:Title: Living in Place :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:07:13 PDT :URL: http://www.ned.com/group/community-general/news/328/ The place that I live is short grass prairie. A place is the sum of the sun, and wind, and rain, and rock, and the plants and creatures that live there. Each part interacts with the other parts to make each place unique – but we classify them – and my place is classified short grass prairie. It is a place with too little water and too much fire to grow trees on its own. On its own this place climaxes with grass – disturb it and then leave it alone and it will return to grass. I have lived in this place some 55 years. It is home to me. The long hot clear days. The long delays between moisture. The dry mild winters. I try to observe its patterns. I try to understand how all the parts interact. When my family moved here in '54 there were no trees. Our acre was subdivided from a bigger farm – this place was the turkey yard. Since then we have added things – trees and flowers, lawns and gardens – some things take hold – some things die out. I work at gardening here. I have had great success with some things some years and years when the hail flattened the garden just when it was showing promise. There have been years when the voles or the squirrels seemed to eat most everything; years when it is to cold for some things; years when it is too hot for some things. I live in this place. I create it but in truth it creates me. ---- **Comments** :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:12:00 PDT This concept I am playing with – living in place – is not unlike the concept of living in the moment. It is being aware of the forces playing out around us, only we follow those forces from moment to moment. Living in the moment seems to imply that we are merely observers and not actors. To live in place requires us to act – or rather interact. We react to place as it reacts to us. My place supports me and I support it. We are a team – the sun, wind, rain, rock, plants, creatures and me – that makes our place unique. I know that I can enhance it and I do what I can. I know that I can diminish it and I try not to do that. I know that I am not in control – the best I have is influence – the place will be what it will. When I read descriptions of enlightenment – realizing oneness and releasing desire – I sometimes think it must be like living in place - to fit fully and completely within the forces playing out around and through us. But those descriptions seem to make the enlightened solely observers – living in the moment. Compared to living in place, it is a abdication of responsibility to interact – to create place as you are created by it. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:39:04 PDT A prairie builds soil by maintaining a balance between grass leaf and grass root. The more leaf there is the more root is grown. Then, when the buffalo come by and eat the leaf, the grass plant sheds root, and the roots decompose, and in the spring the decomposed roots hold the moisture to support the growth of new leaf and new root. In my place we honor that process. We let the grass grow each spring as tall as the moisture will let it – and then cut it once – and let it go dormant. The grass I cut is mulch for the garden. The grass plants that go dormant will shed root that will build soil that will support more grass next spring – and my interaction enhances the capacity of this place to produce grass – like the buffalo did before me. Each part of this place interacts with every other part of this place. The place itself expands and contracts in the volume of life from season to season and, if I do my part, increases the opportunity for new life over the years. There was a time when our elm trees were badly infested with elm beetles – and I thought about cutting out all the elm trees – but this place adjusted and new bird species came to eat the beetles and they are no longer a problem. There was a few years without late frosts when the ash trees were severely infested with ash saw fly – but we have had late frost recently and no saw flies. Nature will balance itself – one way or another. I do not use poisons in my place. It is clear to me that using poisons diminishes the capacity of this place to produce life. And the more life the better. People talk about using beneficial insects instead of poisons in their garden. They think of it as if they could hire a sentry and have them stand guard. It doesn't work that way. The only way to have lady beetles is to grow aphids. The only way to have a full and healthy array of living things in a place is to welcome all life there. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:44:10 PDT That transaction between plant and aphid and lady beetle is not mysterious. It make sense to us in terms of our own place in the food web. But consider how the sum of all transactions in a food web creates this thing that we call ecosystem, or environment, or each unique place on earth. It is truly a case of the whole being more than the sum of the parts. We generally do not, however, carry the understandings we gain from nature into the interactions between humans. If you ever ran a business you will understand parts of this. In each economic transaction there is that same sort relationships – except is not about predator and prey. When you are trying to sell a product or service to a customer, your primary concern is not about what the business gets out of it. It is about what value you can deliver to the customer. Unless you can deliver that value you will lose the customer, and all the referrals that a happy customer might make. If you lose enough customers, then you can't pay your bills, and the economy contracts. On the other hand if you can deliver that value, you will attract more customers, possibly expand, buy more supplies and the economy expands. Living in place does not stop at the relationships in your garden. My place also includes other people. And other people have things and skills and needs. And this thing we call economy is the sum of the transactions between people that occur in this place – in the same way that an ecosystem is the sum of the transactions between plants and creatures in a place. We can enhance the economy by participating in it. We can diminish the economy by preventing the transfer of value. No one of us is in control but living in place means understanding that we create the economy as we are created by it. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:03:37 PDT A large part of my acre is in grass – all kinds of grass – whatever grass decides to grow there. If I were to use this place to produce for the market the incentive would be to plow fence line to fence line and then plant a few high value crops. I might be able to make a profit but I would be diminishing the life process of this place. This place would no longer be able to provide nutrients, and beneficial insects, and native pollinators – all that would need to be imported. Instead, I let most of the acre be what it wants to be – grass. I spend nothing on it except my effort to cut it once a year and move it into my garden. In return for the welcome I give to all the plants and creatures who choose to live in this place – this place gives me all those things – nutrients, beneficial insects, native pollinators. Those things are inherent in the transactions that occur here. Each transaction is an exchange of resources and as the transactions occur and re-occur those resources accumulate in this place. In this place we support more plants and creatures contributing to more and more transactions that occur and reoccur. Each cycle feeds the following cycle and that builds more resources. We increase fertility over time instead of depleting fertility. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:08:54 PDT So what do I mean by place? In only a very superficial sense it is this acre where I live and where I have “property rights”. Property rights give me the human authority to determine what activities will take place on this acre – whether we will allow activities that diminish life processes here – whether we will invest in enhancing life processes here. But this acre is not an island, and even if it were, the life process playing out here would still be directly connected to a much larger place. Think of it instead as a focal point of a set of transactions. This place that I inhabit – in which I try to be aware of all the forces playing out around and through me – is the set of transactions that I can affect and that affect me. We are aware that the wind blowing in over the mountains carries dust from as far as the Gobi Desert. The dust settles on the leaves of the trees here and the rain washes it into the soil – nutrient and pollutant. Where water flows it leaches nutrients/pollutants - where water stands the leached nutrients/pollutants settle out and become part of that place. In my place, we import water from the other side of the mountains, 'purify' it with chlorine and distribute it to millions of people who could not live here without it. So, I think, that place is not so much that which we can locate on a map – it is this focal point I am trying to articulate. And, within any such set of focused transactions we can decide to simplify, and reduce the number of interactions or we can decide to add more and more kinds of transactions. The one approach deplete resources over time – the other approach accumulates resources over time. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:00:48 PDT To be fully aware of the forces playing out around and through us includes the smallest of transactions in a place. In my place there are billions of bacteria, millions of miles of mycelia, hundreds of thousands of worms, and thousands of other kinds of tiny creatures all dedicating their lives to supporting the rest of life in this place. It is these smallest of organisms that cycle life, taking old life and making it ready to be new life, holding the resources that life creates and that support life in this place. It is on the base of these smallest of transactions that all of the grass and trees, fruits and vegetables, birds and mammals, and my family stand. These smallest of transactions take place in the soil, create the soil – are the soil. So I don't spend much time composting – I mulch. Instead of painstakingly building compost piles of precise mixtures of carbon and nitrogen – and periodically turning them – to produce the nutrients my fruits and vegetables need, I lay the grass I cut around my plants – and the soil organisms make those nutrients – while being soil. I feed the soil and the soil feeds the plants in this place. If we rob the soil of last year's leaves and grass, if we plow fence line to fence line, if we spread poisons, we reduce the number of organisms, the number of species of organisms and the number of transactions in a place. Then life itself, the ecosystem, is diminished in that place. In my place, we honor the gift of the smallest among us. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:55:37 PDT I am really liking this particular story.... ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 06:16:03 PDT Thank you Linda. They say it is best to write about what one knows . . . ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:06:50 PDT I do not know of a corollary to this honoring of gifts in human economic thought. Economic thought is primarily from the point of view of the market – the interplay of supply and demand – the competition for resources. But there is this other dynamic that is neither addressed by laissez-faire nor welfare state economic beliefs. The dynamic is that when more people contribute to the pie the pie is bigger and there is more to go around. It is a false choice that the strong are entitled to their bigger share, or, must give away some of their share so the weak can survive. We all have a gift and we all benefit when more people can give of their gift and we all suffer when others are prevented from giving of their gift. I do not know of a corollary to this honoring of the gifts in any philosophical tradition. Jesus said that the poor will always be with us – and we interpret that - as part of God's will – that we are called to charity for those less fortunate than ourselves. And charity may prevent the worst of tragedies but does not seem to rescue people from useless meaningless lives – it does not generally facilitate the giving of one's gift. But this honoring of gifts – honoring the gift of the strong and powerful as well as the gift of the weak and powerless – honoring the gift of the least among us – this too makes the difference between a community experiencing economic expansion and a community in decline. This is because and economy is a set of transactions focused on a place – if there are more transactions and more kinds of transactions the economy is growing and expanding – if there are fewer transactions or fewer kinds of transactions then the economy is in decline. To be fully aware of the forces playing out around and through us means that we will be aware of those gifts around us that remain un-given. