[PeDAGoG] Paths to a just and sustainable society
Christine Dann
christine at horomaka.org
Wed Sep 29 23:24:12 CEST 2021
This is a really valuable discussion. My take on it is that there will
be no one size that fits all. Ted Trainer assumes that local level
communities can form and provide most of the necessities of life
(including democratic governance) solely or mainly through voluntary
effort. There are indeed excellent examples of such 'voluntarist'
communities in existence (as there have been for over two centuries in
most parts of the world) but so far they have never gone to such a
horizontal scale as to make any significant dents on the market-state
and capitalist industrialism.
Contrast the voluntarist efforts to create eco-villages and communities
in heavily industrialised countries with the organised/professional
efforts to 'eco' existing villages in rural India, as described by Sujit
Sinha in his 'Living Utopias Videos' post to the PeDaGoG list on
September 29. (Excerpt below).
Can we learn from both types of initiative?
My experiences of being involved with so-called 'pre-figurative'
initiatives in Aotearoa New Zealand (alternative currency markets and
services, Transition Towns, co-operative enterprises, community gardens)
is that if they are to go to scale, and persist, volunteer effort is not
enough. Organising and managing a successful market, week after week, is
a lot of work, and while many people may be keen to volunteer on the
day, most people in today's market-state societies are busy earning
their livings (and raising children) and have limited time to volunteer.
Especially when it requires skills they may not have, such as accounting
for money, raising vegetables, facilitating meetings, etc. This means
that voluntary work is too often done by people who have time to spare,
rather than the best skill-set for the job. There can also be problems
around accountability with volunteers who are free to make up what they
think is required as they go along. Further, matching volunteers with
the tasks to be done, and motivating them, is a skill all in itself -
but it goes largely unrecognised and unrewarded. Hence lots of
well-intentioned and well-designed projects can fall over or not reach
full potential through lack of sufficiently skilled personnel committed
to making them work - week after week and year after year.
So my big questions are
(1) how do the long-lived examples of just and sustainable communities
actually operate?
(2) are they really all based on voluntary effort alone?
(3) if not, what methods do they have for recognising and recompensing
the necessary skills of community building and maintenance, as related
to the provision of necessities and the democratic governance of the
community?
(4) are these methods usually culturally specific, and/or are they (or
some of them) transferable?
It's spring time here in NZ, and I just learned a Maori proverb: "Koanga
tangata tahi, ngahuru puta noa" (At digging time just one person; at
harvest time surrounded by others.) So it seems that even
pre-industrial, pre-state societies grappled with the issue of who does
what valuable work when. But they mostly 'solved' it - until the
colonists arrived and destroyed their societies.
Nevertheless - in our efforts to build more just and sustainable
societies, can we afford to neglect or ignore this important dimension
of social reality?
Christine
"I want to tell the whole group about my recent experience of a workshop
with village level activists and the kind of materials and pedagogy used
and the next level challenges we will face. I think this might be of
interest to the whole group and people might have experience and ideas
to share.
Due to relaxations in lockdown I was able to conduct a two whole day ,
face to face , workshops with 60 people . About 2/3^rd of participants
were working at village level in 6 districts of the state of West Bengal
, one district each of the states of Odisha and Jharkhand. So there were
three language groups. 1/3^rd were the urban staff of an NGO which works
in these rural areas , primarily trying to create village discussion
forums , to take forward many of the ideas of “alternatives to
Industrialism”
In three sessions I circulated a one page note with 10-12 main points
each on Amish ( USA) , Kibbutz( Israel) , and Mendha village ( India –
maharashtra ) . These notes were in vernacular language. In groups of
6-8 persons they read the note, discussed , and came up with written
comments and questions in about 20 minutes . As I collected the notes
and started discussing , I showed them slides of still images of Amish (
not many available) and a 5 minute clipping from a film called “Raising
the Barn” . For kibbutz also still images. And for Mendha a short 10
minute film. Each of these sessions went on for more than 2 hours with
lots of animated discussions. The short note, the still photos , the
short film were really helpful. We had planned to do Zapatistas but ran
out of time.
These activists would like to tell these stories and initiate
discussions at district, sub-district and at village forums which they
are trying to create. But they need more “detailed stories” of such
cases in the vernacular so that can handle all kinds of questions . In
India Vikalp Sangam has already started writing detailed case studies in
some state languages and also making audiovisuals. "
On 30/09/21 2:39 am, Carlos Tornel wrote:
> Thanks Ariel and Tom!
>
> As I was saying to Ted, I just want to clarify that I'm not advocating
> nor think that struggling to achieve state power is the way through -
> We have the experiences of Bolivia and Ecuador with indigenous or
> indigenous backed governments that tried to take control of the state
> only to find that the state operates in a global capitalist context
> which meant for many of them an increase forms of extraction and forms
> of violence against them and the very nature that they gave rights to.
