Regrarian Darren Ó Dochartaigh (AKA Darren Doherty) met Patrick for a yarn at the Doherty family café in oldtimer Djaara country a few weeks back. What unfolds in this meeting is a complex and joyous discourse that spans biology, ideology and politics, and a slow building analysis of how white institutional paternalism and shareholder science have come together to erode personal responsibility and play false gods with ungovernable biomes.
Darren’s critique of scientific hubris is important for anyone wishing to understand the current and interrelated health and ecological crises, which have in large part been augmented by industrial food, medicine and energy productions and consumption.
Darren and Patrick’s conversation highlights the importance of doing-saying-thinking so chronically missing from anthropocentric academies. The importance of feedback loops is something David Holmgren and Darren have been arguing for over decades and is what makes these farmer-thinkers so valuable at this time of depletion, over consumption and stubborn intransigence to the earth’s actual capacity.
We welcome your comments and respectful debate relating to this provocative yarn.
Each episode in this series costs a minimum of $250 to produce so your support of our work enables us to keep having these conversations that are disallowed in mainstream media and in the academies. We are so grateful to those who have supported our work thus far, in many different ways. Thank you to Miles once again for shooting this conversation. The north facing window and the fast moving clouds made it quite a challenge with the light.
If you are new to Artist as Family’s School of Applied Neopeasantry please consider subscribing or supporting us.
We’re taking a short break from publishing to move back into Tree Elbow after a beautiful 9 month gestation of transient living. We are so looking forward to returning home. We look forward to seeing you back here shortly.
With love from our family to yours,
Meg, Patrick, Blackwood & Zero
Balm for the soul as always. Thank you Meg, Patrick, Woody, Darren and Camera man. I’ve long wanted to hear more from Darren and this format was a delight. I just came across an article on The naked emperor substack which refers to a study on the best way to convince people to vaccinate. It was conducted in July 2020 and it was a playbook for the emotionally charged propaganda that has seen my community divided. I feel the beginnings of forgiveness knowing that the better part of their nature’s was deliberately weaponised for corporate profits.
Thanks Jeanie, and thank ye gods for Substack. Paul Kingsnorth, Charles Eisenstein, CJ Hopkins, Heather Heying and Glen Greenwald are favs over there in that place that allows for antithesis discourse. We will check out The Naked Emperor. Apologies to Miles, said cameraman, we have added in our gratitude to this lovely fella in the show notes.
Thanks AaF. Another brilliant conversation had. I’ve followed Darren’s videos with interest for a while. The man has always made so much sense to me. Thankyou for all your efforts in bringing these issues into the light. It is truly a wonderful thing you are doing. Enjoy the move back to your Tree Elbow.
Thanks Matt, it was such a pleasure to yarn with Darren. It’s always what mainstream media leaves out that is so revealing to the culture. Having these conversations seems to inadvertently reveal the limits of the hegemonic class.
Alas your legitimate complaints against ‘discrimination’ continue to be muddied and even devalued by your conflating that issue with multiple other complaints and fears of corporate conspiracies.
We would suggest, Mr H, you have considerable more faith in white institutions, and corporate-state collusion, than us.
Surely you’re not denying the revolving door (so well documented) between those who work between government and corporations. Surely you’re not denying that lobbyist corruption exists in Australia or that some fairly mainstream commentators say this is one of the worst countries for political interference by corporate lobbyists.
What we are preparing for on this channel is material that enables people to adjust to ever greater erosion of democracy through an ever greater conformist education system, aggregating medical colonialism and increasing control of peoples’ lives through the expansion of centralised finance.
This channel is for people preparing for ecological collapse and species loss, biome contamination due to synthetic biology and chemistry (big pharma and big ag), as well as ever increasing political division as this sad empire of make believe falls apart and takes so much life with it.
It is sweet you continue to defend the empire, but what you’re calling our ‘fears’ is really just us stepping past the point of make believe and pragmatically adapting, thinking and doing-saying.
When you’ve experienced systemic discrimination it really focuses the mind and grows you up. We highly recommend it.
Such a great interview. I really enjoyed it, with so many things that really resonated with me. Thanks once more guys for all you do.
Thanks Kate, we’re glad it resonated. And thank you so much for your support.
I think my main comment – and this applies to pretty much all the posts – (and its one that I have quietly, persistently, annoyingly voiced when AaF used other channels – such as facey and insta…) is that conversations like those offered here aren’t ‘disallowed’ in academies – they happen every day – but within academic institutions all research (conversations) have an obligation to uphold research ethics and integrity and all research must be academically rigorous – these conditions are often sadly absent beyond educational institutions (and definitely aren’t part of main stream media – or indeed side-stream [home grown] media).
I hope your home journey is a good one, a grounding one, a restorative one. My small journeys into my home town are still tinged with sadness – but also with renewed personal resolve. Its been over 2 years since the Badja Fire destroyed the heart of my village – the Main Street of my sweet home Cobargo remains empty and open and waiting to be restored … we still have a long way to go in our recovery journey – the journey to remake home is hard and humbling work.
Btw – our gate remains open if you are passing by either home of mine: sweet home Cobargo – or my research ‘home’ at the Uni of Canberra.
It’s remarkable you say that Ronnie, when we and Darren and everyone else who has not taken novel synthetic injections for Covid are not allowed in Australian universities. How do you propose those conversations can take place with people who are not there? The very discriminatory nature of this undermines your quaint belief in ‘University ethics’.
Ooops – I hadn’t noticed your question (there’s no notification given when a reply is made on this site)
How do I propose any (research) conversations take place when folk can’t be in person? – welllll maybe my educational journey gives a solid clue: I’ve completed 2 undergrad and 3 postgrad qualifications (and now I’m doing the PhD) all without physically attending any institution – the undergrad and first post grad study happened prior to the internet booming and my two Masters occurred when I had only basic ADSL (I could read/write emails for a few minutes every few days – by the end of my second Masters I could access the uni library online…. Oh myyyyyy that was so wonderful! Books appear in the mailbox! Magic!) – I never attended any of my graduations (I can’t even tell you where one of the institutions I graduated from actually is in Queensland!).
I’m currently working on a research project with Monash Uni (that I don’t visit), and working on some side projects with Ulster University (that I don’t visit) and doing a collaborative piece with 2 other distanced researcher/artists (that I don’t visit) and of course I’m working on the reconstruction work in Cobargo with teams of folk (who aren’t physically ‘here’ on site in Cobargo)
Both the internet and pandemic have reshaped how most things are done in schools and universities: most classes, lectures, conferences, seminars and presentations occur primarily in the digital space – all can attend (vax status/ current health/ whatever – these aren’t a drama) – just bring your critical thinking self to the screen/ keyboard. Too easy.
BUT (and its a large but) all research undertaken at a university must still adhere to those standards of research rigour, ethics and integrity I mentioned above.
Anyhooo – I have yet ANOTHER zoom to attend (zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom) – and there’s that beach thats calling me to go take walk.
Stay well. R