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:28:38 PDT To be fully aware of the forces playing out around and through us means that we will be aware of those gifts around us that remain un-given. I love it! I've posting it in the `Quote of the Day`_ thread. I hope I'm right in attributing it solely to David Braden; please let me know if there were any other co-authors (Aristotle, Shakespeare, the Dalai Lama, whoever) and I'll edit my post accordingly. BTW. I didn't quite know why I had included Aristotle as a possible co-author and wondered if I should change the name to someone else, so I googled and found this `book about gifts`_: *The Question of the Gift*. So, citing this extract from the abstract, it seems as if Aristotle might be quite relevant after all: Martha Woodruff argues that Aristotle's writings on friendship provide a necessary supplement to Nietzsche's gift-giving virtue, which speaks too little about receiving gifts as well as giving them. Has anyone read *The Question of the Gift*? The reference to Yunxiang Yan interested me: Yunxiang Yan's fieldwork in Chinese villages led to his important recent book The Flow of Gifts; his contribution to this collection summarizes and extends that book's significant findings about prestige and asymmetrical relationships. I remember being deeply moved by reading, on O.net I think, a description of the gratitude felt by these villagers (?) towards the unknown person/people from faraway who had come and to help them. I can't quite recall the exact wording, but I'm fairly sure it was Yunxiang Yan. Can anyone help me about this? .. _`Quote of the Day`: http://www.ned.com/group/rnr/news/1/55/ .. _book: http://www.cwru.edu/affil/sce/QG_volume.html ---- :Author: Wael Al Saad :Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:18:28 PDT may be 25 years a go I took a younger cousin of mine, who used to live with his family in Kuwait for a nature-walk in the village of my mother. Each couple of meters we stopped new plant, I explained to him what it was, stooped down, cut a part, ate and kept walking. That was like open buffet ~ what a living place ! ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:04:18 PDT Wael, where exactly was that living place? Was it the Garden of Eden by any chance? ;-) ---- :Author: Wael Al Saad :Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:35:09 PDT Here is the location link: http://maps.google.de/maps?hl=de&client=firefox-a&q=%D7%92%27%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%9F,+Israel&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FfNU7wEdiawaAg&split=0&sll=51.151786,10.415039&sspn=7.307413,14.941406&ll=32.39202,35.235182&spn=0.00511,0.011362&t=h&z=17&iwloc=A The olive trees on the hells are 1-2 thousand years old. In the valley there is two water springs. 300 m a way an old still working roman water well. This location could be a real huge garden ... I am spotting it to be the location for the soft-green-industry-park pilot ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:09:00 PDT David, I once read a National Geographic article about an indigenous people living in the mountains of Columbia who refer to us industrialized people as their "younger brothers", as we have yet to understand our relationship with other living things. I think they must have this idea of honoring what each species and each individual contributes to our community well being. I am interested in comparing this thought with other traditions but I do not know if there is any the same. Wael, your place looks beautiful from the sky :-). ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:17:49 PDT In my place most of the people are relatively well off. Most people are not aware of all the forces playing out around and through them. Most people are focused on their part in the set of transactions that create this ecosystem and this economy. And I suppose that is how it has been since the beginning. We each start out completely dependent and learn what our community learned about how to fit – what it takes to survive. And then we focus on finding a place for ourselves and our primary concern is maintaining that transaction that allows us to survive – learning what it takes to earn enough money to be able to do what we want to do. For some people that is acquiring things, for some people it is maintaining a life style, for some people it is saving for retirement. Being aware of the motivation of the people, plants and creatures that create this place, how can we influence their choices toward choosing more value retained in the system and away from choosing less value retained in the system? How can we use the existing forces to not only improve the conditions here for ourselves, but also for all the other people, plants and creature that reside here? In this place I am working on building gardens based on recognizing contributions – where we can learn to honor the gift of the least among us. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:29:30 PDT the gift of the least among us And where in the scale of things do naturally pollinating little insects come? Nearer the least or the greatest? Daviud, I guess you meant "least" only in size :) ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:34:54 PDT Yes, I struggle with this terminology. I actually used smallest in terms of those species that we do not recognize as contributing to the food web. We humans are, of course, only one species, and nature is still trying to balance our contribution. Within the species, we have dual continuum of capability. The one is the continuum between infant -> wisdom. The other is between having no control of resources -> having lots resources that we control. Smallest is not the right word for these intra-species continuum. Least may not be the best word for those lower on the two continuum. - Don't know of a better one though. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:39:40 PDT I thought about this issue of the term "least" some more. I think the objection comes from an assumption that we must treat everyone the same - but we don't - we don't let children make the same decisions as adults - we seek out the most qualified for any important task . . . I also think the real issue is not treating everyone the same but rather treating everyone with respect - and that, of course, is the point of this concept that I have named 'honor the gift of the least among us'. As to the continuum, the two are related. In a perfect world those who progress along the infant -> wisdom continuum would be awarded control of more and more resources. Our world is imperfect to the extent progress along the continuum is blocked by prejudice or lack of money and control of resources is awarded by accident of birth. I liked the way Eisler talked about the continuing need for hierarchy. She says that in a dominator society hierarchy is based on fear whereas in a partnership society hierarchy is based on helping those below you in the hierarchy to progress on the continuum_ (actualization is the word she used I think). .. _continuum: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Continuum_of_Knowledge I am using the word "least" to refer to those with the least knowledge and the least control of resources - and I know it is being interpreted as if I were referring to poor people as a "lower class" of people. I would use a different word if it carried the right meaning - or perhaps this is an issue we need to bring into the spot light. The issue of who has more capability is only a problem when it means the difference between being the dominator or the dominated. Where we are all helping each other progress on the continuum it is about who we can help and who we can get help from. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:44:09 PDT So much to feast upon (and in feasting not diminish). You used the phrase "being in the moment" and there was a sense of place attaching more responsibility. I have a different reaction to "being in the now" in contrast with the phrase "being in the moment" ... the now seems bigger somehow. Also I associate the phrase: "be here now" All of this brings to mind a book by Pete Leki (published among friends, and published online here: http://www.riverbankneighbors.org/howtodisappear/index.htm) - How to Disappear. The story begins: Live somewhere. A great beginning, and a great consummation. Living in an urban area, as I do (tho not as always) and recognizing nature abundantly around me - and the efforts of many to honor nature in the urban ... there still exists a deep tension. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:47:14 PDT Your points on hierarchy are particularly important to me --- frustrated by hierarchies of power we sometimes arrive at an impetus to tear down all hierarchies we find. Instead we should feel free to assemble and deconstruct hierarchies as and when we need them and just as easily let them go when they no longer serve our purposes. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:03:29 PDT Many people suffer from the illusion of control - which may be related to the illusion of self that the Buddhists talk about. Being aware of the forces that are playing out around and through us does not allow for the illusion of control. I think that applies in Eisler's conception of hierarchy in partnership elements of the system - that management does not control what the employees do - we can only influence that. Then, the question becomes, is fear a better motivator than the alternative of helping each employee progress in their capacity to add value to the business? In two dimensional thought there is a finite set of rewards and score is kept by the how many rewards one obtains (how much money). In three dimensional thought, the capacity of the system to produce value is a function of the structure (existing set of bridges, transactions, relationships, agreements, contracts . . . ). When we add new bridges we expand the capacity to produce value (creating an upward spiral) and I do not see any limit to that process. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 05:22:37 PDT This focus on our part in the set of transactions is critical to understanding inertia in the system. Once people find a fit they tend to stay there – because it is what they know – because it is safe – because we do not know the end result if we were to try a different fit. And this focus on our part in the set of transactions is critical to understanding conflict in the system. Once people find a fit they will do what is necessary to preserve that fit. People will defend the transactions that allow them to survive. And if one consequence of the relevant transactions is damage to another's prospects – then we have conflict. To maximize our influence in a place – to move the set of transactions focused on a place in the direction of more value retained in the system – means that we will seek out the opportunity to make new connections. I do not think it requires that everyone involved is aware of all the forces playing out around and through us – only that those of us seeking new connections understand the motivations of those we would connect. An Aikido_ approach to living in place. .. _Aikido: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido ---- :Author: Wael Al Saad :Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:48:44 PDT -honoring the gift of the least among us- to respect the whole truth is not easy. to ask for equality and wait for fulfillment to get the missing is easier. I've just bought this meaning with Israeli-Palestinian debate in term of conflict-resolution approach on `mepeace`_. I hope one day we will see that our rule in life is like the ecosystem. It can not be linearly separated. You can not divide sun-shine apart humidity. I liked the purpose of hierarchy as agent for continuum very much. Actually hierarchy in nature is based of total interconnection sub-systems with different grades complexity. But this is done this way so that the system with the higher complexity will serve the lower one and totally organize best functionality. Check `Holcracy`_, natural organisational hierarchy which is going in the direction. .. _`mepeace`: http://www.mepeace.org/forum/topics/661876:Topic:76451?page=17&commentId=661876%3AComment%3A335317&x=1#661876Comment335317 .. _`Holcracy`: http://holacracy.com/ PS: :) i finally managed to add hyper-links !! ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 06:46:38 PDT .. line-block :: **The place where we are right** From the place where we are right flowers will never grow in the Spring. The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard. But doubts and loves dig up the world like a mole, a plough. And a whisper will be heard in the place where the ruined house once stood. Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) Copyright Hana Amichai The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai Viking 1987 ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:41:57 PDT I'm not sure what you want me to take away from that poem David. Certainly, I think I am right about what I write. I am also certain that there is more to the universe than I will understand in this life time. I would welcome your challenge to anything I say. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:58:12 PDT I thought the poem says very eloquently something akin to what you have been saying in this (and related) threads: that we need to get out of fixed habits of thought that are generally thought of as "right" and start to consider how all things and all points of views need to be accommodated in sustainable systems that bear fruit rather lead ultimately to sterility. I certainly wasn't indicating that I think you are wrong: quite the reverse. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:08:41 PDT Oh, now I see what happened. After posting the poem, I posted an explanation of why I had done so. I must have failed to save it. What I said (in the unsaved post) was that someone had read that poem out yesterday and, perhaps, as it is by a Palestinian poet, it made be think of Wael and various threads here on Ned that are arguing one way or the other for more holistic, more qualitative and less self-centred ("the place where I am right" at the expense of others) approaches to living our lives. As always when one loses a post, I tink I said it much better in the lost post! LOL ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:53:59 PDT A good poem ... and I agree I think it makes the point well. Some people are firmly attached to their rightness and that is not a generative posture. ---- :Author: Wael Al Saad :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:47:12 PDT the whole morning I was thinking about the connection to homeland! About its nature, source and meaning. What differ the living place one is born in, grow up in, may be went to school .. from other place, like the one you go later for work and become also your"second living place" I know people who never left the region of living place in my homeland. Many have it done may be to the next city or to Jordan, which is next to Palestine, or to once or twice to Mekka .. You may know my story of leaving Germany back to Palestine. http://www.ned.com/group/community-general/news/323/ I left home with 19 and now I am now 37. There is strong connection to my homeland otherwise I would not easily exchange an ordinary living place in Europe, security, "peace", .. with a gray, collapsed Palestinian city trying to rise, middle of partially militant conflict. So it brought me to wonder about the meaning of homeland and "indigenous" living place. There must be something else than "social respinsibility" .. some thing spiritual? My thought brought me to following sweet-spot: Which patterns actually make us up to humans and where they are from!? These patterns are reflections into our consciousness. I like here to use the metaphor of mirrors-matrix of every thing. Ever thing reflects into our consciousness and develop it is a mirror reflects part of the WHOLE. When you are in our living place, EVERY thing there has an authentic unique pattern, filter-set of mirrors guide, inspire, emerge and transcend ones conscisouness. When we are longer time constructing the first curves into our "mentality" and "culture" this place is rooted deep inside each on of us. And if the place is part of a WHOLE "magnetic field", our "magnetic hart" appeal to this spot in spacial way. So if we try to understand the relationship-function of whole interconnection that way, we find the force carry all of has different strength in different places! The relationship to the living place has also "historic"-patterns, graved deep in our quantum-genetic structure. It means if My parents left Palestine to Germany, I will have this "indigenous" "quantum"-relation to the living place of my father and his grandfather ~ So yo use the relations to the living-place can be something mistrial, spiritual with endless meanings .. to follow it, means to become part of its endlessness, the whole and one ~ ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:16:22 PDT David, I am glad to know what you think about these issues we are addressing. It is an important balance this belief that we are right and the doubt that keeps our mind open to new information. Wael, I like your description of patterns reflecting our portion of the whole - a holographic consciousness. I think we seek a place where we 'fit' in the pattern - and place is not so much a location as the set of circumstances where we fit. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:44:26 PDT I have been contemplating these last few days where I would take the story next. It is about making new connections with other people in a place - and I am experimenting with that with the gardens - and now as a member of the Transition Westminster/Broomfield/Arvada Core Group. That group is meeting tonight - one of the things on the agenda is making connections with other existing groups to see how we can support each other. There are two aspects that I am not sure how we get past them. The first is this "someone else is responsible". There are many versions of that with one of the most common being that it is the government's responsibility - thinking about the government building these new connections - I don't think we want government making those decisions even if it was capable. The second is what I have called institutional imperatives and Linda made me change it to organizational imperatives because institution has a specific meaning in economics. Once an organization is formed, there are certain things that must remain in place if the organization is going to continue in existence. For social purpose organizations, in particular, one of the requirements is funding - which depends on a complex set of beliefs about the problem being addressed and the solution offered by the organization. Because all the other organizations also want that funding - and funding is limited - all the social purpose organizations become competitors. Working with other organizations risks the very existence of the organization itself. So the key here is changing the way we understand what organization is important to each of us as an individual. And here the two aspects become interrelated. If it is up to government (for example) to fix the problems in the world - then our best course of action is to support those organizations that lobby government for those changes we think necessary. If, on the other hand, it is up to each individual to make the connections that create a good place to live, then we can think of our community - the people living in our proximity - as the only 'organization' that is really important to us. It is that change in point of view - from the second dimensional - the world is composed of competing organizations - to a third dimensional - the world is full of individuals who form organizations to fulfill certain basic and common needs - that I am trying to describe in the next part of the story. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:18:13 PDT Living in Place we'll need to come to terms with some model of governance, so it isnt an either-or proposition. Our activation as global-local stewards is about governance. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:42:12 PDT Living in Place we'll need to come to terms with some model of governance, so it isnt an either-or proposition. Our activation as global-local stewards is about governance. This sounds very interesting, Michael, but do you have some kind of a translation - well, perhaps I just mean some explanatory notes to assist the slower readers ? ;-) ---- :Author: Wael Al Saad :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:19:09 PDT Michael Maranda said: Living in Place we'll need to come to terms with some model of governance, so it isnt an either-or proposition. Our activation as global-local stewards is about governance. one main general mistake in conventional governance that it is about governing human, as physical entity in a location! we can split the meanings make up the human in slices and try to govern these boarder-less. Other said, I might work on developing 100 meanings and 30 of my adding might get loved by the majority. It means i will not put a side because i missed in certain cycle to present right, more accurate aspects. You the natural Dynamic Alignment principle appears hear. The same issue happen, when people used to vote on article or politician agenda. It is yes or no when any human present a set meanings. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:45:47 PDT I hesitate to use the word governance because of the preset notions that people have about government and because I want to focus on the individual responsibility to choose what connections they maintain - and how that creates the 'forces playing out around and through us' in a place. In a locality we will have the interplay of corporate governance and municipal governance. I like the transition movement because it assumes that local government and local business will be partners in this adjustment that will be forced upon us by peak oil and climate change. The 'relocalization' that is envisioned necessarily includes more places for more people, plants and creatures to fit as compared to the global economies of scale based on cheap energy. What I don't think even the transitioners yet realize is that we, as a community, can design for more places for more people, plants and creatures to fit - and that benefits us personally even if technology continues to deliver cheap energy. That is through the local production of food, shelter, clothing, education and health care for local consumption - and community ownership of the capacity to do that. I have some ideas about the governance of that community ownership of capacity - but the realization that we create a place through our choices would seem to be a prerequisite to any interest in those issues. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:19:15 PDT Part of the dichotomy I think we need to get past is individual vs. all (or govt.) In stewardship and governance we as individuals will come together to work together in groups of varying size and duration. IS stewardship a better term than governance? And yes, there is the blur as to governance of what -- but when entities have much wider range of stakeholders than we have traditionally respected (allowing externalities to pile upon externalities) then it seems suitable to me that governance of any of these enterprises you list (corporate and municipal, or otherwise) is appropriately more open to this wider stewardship and governance. I dont think we need cast out the principle (and terminology) of governance and government simply based on the track record of the species... ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:20:41 PDT Wael Al Saad said: Michael Maranda said: Living in Place we'll need to come to terms with some model of governance, so it isnt an either-or proposition. Our activation as global-local stewards is about governance. one main general mistake in conventional governance that it is about governing human, as physical entity in a location! we can split the meanings make up the human in slices and try to govern these boarder-less. Other said, I might work on developing 100 meanings and 30 of my adding might get loved by the majority. It means i will not put a side because i missed in certain cycle to present right, more accurate aspects. You the natural Dynamic Alignment principle appears hear. The same issue happen, when people used to vote on article or politician agenda. It is yes or no when any human present a set meanings. Yes, I like this -- we need greater freedom to speak as global citizens anywhere. I would look to some of the vision of the MetaGovernment project. I was duly impressed. Imagine Direct Democracy now possible -- where we need not be restricted in our voices by the borders you speak of. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:24:27 PDT David Bale said: Living in Place we'll need to come to terms with some model of governance, so it isnt an either-or proposition. Our activation as global-local stewards is about governance. This sounds very interesting, Michael, but do you have some kind of a translation - well, perhaps I just mean some explanatory notes to assist the slower readers ? ;-) I'm just reacting to and rejecting what I take to be a view that Government is inherently problematic. Governance transcends Government in its bureaucratic and canalized forms of power and control ... it is the space of stewardship and a space where we can be creative. I think it is unlikely and undesirable to eliminate all the hierarchies we find in the world. Some will be rightly more perduring - the hierarchies are not the problem .. our relation to them is a major problem. We must seize the freedom and dignity to hold them to appropriate purposes. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:29:36 PDT No, I was not saying that hierarchies and government are problematic. I just want to change the focus to our individual power to create place. I think we should explore stewardship and governance further. In some way it feels like the same distinction that Linda and I are exploring in our discussion about values and value. Do we want government to enforce certain values or to deliver specific value. I am leaving tomorrow for a few days hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park . . . be back Monday . . . ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:07:46 PDT Enjoy your hike! We'll pick this up then :) ... (which thread is that?) My emphasis is that among our various powers as individuals is the power to work together in groups, and in institutions of all sorts. (with their possible redesign) ---- :Author: Wael Al Saad :Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:16:11 PDT Michael Maranda said: I would look to some of the vision of the MetaGovernment project. I was duly impressed. Imagine Direct Democracy now possible -- where we need not be restricted in our voices by the borders you speak of. MM, can you think about it in new-art business model fits the holistic-green-economy association we are discussing about? am telling this, cuz I am very convinced only through new economic behavior human behavior will be strongly changed! ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:41:18 PDT In that sense I would tie into #metacurrency projects as well.... (Art Brock et al.) and perhaps The Transitioner as well. These involve "new economic behavior" by complementing with many things traditionalists would have excluded, and they make new modes of governance possible. I am trying to connect them to the MetaGovernement group as well. Lately I have been involved in discussions following Participation Camp.... which gives me hope for revival of past synergist efforts ranging from Chaordic Commons to EFN. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:33:31 PDT Until 2004 I made my living practicing law. I was the owner with various partners over the years so I have a great deal of experience with such things as customer service, motivating employees, systems development, and generally running a business. The ideas about exchanges of value forming the structure of our world derive from that experience. I sold my interest in the firm in 2004 so I could write about this change in point of view – that we are not engaged in a struggle – we are engaged in a pattern of flows – that we create the pattern as it creates us. Earlier this year I started a new business – Organic Landscape Design - to work at applying this understanding – to influence the way people in my locality react to the ecosystem and economy - to created more places for people, plants and creatures to fit. The basic idea is about changing our aesthetic for lawns. A lawn is a maintenance expense – particularly here in the arid west. My company offers a design for a no weed, no water, no till, deep mulched, drip irrigated gardening system that maximimally employs nature's processes to accomplish the work thereby mimimizing the material and labor inputs required. The system takes the maintenance expense and converts it to a continuous source of value. As this idea catches hold we will hire and educate permaculture maintenance technicians to build and maintain these landscapes. We we will have created new places for people, plants and creatures to fit. The food produced will form the basis for even more transactions – and I will have learned more about successfully living in place. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:13:54 PDT So happy to hear about your company! ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:14:26 PDT It is important to me to distribute this idea – living in place – as widely as possible. Each one of us controls only a few transactions so by our selves can have only nominal impact on the ecosystem and economy in a place. Most people do not know that they create the place where they live. Many people think that someone else is responsible. They think the government or the big corporations or unenlightened are responsible. But the world we experience is made up of all the transactions in which we each engage and your choices have as much impact as anyone else's. Many think that it takes money to change things and that we must get a vote in congress or a grant for money to make changes. But the world we experience is being changed all the time – to enhance the ecosystem simply stop using poisons – or compost your garbage – or leave a wild edge to your yard. To enhance the economy change what you buy or stop buying things. Your choices create the ecosystem and economy even as you are created by them. Some people think that the market will solve all our problems – but we create the market through our decisions about what to buy and when – and some choices result in a depletion of resources retained in a place and some choices result in the accumulation of resources retained in a place. If enough people in a place understand that they create place – and begin living in place – we can create the new transactions for more people, plants and creatures to fit in our place. We can enhance our local ecosystem and our local economy in my place and your place and all over the world. And the more that we exercise our power to create place the better we will become at it. For that purpose I am asking you to share these ideas with all the people that you know who want the world to be better than it is now. If you know of a group that is working on some change I would be pleased to present these ideas at the next meeting. I have posted the full text on line in my `About Us`_ pages as well if that is an easier place to link. It is up to us to create the kind of world we want – no one else will do it for us. .. _`About Us`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Living_in_Place ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:18:11 PDT Now you all know what I understand about living in place. I would like to have more influence in my place - but I do not know what effect my attempts at influence are having. I still think the key is this `continuum of human knowledge`_ idea. People have beliefs about how the world works and think everyone is entitled to their beliefs - what I know is that we are all ignorant and if any of these "beliefs" held the key to a better world we would have fixed things by now. Progress toward a better world will depend on our collective willingness to examine the assumptions on which we base our beliefs. .. _`continuum of human knowledge`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Continuum_of_Knowledge We are having a discussion_ among the local transition core group in part about 'variables affecting our community'. Brad Jarvis was talking about "our ecologically destructive activities" and one of them being "Habitat loss". I responded about our understanding of our relationship to the ecosphere being a variable in how our community will respond to changes in the eco-socio-economic system as follows: .. _discussion: http://transitioncolorado.ning.com/group/transitionwestminster/forum/topics/transition-wab-energy-descent?page=2&commentId=2286620%3AComment%3A44435&x=1#2286620Comment44435 Agreed that increasing biodiversity is one of our most important tasks. Agreed that preserving those ecosystems that have been least affected by human short sightedness is equally important. Now to the really interesting possibilities. So long as the environmental movement focuses on preservation it will be in opposition to the other important tasks involving survival of human beings. This opposition to survival of human beings is based on an underlying assumption that human systems are something different from and necessarily destructive of nature's systems. A change in this point of view would free up a huge resource for research and development into new ways for humans to produce what they need through systems that incorporate nature's processes - thereby increasing biodiversity. We face a similar opportunity on the social justice side - where the welfare of the most vulnerable of humans takes precedence over even the health of the ecosystem. In social justice circles there is usually someone else who must do something to help - and resources are spent trying to convince that someone to do so. Realizing that we can produce abundance by incorporating nature's processes into human systems of production would free up a huge resource for research and development into new ways for humans to produce what they need - at the same time that we increase biodiversity. We can talk about what those systems might look like at state, national or global levels but implementation will necessarily take place at the community level. I propose a primary goal of this core group to increase the number of people who understand our power as community to determine the future. The other part of this is the way the planetary mind works. If this reexamination of assumptions were taking place at the planetary level, it would be much easier to talk about at the local level. I am thinking that is because there is this issue of 'authority' in that part of our understanding of the world that we adopt from the common knowledge. Let me try to explain: If one considers themselves an environmentalist but does not have time to do independent research into environmental issues then we adopt our beliefs about those issues from an authority - perhaps Green Peace or the Sierra Club. So long as those authorities assert that their positions are "truth" all those who accept their authority will incorporate that "truth" into their understanding of the world. If Green Peace or the Sierra Club undertook to examine the assumptions on which they base their beliefs all the people who accept their authority would be released to also examine their assumptions. That would be a risk to the organization's authority - their ability to raise funds - and the organization's existence - but, for those first organizations that move past their two dimensional view of the world to a 'how all the parts fit in the whole' view of the world, there is this great potential for new authority across many different beliefs. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:39:09 PDT I haven't even time to read your latest post, David, but I just found this and thought immediately of you. `Living in Place`_ .. _`Living in Place` : http://www.whitedog.com/asenseofplace.html ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:13:09 PDT Are the particular entities you are using as examples, really just examples, or do you mean them in particular? IS there some degree of "Straw man" in using them as examples? Do we think they really havent examined their assumptions? (Or is it a matter of degree?) ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:17:51 PDT Linda Nowakowski said: I haven't even time to read your latest post, David, but I just found this and thought immediately of you. `Living in Place`_ .. _`Living in Place` : http://www.whitedog.com/asenseofplace.html Jane Jacobs -- very important to my thinking! ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sat, 08 Aug 2009 13:08:58 PDT Michael Maranda said: Are the particular entities you are using as examples, really just examples, or do you mean them in particular? IS there some degree of "Straw man" in using them as examples? Do we think they really havent examined their assumptions? (Or is it a matter of degree?) Seems I hit a nerve :-) I could have used the example of someone who considered them self a political conservative and adopted Rush Limbaugh as their authority. The conservative premise is that government can only interfere with efficiency in business and anyone who is asking government to solve a problem is trying to take away our freedom to make a living. But if I had used the conservatives you would just agree with me. The point I was trying to make is that we have all these resources devoted to ending environmental deterioration and if we assume that human systems are necessarily destructive of nature's systems those resources are not available to develop human systems that enhance nature's systems. Permaculture and ZERI are working on these types of systems but I do not see much re-examination of the preservation only assumptions from other environmental groups. The part about risk to the existence of the organization applies to all organizations - all organizations have a set of assumptions about their purpose and usefulness that they cannot examine without risking their survival - their survival depends on the belief in their members, participants, supporters that the organization has purpose and usefulness - and that applies across all categories - government, educational, business, charitable, . . . Most of us suffer from an even more basic assumption - that the world is a struggle between groups for control of scarce resources - and reinforcing that assumption serves both the environmentalists, social justice groups and the conservatives. It incorporates two of the three assumptions that keep us from creating the world we want 1) someone else is responsible, and 2) resources are scarce. So we can always raise more money by talking about how the conservatives want to destroy more of the environment, or how the environmentalists want to take us back to the dark ages . . . It seems to me better to start with an understanding that we are all ignorant and we are all in this together - and work at re-examining all our assumptions. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:25:07 PDT it wasnt so much that you hit a nerve as I wasnt sure if these were just as-if examples - if so, not so much a big deal (grain of salt), but otherwise, still hard to say - it seems to presume a lot about these two groups you mentioned, and while I could see the point, was not clear if you were being fair towards hem or if you were establishing a straw man argument. I dont think the "supporters" of all the orgs you list, left or right follow blindly and feel themselves unfree to challenge assumptions (tho some may behave blindly) I also dont think that asserting that human processes HAVE served to the detriment of our environment means that it always necessarily is (or need be) so ... indeed, it's my firm belief that we can institute different human processes that need not be destructive. Indeed, I view our thinking as closer than that - but find it important that we challenge each other when it appears our examples are playing with straw. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:29:14 PDT Either side of the example that you might have started with involves straw men. I have often argued against the right-left dichotomy that is often offered to segment discourse. I take the term conservative as it relates to conservation. I also take things in the long arc of history, and looking not so far back in history - the Progressive Era - we see the great Conservationist (who may have had flaws) - a Republican President T.R. It's the flattening of discourse into polar opposites and the excitement of oppositional speech that ignores history and science. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:36:42 PDT Regarding Orgs and the presuppositions for their survival --- (need for funding, activating their base, and even getting them over-active) This is an important point - and central to my view that the appropriate unit of organization, action and analysis for any activity in the social benefit sector is the field -- that is, not the organization! Organizations should network themselves to advance the issue in their field, and when the issue is a problem that humans can solve (when sufficient will is manifest) there are many cases where I believe that charitable or social benefit enterprises should be striving to "work themselves out of a job" .... i.e. to make a big breakthrough and overcome what they are working on rather than be in perpetual triage that is the perpetuation of suffering. There are plenty of ills afflicting society and communities where it is not a question of human knowledge or skill, but will. It is the shame of the species that these perdure. ---- :Author: Christina Jordan :Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:58:33 PDT Michael, your last comment touches on what I was also thinking as I read through this thread. I heard a presentation on community building once that pointed to something I think is important here. Communities are at their strongest and most effective when people who participate in those communities really identify themselves on a personal level with the community. We all naturally belong to very many communities, and the communities we belong to vary in size, shape and scope. An individual's drive to behave in accordance with community norms is going to be a direct function of the faith that the individual has in that community's righteousness (within their own belief system about their personal desires) and that community's effectiveness to achieve outcomes that are desired by the community's individual members. So David, you are absolutely right that it begins with each individual - each individual can make choices that positively impact the biosphere. But I would argue that they won't make those choices until they have faith in the effectiveness of the community of others who are doing so. Which community is that? IMO (as has already been discussed) it's a hard sell to make someone believe that a small organization is going to effect big change, or that a government is righteous enough to identify with in a behavioral changing manner. The community that I personally can believe in and want to be a part of is the sector; the field at large; the movement toward greener living. If the goal in a local context is to influence individual behaviors that contribute to the greater movement, then perhaps it could be useful to provide a vision of what that movement looks like (it looks like "us") and provide information about the effectiveness of that movement (the many other groups of "us"). The point being to help people identify with a community that they can have faith in. Of course, being a serial expat, my "living in place" takes on quite a different form and provokes many alternative thoughts to much of what's been stated here... I'll save those for another time :) ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:33:45 PDT What it looks like... is in part a question of being able to communicate it. Otherwise much remains invisible. We need more sharing of our stories. