the murderous histories of land theft, the embodied effects of our impoverishment are plain to see, not least in the cockeyed progress idolatry of your NYE fellow guest.
There is an entangled mess of trouble in what passes for farming these days, as riddled with pollution, corporate corruption and managed by a land owning professional class, that I find my sympathies divided. Any real land worker, land steward worth her salt would have long seen the signs and acted accordingly. The idea that we can isolate ourselves in 'jobs' 'careers' earn 'money' to buy 'goods' is clearly coming to an end, as so called 'well paid' people 'earning' up to 60000 pounds a year are struggling. It was a short lived complicated monopoly game, and don't get me wrong, I've got skin in the game.
The question becomes, and which you are so gracefully attending to with the gentle humility of your work. Is how will those classes deal with the unconscionable loss of status. Inter sufficiency or fascism?
Travelling through Vietnam atm, I’m deeply struck by the indigenous people’s open-hearted warmth. The sense of human connection seems strong but un-needy. They give freely.
Underlying all of that, from what we’ve observed, is a deeply embedded relationship with the land.
Read the books “The Ecotechnic Future” or “The Retro Future” by John Michael Greer to see the future we will transition to over the next 100 years or so. The question is whether it will be an intelligent transition or a chaotic forced one.
The global financial system is dependent on exponential growth and it's hit a wall. The economic theory of Leopold Kohr I feel could play a part in helping us to bring the future into perspective. And what is wrong with talking about a 'steady state economy'. Or am I being absurd in actually mentioning the idea?
If we went back 300 years, it would be like stepping off the airplane into an air so fresh our lungs would heave.
There is no fresh air, it’s dull and lifeless of a sharp experience, or perhaps you didn’t notice and were born in to this soup?
The dollar is a petro invested carbon dioxide fuel, with no calorific value until burned.
Paid to pollute, as with words, paid to waste semantics and pomp.
The runaway class, lecturing and dividing when all that is required is conversation to think less objectively in the love of machines envelope that knows everything.
It remains a singularity, death averse, birth neglected, elder removed.
I could do with a hand here if anyone wants to get back to the land.
I can’t pay you but I can guarantee it’ll be more fun and satisfying than working as a ministerial advisor, or for a think tank, or a newspaper, or one of the big NGOs 😁
Just bought your book on the basis of this post
Thanks for this Dougald. I think it's worth picking up on your link between growth and helplessness from another angle - namely that those whom we view as having the "most power" in our societies (leading politicians and the like) actually possess the greatest degree of helplessness, and therefore, in some ways, the least power. They are so completely invested in growth and the way things currently operate, it is almost impossible for them to create change. They cannot even apprehend the need to dispense with our current economic metrics and social fixations, so how on earth could they lead us into new ways of doing things?
"Not everyone who is displaced knows they are displaced. In fact, most of the displaced are unaware of their displacement. Merriam-Webster defines ‘displace’ as “to remove from the usual or proper place.” The place we’ve been removed from is a place in which our means and mode of livelihood intimately connects us with the natural world. It is this disconnection which is our modern displacement. Industrial modernity is essentially a condition of displacement. A symptom of modernity is that the displaced tend to experience the vexatious symptoms of displacement without knowing the root cause of these symptoms."
from - https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-18/livelihood-a-new-and-old-idea/
Thank you for writing such an informed piece. It helped bend my mind this morning ever so slightly toward understanding how to help change perspectives. We have so much work to do.
I just read this (quoted) bit of text, and it reminded me of you, Dougald. I suspect you'll understand why.
"Albeit a regular misunderstanding, Rojava doesn’t aim for a Kurdish nation-state. To the contrary, it rejects nationalism and is an experiment for how people of different ethnicities and religions can peacefully live together and self-organize beyond the constraints of the nation-state."
https://truthout.org/articles/unremitting-turkish-attacks-leave-rojava-in-peril-and-in-need-of-solidarity/
The whole article is worth reading. But this passage is plenty to chew on.
Lately, whenever I look at governments I see oppression and violence. Surely we must be able to do better than this.
When the future you outline arrives (and I think it will) what role will money then play?
As you point out, at the moment it is the nexus - the measure point - through which all production and consumption passes. The use-value of food is transformed to become a positive quality of money. And that quality of money has become determinate of our future. It has created the very situation you're writing about. Without changing money it's hard to see how we could avoid an eternal repetition of the history that has brought us to our current precipice.
This is music to the ears to small farm futurist such as myself, the answer to the question are we better off no longer growing our own food is a resounding no. Like you say, quite beside the murderous histories of land theft, the embodied effects of our impoverishment are plain to see, not least in the cockeyed progress idolatry of your NYE fellow guest.
There is an entangled mess of trouble in what passes for farming these days, as riddled with pollution, corporate corruption and managed by a land owning professional class, that I find my sympathies divided. Any real land worker, land steward worth her salt would have long seen the signs and acted accordingly. The idea that we can isolate ourselves in 'jobs' 'careers' earn 'money' to buy 'goods' is clearly coming to an end, as so called 'well paid' people 'earning' up to 60000 pounds a year are struggling. It was a short lived complicated monopoly game, and don't get me wrong, I've got skin in the game.
The question becomes, and which you are so gracefully attending to with the gentle humility of your work. Is how will those classes deal with the unconscionable loss of status. Inter sufficiency or fascism?
Travelling through Vietnam atm, I’m deeply struck by the indigenous people’s open-hearted warmth. The sense of human connection seems strong but un-needy. They give freely.
Underlying all of that, from what we’ve observed, is a deeply embedded relationship with the land.
I am glad you are actually still talking about climate change!
Read the books “The Ecotechnic Future” or “The Retro Future” by John Michael Greer to see the future we will transition to over the next 100 years or so. The question is whether it will be an intelligent transition or a chaotic forced one.
Things will continue for longer than we expect but not for as long as we need.
The global financial system is dependent on exponential growth and it's hit a wall. The economic theory of Leopold Kohr I feel could play a part in helping us to bring the future into perspective. And what is wrong with talking about a 'steady state economy'. Or am I being absurd in actually mentioning the idea?
"The largest greenhouses in the UK." This is what is being touted as the future of UK 'farming'. https://www.thanetearth.com/about-us/protected-crops/ Maybe in a climate changed world it makes (some) sense?
The greatest contribution we can make is going vegan. Also traveling less, living smaller, spending less. We're doomed : )
If we went back 300 years, it would be like stepping off the airplane into an air so fresh our lungs would heave.
There is no fresh air, it’s dull and lifeless of a sharp experience, or perhaps you didn’t notice and were born in to this soup?
The dollar is a petro invested carbon dioxide fuel, with no calorific value until burned.
Paid to pollute, as with words, paid to waste semantics and pomp.
The runaway class, lecturing and dividing when all that is required is conversation to think less objectively in the love of machines envelope that knows everything.
It remains a singularity, death averse, birth neglected, elder removed.