> So I do agree with Ted that this is not the way forward, as well as
> with many Latin American thinkers who argue along the same lines
> (Holloway, Esteva, Dinerstein, etc). What I was thinking about was
> more in the lines of what can we still demand of the actually existing
> state or use the tools that already exist within it, to achieve some
> of the goals we want to achieve. I'm thinking particularly about some
> indigenous communities' struggles that are suing the state or
> demanding their rights be granted and respected. These are of course
> tools that were built by and "inside" the master's house, so I
> wouldn't say these will necessarily lead towards a more just or equal
> world, but they are nonetheless tools we can use to resist as we move
> forwards in the creation of a new world. So long story short, should
> we just ignore the state or can we 'use it', not to conquer state
> power, but to use the tools at our disposal keeping in mind that the
> ultimate goal should be societies that are rid of the state?
>
> This might refer back to the point Ariel was making about what can be
> mediated with existing institutions. Although I'm not sure that I
> agree with what Tom was mentioning. Why assume that life-saving
> medicine of technological innovations such as solar panels of
> broadband need the State? Just thinking about this in 10 year
> anniversary of Occupy shows that people can organize food systems,
> health clinics, reflection and discussion groups all without the
> state, universities of hospitals. Of course this doesn't mean that we
> should get rid of the hospitals now, but we can surely work our way
> forward so that all these institutions that are not necessarily there
> for our well-being but to create and exacerbate our dependencies on
> them can be rethought or simply cese to be needed in the not so
> distant future?
>
> Apologies for the long response but I do appreciate the chance to
> continue this debate and listening to other folk's opinions!
>
> All the best,
>
> C.
>
>
>
>
> El mié, 29 sept 2021 a las 14:14, Tom Abeles (<tabeles at gmail.com
> <mailto:tabeles at gmail.com>>) escribió:
>
> I would be concerned, living in such a world, if I needed
> life-saving medical services from vaccines to heart surgery.
> Similarly, I would be concerned without universities, research and
> technology which has given us solar panels, broadband internet and
> similar which is imbedded in much of what we use on a daily basis.
> The Buddhist Gross Happiness Index ponders these issues.
>
> On Tue, Sep 28, 2021 at 7:20 PM Ariel Salleh
> <arielsalleh7 at gmail.com <mailto:arielsalleh7 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Nice point Carlos.
> Considering how states are historically sex-gendered
> institutions may offer a way forward that mediates yours and
> Ted’s position …?
> Ariel
>
>
>
> On 28 Sep 2021, at 6:58 am, Carlos Tornel <tornelc at gmail.com
> <mailto:tornelc at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi all and thanks Pallav for sharing this article!
>
> I'm relatively new on some of the lists, but I thought I could
> share some thoughts after the reading.
>
> I found the article quite useful for thinking about how we can
> start to build a post (growth, capitalism, extractive, etc.)
> society. I have faced similar questions and concerns when
> advocating for a convivial or a communal society in different
> spaces, such as what do we do with state power? With armies,
> the military, nuclear weapons, etc.? How do we move away from
> the Hobbian reality of power and the state? Several of the
> anarchist and degrowth proponentes (although not so many have
> looked seriously at this link until recently) have formulated
> proposals against this, i.e. try to reduce our dependence on
> the state and progressively move away from it. However this
> brings back the debate we've been having for some time now in
> Latin America, should we seek to take back the state or not?
> My own opinion is that we should, through several of the
> proposals presented in the article, such as food and energy
> sovereignty, we can progressively start to move away from the
> state, leading towards more convivial societies. However it
> does seem that the state will have to play a part in this
> transition, so perhaps we need to think of the transition from
> one society to another in different scales and with different
> agencies: I.e. What should we ask from the state? What can we
> do ourselves in local and communal terms and how can we
> continue to build networks of solidarity or communitarian
> entanglements at the regional, and even global level.
>
> My thanks again Pallav for sharing and to Ted for a very
> insightful and useful analysis.
>
> Best,
>
> Carlos
>
> El sáb, 25 sept 2021 a las 5:06, Pallav Das
> (<dpallav at gmail.com <mailto:dpallav at gmail.com>>) escribió:
> The "eco-anarchist" transition strategy relies on
> “prefiguring” the new social forms in the existing society.
> The most effective way to get people to see the sense and the
> merits of the new ways is to establish as many examples of
> them as possible here and now. This approach minimizes the
> chances of violent conflict; if we persuade large numbers to
> the alternative then radical change in structures might be
> brought about peacefully.
>
>
>
> Friends,
>
> A new article, "The path to a just and sustainable society"
> has been uploaded to the "Radical Ecological Democracy"
> website. In the second part of his discussion on
> “Eco-anarchism”, Ted Trainer lays out the core characteristics
> of a post consumer capitalist society, operating on the
> principles of “The Simpler Way”. Please share the article
> with your networks and join the discussion on REDlistserv. The
> author is copied here in case you would like to contact him
> directly.
>
> https://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/the-path-to-a-just-and-sustainable-society/
> <https://www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/the-path-to-a-just-and-sustainable-society/>
>
> Best,
>
> Pallav
>
>
>
>
>
>
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