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:41:04 PDT Thank you Michael and Christina. I think we are coming to a common language about this issue of responsibility for the condition of the world. I still think that field is too narrow a focus - in a different way that 'national interest' is too complex a focus. That is why this thread is about 'living in place' - being aware of the forces playing out around and through us - exerting what influence we have on the forces that we can affect and that affect us. I think the proper point of focus to exerting our influence is community. Our well being as individuals is inseparable from the well being of the eco-socio-economic system in the place where we reside. (ex pats included - although one may retain influence generated in one place when we relocate to another place and that is why that which we can locate on the map is not precisely what I mean by place). When we look at all the organizations attempting to exert influence at all the different levels of the system we can seek out those that increase the number of places for people, plants and creatures to fit in the place where we live - and stop supporting those organizations that would diminish the number of places for people, plants and creatures to fit in the place where we live. And if we did that as community - and every community did that - then all the power in the system would reside at the level of community. However, to exercise that power, we first have to come to understand that: - no one else is responsible, - resources are not scarce, and - the market is not going to solve all our problems. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:47:27 PDT field is not a/the focus ... and not an exclusive focus ... it is a reorientation of attention from organizations to a wider perspective of addressing the issues the organization was constituted to address ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:50:21 PDT the first of three bullets -- I might gently rephrase as - "this is not someone else's responsibility more than my own" that's still not adequate ... but at least it doesnt negate the responsibility of the other ---- :Author: Christina Jordan :Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:48:27 PDT David, I agree that the local community where one lives is the level at which influence can best be exerted, but am suggesting that the impact of the broader field / sector / movement is what people who are reticent to act might find higher inspiration from. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 04:59:45 PDT The problem with field is the problem of silos - we can focus on one concern or another but a better world is about how one thing relates to another and every thing is related to every thing else. It is at the level of community where we can work out all those relationships so that the system works better for more people, plants and creatures. You can make all the progress you want in any field/sector/movement but you will not be making a better world unless it results in a more functional system at the level where each of us lives. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:55:53 PDT While this thread is title "Living in Place" this may be somewhat out of scope.... Some things require concentrations of effort and attention. This can take us out of the proximity of local geographic community or proximate social networks to communities of other forms: communities of passion, preference, profession. I see no reason to deny these communities. Using the term silo dismisses the combinatorial and community potential in such endeavors. Local geographic community often falls short of it's own supposedly descriptive name/terms. (Namely in the third term of "Community") If I brought in the term parochialism or provincialism to diminish the factor of place in this thread we could see that as parallel to the notion that field necessarily invokes "silo" ... I use "field" in a specific and somewhat fluid sense. Whether this is clear in my writing or clear to my readers is up for exploration. As long as I have room to clarify my meaning it doesnt much matter. There are plenty of terms we use that others apply narrow and rigid interpretations thereof. The invocation of field intends an exploration of the interrelation of fields just as much as a new alignment of efforts beyond narrower silos. (And moreover, in my model of this, there are multiple cross-cutting divisions of field, which I invite as multi-layerings of map/interpretive scheme. Welcome to a pluriform perception matrix.) As for silo --- it seems to me that no paradigm can completely escape some degree of siloism - or cordoning off of attention and effort to the exclusion of other things/models, unless it invokes sufficient reflexivity and invites active re-imagining of the boundaries it seems to set out. Getting to the dynamic utility of a theory vs. the rigid naming-interpretation is an important step. We should always try to appreciate a theory for what it is trying to solve and interpret and take care in our applications to other problems we ourselves bring to it. Now - the level where each of us lives -- I suggest we live at multiple levels. And not all of us live at the same set of levels. And the levels which even we here may start to enumerate as important to the "local/proximate" living of life ... these are not terribly well articulated or understood nor interlaced in our communication layers. Interfacing adequately with the knowledge of professions, communities of practice and passion is essential to this. We all cannot specialize in all the things that have evolved special knowledge. This basic degree of differentiation - specialization is part of our interdependence. But in the realm of scarcity we have organized these diverse practices in dysfunctional ways, and set up a great deal of mistrust which often leads to rejection. Additionally, the mistrust between different communities of practice, different lines of work, different interpretive matrices yields continuous forking and challenge and attempts to discredit each other. This is the Babel of our own pride and unwillingness to take time to appreciate each other, and our willingess to take advantage of each other. ( I mean the broader we than we assembled here, but we are not immune to such criticism either) ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:27:30 PDT There's been reference to "slower readers" and surely I'm among them. I go through life never quite smart enough. Of course that's not unique to me, and that's why Michael's point: "We need more sharing of our stories." is so important. Story sharing isn't simply about our telling stories, but also in hearing them and putting stories together. The discussion of place and the field brought up a number of stories I've heard recently and am trying to process. In a `NYT oped`_, Dan Barber writes about the great late blight disaster in the northeast of 2009. Barber connects the severity of late blight this year to so many home gardeners planting backyard gardens. Late blight affects tomato and potato plants. One of the lines he draws is tomato seedlings purchased at big chain stores like WalMart. Sales of disease carrying seedlings from a few growers were dispersed across a wide geographic area. I'm not sure this is the main or primary reason for the severity of late blight this year. Nonetheless the oped does a great job of drawing attention to the complex importance of the local in food production. Another story is a profile of `Rama Cont`_ who studies financial markets. Cont, an associate professor at Columbia studies economic topics but is attached to the engineering school. Indeed, he came to the study of economics by way of his training in theoretical physics. “When I first became interested in economics, I was surprised by the deductive, rather than inductive, approach of many economists,” he says. Whereas in physics, researchers tend to observe empirical data and then build a theory to explain their observations, “many economic studies typically start with a theory and eventually attempt to fit the data to their model.” Part of my being "slow" is not having a proper education, tending to avoid anything "hard" along my education path. Nevertheless, Cont's observation about the field of economics caught my attention. Paul Krugman's famous paper `The Fall and Rise of Development Economics`_ provides an accessible defense of models. The article is also thoughtful about the difficulties in methodology in studying complex systems. Among the "hard" subjects I avoided is logic. Along the line I learned to distinguish induction and deduction. I also learned to associate the scientific method with an inductive method. Because I've avoided "hard" subjects like mathematics and logic, it was clear I'd never manage in a scientific course in college. I opted for social sciences presuming them easier. It didn't take long to discover that the areas of interest in social and behavioral sciences are complex systems and therefore the systematic study is "hard." Anyhow, the importance of theory and the problems of theory in social sciences were impressed upon me early in my college career. I had an interest in getting into a program in child development so was taking psychology courses. I did not like behaviorism, and Freud seemed odd to me. I did rather like Piaget, but he was really hard to understand. I liked the the idea of stages of development, but was very unclear about how stages were formed, or how stages are bounded systems. The work of Arnold Gesell interested me because it seemed to me he collected data about children and the milestones of their development without a very explicit or intrusive theory of psychology. One of the big challenges in science is coming up with hypotheses. While I liked the idea of data collection without an overarching theory, the problem of hypothesis selection drove me back to seeing the importance of theory. Discovering the work of Gregory Bateson was quite important to me at this time. I didn't understand much, but was grateful to have some introduction to thinking about theories. Bateson introduced to me Charles Sanders Peirce idea of `abduction`_. Deductive arguments are also known as necessary inferences. Inductive arguments are also known as probable inferences. Peirce added a third sort of logical argument: abduction; conjectures made on the basis of sufficient similarity. Peirce's use of the term abduction doesn't seem to be awfully popular, but in there is plenty of attention to the creation of hypotheses so the idea is very much a part of scientific methodology. The piece on Rama Cont is in City Journal which is indebted to a Libertarian point of view. I'm often annoyed with Libertarian points of view. Politically, I have no clue where Cont stands, but from an intellectual point of view hes says that: "He is only a man of science." Recently I've found myself becoming annoyed by people identifying in a similar way in re arguments over the new atheism. The piece on Cont is just a sort one, I sense a bit of hubris about his work as scientific as opposed conventional economics. I'm not anti-science, it just that most of what we study is very complex such that some of what falls under the banner of "science" seems too simplistic. There is a good short `video`_ by Shawn Callahan giving an overview of the Cynefin Framework. Callahan explains four ontological domains: simple, complicated, complex and chaotic. He makes the point that stories are especially important when dealing with the complex. In David's work the ideas about self organizing systems are important. Dr. Randall Whitaker maintains a big Web site to make autopoiesis study accessible. The Wikipedia article on `autopoiesis`_ points out that autopoiesis "expresses a fundamental dialectic between structure and function." How we look at whatever it is we're looking at can be different. We can look from the outside and see the system as a whole. Or we can look from the inside and see the networks which contribute to the composition of the whole. Whitaker's `synopsis`_ of these different frames of reference is excellent. I've gone off in several directions at once, and pointed to lots of links, that are dense enough it would take some time to go through. Underlying David's notion of "living in place" it seems to me to be something of the notion of a dialectic between structure and function. David pointed out that the place creates him just as he creates the place. It's here that the distinction about perspective of looking from the outside or inside becomes helpful. Gregory Bateson noted that we have certain tricks to enable us to grasp something of the world. He lists some of the best known tricks: induction, generalization, and abduction. In Angels Fear he writes: We gather information about details, we fit the pieces of information together to make pictures or configurations, we summarize them in statements of structure. We then compare our configurations to show how they can be classified as falling under the same or related rules. Its that last part that Bateson identifies as abduction, and Bateson thought abduction that holds all of science together. I linked to the profile of Cont to point to a suspected hubris, that what his inductive method is science. Of course it is, but using models is too. A model is useful in economics and science in general because it provides a way of looking at the interaction of structure and function. The link to Shawn Callahan's video is just to point out that we are begining to find ways to know and understand areas of interest in the complex ontological domain, the domain where cause and effect are so intertwined things only make sense in hindsight. What I've tried to do with these links is to point to some ideas about scientific theory. But at the root of David's thinking is responsibility; Essential to David's story of living in place is his idea of individual responsibility. I think it's fair to say that David believes we are deluded into not taking responsibility for creating our place. I probably really don't understand David's perspective properly. What I think is he has identified certain rules that ought to govern our behavior in place: * no one else is responsible, * resources are not scarce, and * the market is not going to solve all our problems." We must think carefully, which is hard work I'm often loathe to do. I'm not sure what the impact of everyone adopting David's rules or mind-change would be. The rules seem hunches to me, even if I"m inclined to agree with all of them. What often annoys me about scientists is how responsibility seems excluded from their perspectives. I very much like that David puts it front and center. The dream we create about the world and our place in it is our responsibility. That dream must be woven from many threads: mathematics, natural history, science, aesthetics, as well as the joy in living. David's point about responsibility speaks strongly to me. .. _`NYT oped`: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09barber.