White and Wild by wilshire|oneThe Plan
So, the Archbishop of Canterbury is worrying about the fate of children in this day and age. He referred to a study that shows that one in ten kids in the UK are suffering from mental health problems, and I’m not surprised. What about us adults?
The message is clear: climate change is real, whether caused by humans or not, and anyway, we’re going to need at least another two planets like this one if the ‘developing’ world is going to enjoy the same greedy, wasteful lifestyle as we do.
Millions of people feel trapped in meaningless jobs, only to buy worthless rubbish that they don’t really need. We’re all nothing more than slaves to an insatiable machine that only benefits the elite who own and control it. Depression is just our psyche trying to tell us that we’re straying far from our intended evolutionary path. The more people are separated from nature, the more depressed they become.
I believe that one root of this tide of depression stems from feelings of being out of control. This includes being out of control of our own lives, and out of control of the things that seem to beset us from all sides.
The answer, in my humble opinion, is to move back to a simpler world view, and concentrate on those things that really are important to all humans, like growing food, finding shelter, keeping warm and raising children.
We can no longer rely on, or trust in, nation states and Governments. It is now up to each one of us to make a difference on the ground, as much as possible within our own situations.
I recently registered a new domain (theplan.org.uk), and I would like to use it to form a sensible and coherent plan for making a case that at least some of humanity can move back to the land, in a sensible, sustainable and law abiding fashion.
The main idea behind all this is a return to the ancient and equitable idea of commons. It is an idea that has returned to us in the form of open source software, but it is also a very old idea that has roots in the earliest history of human civilisation. In this country (UK), the land was famously and violently stolen from the people as part of the so called Agricultural Revolution during which time most of the common land was ‘Enclosed’.
Farming in much of Europe limps along only because of the huge subsidies paid out by Governments. I think that we should ask that small portions of land are ear marked for use by small communities of local people, each with agreed aims and objectives designed to improve the local environment in terms of bio-diversity, or water quality, or something else entirely. Governments could make payments to farmers to help this happen, and strict rules and regulations would need to be adhered to for this to work sustainably (We don’t want to start a load of alcohol fuelled, crusty encrusted mini festies.). By moving people back to the land lots of interminable problems could be solved, while at the same time providing fresh, healthy food and other goods for local markets.
There would also be land made available for the erection of low impact dwellings to be used by those working the land, and also for a community space to be used for any number of activities.
If these new settlements are carefully planned to stay within Dunbar’s Number and care is taken that a healthy cross section of age and gender is present, there could be huge opportunities to re-invigorate society with an unparallelled cross pollination of ideas. The young teaching the old about computers, and the old teaching the young how to sew, or grow carrots.
One only needs to visit a contemporary eco-festival to see that technology is making all these dreams an achievable reality, and that alternative technology can solve most problems including shelter, power and waste disposal, all without stressing the local environment. Also, if one studies the original ‘back to the land’ movement from the 1960’s and 1970’s, it is clear that isolation was one of the biggest problems faced by experimental communities, and now thanks to modern communications technologies we could connect each community with all the others. This could give rise to trade and all other forms of human interaction. We could easily build a system for advertising situations vacant or persons needed in each community, which in turn would provide a mechanism for individuals to move from location to location.
From my perspective, it is not enough to simply recycle, or visit a festival to feel ‘green’. It is the entire capitalist system that is to blame for our current situation, and a solution to the problem requires us to step outside and away from capitalism in it’s current form. To be within it, is to be part of the problem. Many problems that face us, especially housing, could be solved much more easily if we had the courage to look at new, radical alternatives to the houses that are really designed to make money for builders.
Of course, dreams don’t come true overnight, and I’m not suggesting that we’re all going to be back in a field any time soon. However, it really is time to start ‘thinking outside the box’, and I really believe that we will all be disappointed if we wait and rely on somebody else to solve these problems for us. Thankfully, we now have the Internet and open source software available to us for use in the battle for hearts and minds. And if all this sounds crazy just remember that the life supporting systems of the earth are under massive assault, and may completely give way even in our lifetimes.
So it’s really a question of business as usual, or unprecedented action.
What did you do in the eco wars, daddy?
Watch this space…
“If the people wish to have the government in their hands they must begin first by taking the land into their own hands.” – Thomas Spence
Any further comments about this article should go here:
http://pagaian.org/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=147#p147
Thanks!!
Links
On the History of Land Rights: the Spencean Land Plan
Warning – life on earth faces a major crisis
Rob
I like the plan. This comment turned out longer than I intended – I
hope some of it makes sense.
The notion that local people should be given the right to use land
for specific sustainable projects is a powerful one. Tentative steps
in this direction are being taken in Scotland; you may have seen
Land Reform
Act and
Introduction to community right to
buy.
I agree that people can productively move back to an agrarian
existence. As an individual, this is probably a good way of reducing
an your impact and would undoubtedly make a lot of the participants
much happier. However, it cannot happen nearly quickly enough to
avert the impending climate chaos. It may also be that the majority
of us are not up to it; part of the reason that the back to the land
movement failed is because of those with no experience of rural life
were unprepared for the harsh financial realities of farming.
The phrase “intended evolutionary path” implies that there is some
way we were supposed to turn out. Everything that we are now is, by
definition, a function of what we evolved to be; the first species
capable of dramatically altering its environment. This has lead to
good things (for many, a long life relatively free from disease and
unlikely to end in violent death) along with the undesirable stuff
(climate change, mass extinction, gross inequality). There is is
little doubt that we now have the technology to develop in a
sustainable way, while remaining for the most part urban. What is
lacking is the political will.
I would not attribute the lack of action to an elite. The notion of
a machine steered by malign forces is comforting; it shelters us
from the reality that the world is complex and, to a large extent,
we control our own destiny. The real issue is that every nation has
an incentive to try to push the problem onto other nations; every
generation has an incentive to enjoy the party and let the next
generation deal with the mess. None of this will change until the
price of good and services reflects their true (environmental) cost.
Hey Jez
Thanks for the comment – illuminating stuff.
I’m not saying that we’re all up to it, or that it can happen quickly enough, but on the other hand, to do nothing seems far worse.
By ‘intended path for evolution’ I’m straying into the realm of conjecture – I suppose it’s down to an intuition that seems to be in the air at the moment. We appear to be squandering our chance for a truly integrated and forward looking human society by allowing ourselves to be consumed by materialist greed. If the looming ecological crisis has any positive side at all, it will be the effect of bringing uncomfortable issues into sharp focus and adding an impetus that was sorely lacking before.
I like to think of the Free software movement and how hard it would have been to convince anybody that it would be possible before it actually emerged. I just discovered Thomas Spence and his radical ideas of land reform – I think we need to rediscover his ideas, and cast him as a kind of agrarian RMS.
Rob
treb0r | Sep 20, 09:30 am | #