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th .. _`Rama Cont`: http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_3_financial-markets.html .. _`The Fall and Rise of Development Economics`: http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/dishpan.html .. _`abduction`: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#dia .. _`synopsis`: http://www.enolagaia.com/UnityInOut.html#RecView .. _`video`: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mqNcs8mp74 .. _`autopoiesis`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:24:01 PDT very pleased to see resonances with Piaget, Peirce, Bateson ... similar resonance for me. (Though did an in depth study of Freud and he grew on me later, more as basis for object relational approach I conceptualized for wider social formations) ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:39:10 PDT :Modified: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:44:02 PDT These are both great comments Michael and John. As some of your may know, Linda Nowakowski is visiting Denver to interview people about her thesis and is staying at my place for the time being. She is challenging me to rephrase the three assumptions that keep us from creating the world that we want in terms less likely to provoke immediate rejection. Yes, I think specialization is necessary balanced by the need to make decisions (as a species) that incorporate the best information from all the specialties. Hence the call for a conversation across interest and expertise. I may have assumed too narrow a concept for 'field' and there is merit in an approach based on a specific result to be obtained by understanding all the forces playing out around and through us. John says: *The dream we create about the world and our place in it is our responsibility. That dream must be woven from many threads: mathematics, natural history, science, aesthetics, as well as the joy in living.* More than that, we already create the world as the cumulative result of all the choices each of us makes. Our understanding of our choices is bounded by this phenomenon I have called the common knowledge - where we 'adopt' an authority and sometimes that authority is responding to organizational imperatives without examining its assumptions in light of the best information from all the specialties (which is why I so much appreciate John's participation here.) I was telling Linda about the process in permaculture. It is 90 percent observation and then, when we think we understand how the various species in our system are interacting, we attempt to influence a change that will introduce new elements and expand the resilience of the system - and if we do understand what is going on we have the satisfaction of a more robust ecosystem in our place - and if we do not understand what is going on, then things do not work out as we anticipate and we go back to our observation. Linda says that is the definition of 'participatory research" (I think is what she said). And it is that same process to build a more robust socio-economic system in a place - and perhaps that is just a hunch - but we never exercise our power to create place if we are seduced by any of the three assumptions I list. ---- :Author: Michael Maranda :Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:42:55 PDT nicely stated, and my best to Linda! ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:43:38 PDT 1. Who caused the problems is irrelevant. What each and every one of us do now is what matters. If we are not a part of the solution, we are a part of the problem. We are all in this together. 2. We aren't looking at all the possible resources. This is a complex, whole, interrelated system all working together. 3. Some problems are bigger than the market. Money can't buy you love. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:02:44 PDT The first three posts on Living in Place brought you up to date on my experiments with these ideas. I can now give a blow by blow as new results come in. Last night we had a meeting of the Core Group for Transition Westminster/Arvada/Broomfield for the purpose of discovering our common values. We started by trying to answer the question 'Why Transition?' There is an on going discussion by the group in our group pages on Transition Colorado but I woke up this morning thinking about these things and want to share them here as well. Why Transition? **It is within our power, as a community, to foster a thriving, inclusive community in harmony with nature, here in Westminster/Arvada/Broomfield, if we understand our limits and the real potential that results from incorporating nature's processes into human systems.** __ Let me comment on some of the words I used: Inclusive refers to the idea that our goal is the maximum happiness for the maximum possible number of people. I don't think happiness quite captures the real meaning we are trying to convey. This is not about absence of pain, or absence of want. This is about the opportunity to explore one's purpose in life – an exploration of the gift each of us has to give the rest of us – and we are all the richer the more people are able to do that. We are limited by the fact that we rely on other species and physical processes for our own existence – we cannot destroy their ability to function without harm to ourselves. The real potential of incorporating nature's processes into human systems derives from the fact that we participate in a single system that operates as an indivisible whole – a single pattern of flows – a single set of interactions. __ The key to our power to foster the kind of community we want to live in is this understanding of interconnectedness. It is superior knowledge to the old understanding that the world is a struggle for survival between individual entities. From the struggle for survival point of view we cannot see all the potential for new connections. As a result or our old understanding we have been reducing the number and quality of interactions taking place in the system. With this superior knowledge we can set about to enhance the set of interactions by consciously creating new places for more people, plants and creatures to fit. ---- :Author: Christina Jordan :Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:04:01 PDT David, I ran across an article today that I thought you might find interesting: http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2009/08/28/connecting-to-grow/ ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:41:10 PDT Thank you for the link Christina. As it happens I had just signed up on the Hyperlocavore_ site from a link posted on Transition Colorado. I have to focus this week on updating `my own web site`_ so I can start promoting participation in next years gardens based on the abundance we produced this year. I will post an update here when I get it done. .. _Hyperlocavore: http://hyperlocavore.ning.com/ .. _`my own web site`: http://www.organiclandscapedesign.org/ ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:06:26 PST An update on my ongoing efforts to influence events in my place. Don Hall, who is education and outreach coordinator for Transition Colorado posted an article_ on "slow leadership". And I had an opportunity to respond: .. _article: http://transition-times.com/blog/2009/10/22/time-for-slow-leadership/comment-page-1/#comment-7 I think we retain a top down understanding of leadership embedded in our culture from the time of kings. That, however, is not the way the ’system’ works. The flow of goods, and services, and ideas, and everything else, through the system, is determined by the groups to which we belong – and groups only exist because individual people choose to participate in them. True, you can’t just go out and create the kind of group in which you want to participate. It takes more than one, or a few, to make a group. But, if there was a new group that could supply what you need better than the group that does that now, you could change your mind in an instant – creating the new group and killing the old group. We can’t be a leader unless there are followers. If we, as the transition movement, want to lead the way to a future without fossil fuels we will have to make an offer to people that works better for them than what they have now. We need new groups employing systems of production that heal nature and produce abundance. Permaculture provides us a method for developing those systems – observing and honoring the role that all the different elements play. An alarmist organization cannot heal nature and produce abundance. Developing new ways to provide the food, shelter, clothing, education and health care that members of our community need to thrive – making a better offer to individual members of our community – and creating the groups that heal nature and produce abundance – is an exciting, long term, bottom up, ’slow leadership’ effort. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:58:02 PST My local power company came by yesterday and installed a 'net meter' and today my contractor came by and turned on my solar panels. I am now theoretically producing an amount of electricity equal to all the electricity I use in a year. yeah!!! It is a 4.2 KW array pumping watts into the grid as I write and I have now exerted more influence over the flows in this place. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:33:40 PST David, As I was reading this article_ I was thinking about you and the extension of community and transactions from the natural place we live in. Is this a good place to discuss this or should we do it in my news or another place altogether? I have referred this same article to the discussion on collaboration and the board which is why I posted it centrally in my news. .. _article : http://www.ned.com/user/u523412994/news/54/ ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:38:37 PST I was thinking about your article and Kelly's out of control book and had this additional thought about why there is so much fear out there. Why there is so much energy put into "alarmist" organizations warning us about all the terrible things that could happen. According to Kelly, all living systems (vivisystems) operate on the edge of chaos. In a predictable Newtonian Universe, energy and organization is dissipated over time. Living systems accumulate organization and contained energy by cycling the dissipating energy at the edge of chaos. This cycling is accomplished by the interaction of many diverse elements - each seeking its own path according to its own internal processes - which is then modified by its experience interacting with the other elements in the system. Because every change causes multiple other changes we cannot predict the result of any given change without 'running the test'. That sort of multiple response complexity also delivers a stability to the system. For example, any change that has an impact at a planetary scale, such as an increase in the price of oil, will automatically result in 6.5 billion individual adjustments to that change. We cannot predict the overall result of such adjustments until we experience them - and more to the point - we cannot even imagine figuring out all the adjustments that need to be made. Therefore, we don't believe that we can survive the kinds of changes predicted for the future. We have no faith in the system function that operates outside of our control. It seems we do have an 'invisible hand' that self organizes ecosystems and economies and communities. At the same time, understanding this aspect of system function, we can impact how each of those 6.5 billion choices are made through the exchange of information in the Planetary Mind. We have a great deal of information on what it takes to successfully participate in the market. We are short of information on what it takes to successfully participate in a community. We are generally oblivious to what it takes to successfully participate in an ecosystem. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:24:33 PST I had lunch with a gentleman yesterday who made his living fund raising for non-profits going back to the original earth day and the National Organization for Women. He has tried to work with, and already burned bridges with, the folks at Transition Colorado and a group here promoting greenhouses, among others, that I saw as elemental to the community work I envision. That raises an interesting question about how to support an inclusive set of relationships across divisions of animosity between the various elements. Anyway, this gentleman is thinking in terms of helping me structure an organization for which he could raise money - and he was very interested when I explained how it is a planetary experiment in building local systems. My problem is that, as soon as I begin promoting an organization I become 'just another one', with its own organizational imperatives, competing with all the other organizations. What I want to promote is the existing eco-socio-economic system in this place and a means of sharing experimental results from many such places. Linda keeps telling me that it is not so much the content of what I am trying to say that turns people off as the way that I say it. And I consider carefully every thing Linda tells me - its just that I can only express things the way I understand them. I will try again today to put these concepts into a form that conveys the mutual interest the residents here share in developing these new systems - and any thoughts any one has on this dilemma would certainly be appreciated. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:52:15 PST This could allow you to reach the populations that don't have the capital to invest in this experiment. Do you need to support an organization as much as be grateful to an organization that is assisting? Why was Transition turning him away? ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:04:09 PST Today writing was like pulling teeth but here is a first draft of what I want to do. Linda, your first two questions are answered in the text, I think. Transition did not appreciate his objection to the way the central organization was using the local organizations as profit centers instead of supporting them (according to him). Here is the text: Details of a Post-Industrial Community Self-Organization The goal is that every locality will develop the capacity to produce the food, clothing, shelter, education and health care that every resident of a locality needs to thrive. For shorthand: 1 – we will call food, clothing, shelter, education and health care “necessities”. 2 - By capacity to produce we mean that the residents of a locality will organize themselves to provide necessities for themselves. 3 - By thrive we mean that each resident has the opportunity for the physical and mental development necessary to exercise choice in their life. The goal is to develop the local capacity to produce those necessities the residents need to thrive. The set of skills that we want to develop to reach the goal, the know how to do that, we will call the technology of community sufficiency. We view this technology as an overlay that is added on top of the existing set of structures in a locality. Therefore, we are not asking any resident to stop doing what they are doing to provide for themselves, we are only asking all residents to consider what else we might do to achieve the goal. In order to facilitate a community effort to move toward the goal we propose some preliminary rules: 1 – everyone gets to make their own decisions. 2 – whatever we do is available for all residents 3 – we measure progress by the diversity of people, plants and creatures participating There is no preconceived definition of locality, and there is no preconceived set of steps that any locality might take to work toward the goal. We only ask, in the interest of developing the technology as quickly as possible that the community members working toward the goal in any given locality regularly discuss their successes and frustrations with community members of other localities working toward that goal. We do not wish to set up a new organization to pursue this goal either for an effort in any particular locality – or to facilitate the inter-locality communication. There are already organizations working on various parts of this effort in every locality. Any organization interested in working toward the goal is welcome to participate and the way that different types of organizations can contribute to reaching the goal will become part of the technology. We are looking for existing organizations to sponsor specific projects – including the inter-locality communication – and we anticipate certain benefits will accrue to those organizations who do participate in locally successful developments approaching the goal. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:00:35 PST I'm not sure it will be at all helpful to you David, but `Robert Patterson`_ is working along quite similar lines on Prince Edward Island. He has begun to put up videos of a discussion with Stuart Baker. Last year Patterson hosted a John Boyd conference, and all his posts on the conference are worthwhile, but `this one`_ provides a bit of context about Stuart Baker. Also `this post`_ provides a quick overview of the videos. .. _`Robert Patterson`: http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/ .. _`this one`: http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2008/12/boyd-2008-working-well-in-spite-of-differences-stuart-baker.html .. _`this post`: http://powerupproject.wordpress.com/the-insights/ ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 07:33:47 PST Thank you for the links John. I guess I am mostly a Pioneer with lesser Nurturer tendencies and only Provider out of necessity. I particularly like the ideas on "Trusted space" and "coordination governance". In the Community Investment Enterprise, the safe space is maintained by the `internal transactions`_. People most often object to the governance part, but it is a coordinator role as envisioned in Dee Hock's work. In my exposure to modern management theory I found that I had discovered the basic principles myself in managing my law firm and I think that is because I am more Nurturer than Provider. Anyway, in the Community Investment Enterprise, we select a CEO_ and the CEO is charged with attracting as much labor as possible. To attract labor the CEO must find a way to make it worthwhile for each person who chooses to participate - and that means attracting as many different skills as possible. I think we want to find the person furthest along the `continuum of human knowledge`_ that we possibly can and give them the day to day authority to negotiate with participants. We do not have the risk inherent in the traditional role of the CEO charged with attracting as much capital as possible, because all the shareholders will be working along side the CEO all the time. .. _`internal transactions`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_The_First_Base_Pairs .. _CEO: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Ownership_of_Assets .. _`continuum of human knowledge`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Continuum_of_Knowledge ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:20:22 PST David Braden said: ... I think we want to find the person furthest along the `continuum of human knowledge`_ that we possibly can and give them the day to day authority to negotiate with participants. We do not have the risk inherent in the traditional role of the CEO charged with attracting as much capital as possible, because all the shareholders will be working along side the CEO all the time. I'm not sure that being "the person furthest along the `continuum of human knowledge`_" is the proper skill set for your CEO. :-) .. _`internal transactions`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_The_First_Base_Pairs .. _CEO: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Ownership_of_Assets .. _`continuum of human knowledge`: http://www.aboutus.org/3DN_Continuum_of_Knowledge ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:10:06 PST You are just prejudiced by the title - since making a profit is evil :-) Here the skill set is helping individuals figure out how they can increase their individual wellbeing while contributing to the wellbeing of the community - that meaning you are looking for in the food for thought thread. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:52:37 PST I have no idea what I am! One of the aspects of the triad is of course the three colors, but in the center is a tiny governor. Leave it to me to notice the tiniest part and make that my biggest concern ;-) I'm so glad you noticed that too and look to Dee Hock's work. That raises an interesting question about how to support an inclusive set of relationships across divisions of animosity between the various elements. Hock is rather amazing in seeing this problem as an opportunity. It sure doesn't feel that way when the animosity is being directed at me or I'm full of animosity. This is a bit off the subject. But the other day I was thinking back to the 70's and my efforts to transform a shell of a house in an old company coal mining town into an energy efficient structure that incorporated food production. There were many problems with my efforts not the least my general incompetence. But an obstacle I was not able to surmount was persistent vandalism. It was a social issue I couldn't match. Rob Hopkins of the Transition recently `revisited`_ West Cork where back in the mid 1990's he'd begun to work on resilient community models. And that's where he had begun to build a cob house. The house was destroyed by arson. Reading between the lines that arson the arson was a tremendous blow to him. Last night I was reading about community efforts to save the `Soul Food Farm`_ in the Bay area. I had heard about the fire, probably from links by Haney, but what I hadn't grokked before was that the fire was arson. Something that every initiative faces is animosity. Sometimes the animosity is obvious, and as Hock demonstrates this sort of tension can actually be something which leads to innovation. But some of the animosity is hidden, and that's something harder to deal with. I remember a Reagan for President ad that featured a dusty Winebago. I didn't see it at YouTube, but "out of gas" was surely a big issue in the campaign. To my regret I voted for John Anderson in the 1980 election: His poll numbers kept falling, attributable in large part to a campaign pledge regarding the cornerstone of his proposed economic policy, which was to enact, if elected, a 50 cent per gallon gasoline tax, and in an era of high gas prices and fuel shortages, this did not resonate very well with voters. Well, you know, that was a big reason I supported him ;-) I bring it up because the issue of more realistic energy policies was a big one. Carter's approach of energy conservation and incentives for innovation clearly can be linked to the Democratic Party, but probably more pertinently connected to him. Anderson was a Republican so energy issues didn't fall neatly along party lines. However Reagan's administration did capture the ground of putting all our eggs in the oil barrel. And a great deal of hostility emerged against any other options. There's all sorts of animosity out there. David, one of your great strengths is not to be too upset by it. My feeling is that the "named" animosity is less problematic than the rather generalized "unnamed" sort. Feelings are a big issue. It's interesting to note that Hock recognizes this and so allows so much time for organizations to discover their purposes. It's sort of inconvenient, but allowing space to get the emotions visible seems important. And I think it's important to not be too surprised by unexpected and even hidden hostility, it goes with the territory. .. _`revisited`: http://transitionculture.org/2009/11/02/back-to-the-old-house-a-few-days-at-the-hollies/ .. _`Soul Food Farm`: http://www.ethicurean.com/2009/11/09/save-a-farm/ ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:24:25 PST Hock's work is on structuring new organizations and I greatly admire his insights. For my purposes, I think in terms of reforming an existing organization. In this organization the disparate elements see themselves as competitors and do not recognize their co-dependence. And it is this view that the world is about the struggle between elements of a community for control of scarce resources that results in one element torching the efforts of a different element - and the system as a whole being poorer for it. Building an inclusive system in place solves all sorts of problems. Where people feel included they are less likely to engage in destructive behavior. In addition to healing nature and producing abundance - I think we also reduce the need for prisons. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:01:00 PST David Braden said: ... In addition to healing nature and producing abundance - I think we also reduce the need for prisons. Isn't that healing human nature? ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:37:26 PST We had a meeting yesterday with David Ward (my gardening partner) and this gentleman with experience in fund raising, named Forrest. Forrest is a little difficult to follow and David and Forrest were talking about vetting each other and what were the expectations - exploring the parameters around which they might be willing to work together. They asked me what I thought and I told them that I am willing to move forward without expectation. I am not sure what, if any, part of that was heard but that is the logical approach where 1) we are all, already, in this together, 2) we want what we do to be open to all residents, and 3) we want to honor the gift that each of us brings to the community. David Ward and I have been working without expectation for nearly a year. We talk about lots of things that could happen but I do not expect that anything will happen until specific plans are made. That is also how we built the gardens. Who ever showed up were the right people - open space projects. I am thinking this is related to what Valdis_ is talking about when he says: *a new connection does not always bear instant fruit, sometimes the growing season for some links is very long* However, when Valdis is talking about network mapping and being aware of your network: *• Know the Net - map the existing connections of your community/ecosystem* *• Knit the Net - weave and support new connections, build a thriving network* *• Nudge the Net - activate the network toward self-organization and action* I don't think he understands it as broadly as I mean when I talk about the existing set of relationships directing the flows in a place. I think he understands his work as a way to help individuals become more effective within the system - which I applaud and welcome his insights. What I would like to add to that understanding is our self interest in understanding all the forces playing out around and through us - not just our individual connections to other people - but the connections that make up the socio-eco-economic system on which we depend. At that first and second dimensional understanding of what we are doing in the system we are autonomous agents, each pursuing their individual agendas, self organizing into a stable pattern of flows. We have the ant hill. What nature has developed in human beings is the capacity to understand the function of the ant hill as a whole - to see complete cycles of production and consumption - to understand system function in three dimensions - not just from our self interest. I start my `web site`_ with: **Imagine the kind of world you want to live in - and let's build that one.** That is the purpose of defining a goal and a process for a locality - rather than defining a goal and a process for a group operating within a locality - or an individual operating within a locality. Let us consider the forces playing out around and through us in their full cyclical operation and how that impacts our opportunities as individuals. Let us understand the ant hill in three dimensions. .. _Valdis: http://www.ned.com/user/u523412994/news/54/24/ .. _`web site`: http://www.organiclandscapedesign.org/ ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:28:21 PST John said in the Food for Thought thread: *I've got to build a better livelihood. And it seems to me that part of that process comes out of "knowing that it is difficult." Or perhaps in Buddhist terms that mindfulness is an appropriate response to thoughtless violence.* I can think of no one better suited to holding the space of Living in Place in your locality. If you wanted to pursue that possibility, I would be honored to share successes and frustrations with you. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:32:41 PST David how much I appreciate what you share with me already! It's a funny thing about honoring gifts, or at least the hard part for me, is recognizing what they are. I do understand that your understandings of networks is broader than Valdis Krebs. But I think we both agree that his gift of developing network mapping is quite significant. I've been a long time reader of The Christian Science Monitor--not a faithful reader. There have been long patches where I haven't subscribed, still over time I'm followed the paper. They stopped publishing daily editions in favor of a weekly with the daily online. One of the features in the Weekly edition is "People Making a Difference." In a past `article`_ the question was asked: Extreme do-gooders--what makes them tick? Here's what Bill Drayton had to say: "The core defining element is that they simply cannot come to rest ... until their dream has become a new pattern across all of society." I think that captures you pretty well David ;-) I was hunting for the most recent article online. It looks like they put the articles up only after a new issue hits the newstands, so it wasn't there. The article is about Batdorj Gongor the project manager of a small NGO Urban Development Resource Center in Mongolia. One of the projects is a neighborhood savings plan where every household on a block is pitched with contributing the equivilent of seven cents a day to a neighborhood fund. Now what impressed me is that Gongor isn't all that concerned about the money, instead the savings groups are a way to get neighbors talking to one another. Talking and making plans. The groups are about 12-14 households big. Organizing is not my biggest strength. But I am paying attention to this thread, and to the idea of holding the space of Living in Place where I am. Saturday `Dave Pollard`_ posted a piece by Wendell Berry: THE REAL WORK It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings. That really resonated with me. I remember hearing Joseph Campbell on the 80's Bill Moyers show "The Power of Myth" talk about saints and seekers. In a way I think saints are a little like Drayton's extreme do-gooders. My being baffled most of the time suggests I'm more a seeker. It has been a beautiful mild autumn which has meant I've spent more time in my garden this fall than usual. Now from a permaculture point of view many of the things I've been doing--tidying up and uncovering soil--probably aren't helping matters much. I am learning nonetheless. What the autumn garden allows is to see the design and to plan for the future. Much of my effort is ornamental. That does have an advantage for learning to think about succession. What I hope to do is to think further out than just a season. Naturally my thoughts are turning to woody growth. Rob Hopkins had a recent post `Reunions with Trees I Have Known (and Planted)`_. The upshot is: Plant them and they will grow. I know this from experience, so my thoughts have turned to two areas of the yard for planting to woody growth. LOL and when it comes to planting trees I don't limit myself to our property but plant in the adjacent property too. A cousin sent me a `clipping`_ about Orange Peel Bakery's pizza night on Martha's Vineyard. I was on a kick about community bake ovens a while back and she must have remembered. What I like about the clipping is the pizza night has a lot in common with thew Mongolian savings plan; the real purpose is to get neighbors talking. There's a brick oven here, I must learn how to use it. I'm searching, but still quite lost. As if I have actually been on topic so far, I want to stray just a bit. I mentioned Robert Patterson and Stuart Baker. The videos they're doing sort of obscure some fairly deep thinking. The nurturer-provider-pioneer model seemed a little shallow to me. But then I thought about Paul Ryan's `Threeing`_ which may well seem a bit shallow itself. But I a connection between Baker's idea and Ryan's Threeing. I like how Ryan connects his Threeing to Charles Peirce's three fundamental categories: abduction, (firstness) induction (secondness) and deduction (thirdness). I think that your 3DN is formally related to this line of thinking too. That I don't quite get your third dimensional way of thinking is no slam on how you speak about it. It's more a matter of my trying to figure things out in multiple ways. So my mentioning Ryan is more for my benefit, yet if you also see a connection between Baker's threes, Ryan's--and by extension Peirce's--threes so much the better. Thank you David for who you are, what you do, and for your kind support to me. .. _`article`: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0907/p02s05-lign.html .. _`Dave Pollard`: http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2009/11/14.html#a2471 .. _`Reunions with Trees I Have Known (and Planted)`: http://transitionculture.org/2009/11/09/reunions-with-trees-that-i-have-known-and-planted/ .. _`clipping`: http://www.mvtimes.com/marthas-vineyard/news/2009/11/12/orange-peel.php?page=all .. _`Threeing`: http://www.earthscore.org/Curriculae/threeing_curriculum.html ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:00:25 PST :Modified: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:08:35 PST Broadening the awareness of the connections in our community (starting with meeting the neighbors) is the critical step required to take us beyond the ant hill state of human development. The metaphor of the ant hill is from Out of Control. Kelley does not address self-organization of civilization, I think, because like you, he thinks it self-evident that human systems are some how different from other systems. Just because we think about them does not mean they work differently. And if we are going to make them work differently we are going to have to be aware of their 'system' characteristics. That is about seeing the connections and you, John, are one of the best I have ever encountered at seeing the connections between concepts. If you apply that talent to seeing the connections that result in the production and consumption of what we value in your neighborhood, you will move from understanding the ant hill from the individual or group point of view to understanding it as a whole system. In that regard, I started into Ryan's work on threeing. My great teacher was 20 years as a lawyer shifting back and forth from the mediator role (trying to settle cases) and the Initiator role (representing Plaintiffs in lawsuits). I found this quote about developing the skills to respond to changes in the economy: *These soft skills are the focus of the Success Skills program. They include: being an effective member of an organization, leadership, interpersonal relations, negotiations, teamwork, self-esteem, goal setting and motivation, career development, creative thinking, problem solving, listening, oral communication and learning to learn.* These are all about being aware of the forces playing out around and through you - and sharing your gift - at the level of the organization. These same skills can be applied at the level of your neighborhood/community/locality. It takes being aware that we are more than an individual ant, or an ant pursuing the goals of an individual ant organization. We are also a part of the ant hill and the well being of the ant hill is the ants' doing - and it could be something like Somalia, and if thankfully it is better than that, it could still be better by including the contribution of more people, plants and creatures . . . Now I am starting to ramble, but I think you are right, it all starts with getting to know the neighbors. edited to make ant's into ants' as it is the doing of all the ants not any one of them :-) ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:47:23 PST Near the end of Out of Control, Kelly talks about a story of a catcher in the outfield catching a ball. That ball is governed by F = ma. Does the baseball player use that to figure out how to catch the ball? NO! Does the baseball player even need to know that F=ma? NO! Good players learn "intuitively" (?) where they have to be to catch the ball. With additional experience they learn. It's pretty much a simple linear system. He then goes on to talk about more complex systems like catching a balloon or playing roulette or the market. These are massively complex systems that are not predictable in the long run but seem to be in the short run. They way it is done is by finding small sections of order within the chaos. There are people out there who are teaching computers how to do it but he points out that there are people who can do it. They don't know how they do it. They don't even know what they are doing but they do it and succeed - repeatedly. It's the repeatedly that identifies them. What interested me in this discussion is that he identified that as intuition. They have good intuition and they listen to it. We have been brought up in a culture that certainly does not value intuition. And yet.... Intuitively, I think many of us know that something is wrong. Intuitively, many know that it involves a building of community. But rationally, we look and say "It's just an intuitive feeling. Not real. Oh well." And then we turn away. Intuition is one of the four ways posited for knowing (along with personal experience, trusting the source and rational study of the other three) and I feel like it is often poo-pooed as inferior. I'm not sure where this is going but I feel like it fits. All of us really "KNOW" that things need repair and we all "know" things that need to be done but we don't know it rationally well enough to convince people who won't trust intuition. We are all working on building the networks that might help people trust us (the source) better. We are looking at our own personal experiences trying to extract the meaning. How do we (if we even do) learn to trust our own intuition more? ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:19:06 PST I have been thinking about intuition, off and on, since reading Linda's comment this morning. As a lawyer, I developed an 'intuition' about the best approach to a party to a lawsuit - whether, my client, the opposing party, or opposing counsel - to elicit the response I needed to move the case forward. That is partly about an analysis of what motivates people - and it is often not about the money - and partly about an educated guess about the motivations at play in the relevant situation. I am thinking that part of Linda's question is about the accuracy of our maps about how the world works and then how we apply those maps through intuitive responses to the signals we receive from the world. ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:30:01 PST I will be starting a new discussion about this later today because I want your help in refining the narrative that goes with the presentation linked below. I will link to that new discussion here when I get my errands run this morning. See: `Designing the Future`_ Thanks for your help. .. _`Designing the Future`: http://www.organiclandscapedesign.org/node/133 ---- :Author: David Braden :Date: Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:12:23 PST :Modified: Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:13:47 PST I started the new discussion as `Community Sufficiency Technologies`_ .. _`Community Sufficiency Technologies`: http://www.ned.com/group/community-general/news/362/ There is a link to the narrative workspace there. Thanks for the points John and Nicholas. I will appreciate any thoughts any of your have. ----