In this latest video, Patrick examines the role of heterodox thinking both broadly and within more marginal cultural milieus. He is curious whether the potent religious myth of the turned over money tables has currency in this moment and whether permaculture in Australia is falling into wrong story by adopting neoliberal guerrilla tactics of censorship and divisive behavioural strategies that include the creation of contagion/scapegoat classes in order to stifle dissent or debate. What society only recently called a difference of opinion is now being labelled as misinformation. Does this matter? Who is watching? Does anyone care if the heterodoxy is erased?
Here’s the low-fi audio for those with low bandwidth to listen:
And here’s the YouTube video:
As Patrick mentioned your heartfelt feedback – critical, camaraderie or otherwise – is most welcome.
Beautiful and healthy reflections
Thanks Hans!
‘The edge is where it’s at’ was a term I felt summed up permaculture. You are for me at the edge with your reports and ideas. So if you feel you are speaking your truth which I feel you are then an attachment to being seen and heard by blind/deaf people so to speak can lead to frustration or words to that effect. As the story unfolds we can take some comfort that those in the main mulched beds of every day acceptance, may join us on the edge and cultivate their own unique contribution to this world celebrating the edges diversity and all it has to offer.
We love the continuation of the soil metaphors, Lesley. Good point about attachment. Not sure we’re needing to be seen or heard by people who don’t see/hear what we’re seeing or hearing, rather contribute to a broader community of people who understand how important it is to have everyone in the tent, listening to one another.
Thank you so much Patrick for articulating this so well.There is quite a few subjects at the moment in which you either agree or are labeled as not applying People Care. I’m really disappointed that you were not able to address this topic at the convergence, but not surprised.
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Thanks Kate, we wish the convergence well, and all who travel there bring back gifts to their respective communities. We hope the ‘people care’ cops in the movement examine their shadows and make a commitment to a truer diversity, not one metered out by neoliberalism’s psychopolitical aspirations. GMO agriculture and Pharmacolonisation can only grow through peoples’ ignorance and compliance. For permies to side with Pharma is akin to Sea Shepherd activists heading off to a shark fin restaurant for dinner.
IMO not specifically speaking to the permaculture community, I believe
all forms of media are nothing but tools of social engineering. Media, along with the policies of education, health and politics are used to manipulate a compliant humanity into whatever form best suits the most powerful whose agenda is control and profit.
We are slaves under the illusion of freedom. Is this cynical? I believe it is realism.
Thanks Lisa, we’re feeling the pain behind your comment. We agree in part regarding social engineering and manipulation, but for us freedom is something we claim when we refuse to comply. We found this when we gave away car ownership and started walking everywhere. The more we have gone without the more we have walked into time wealth, and with this wealth we’ve had more time to serve our community and be served back. This flow of gifts is ungovernable, untaxable and it is full of love, reciprocity and responsibility. This to us is the freedom we’ve reclaimed by actively walking under the poverty line and back into relationship with the living of the world.
Hi Patrick,
I agree with your talking points. What I don’t understand is, that cancellation is limited to selected heterodoxy (ie the ones questioning big pharma and big ag).
However, some things that are maybe heterodoxy are now being rammed down our throats eg. men in women’s spaces, gender transitioning in kids. It’s like the ‘orthodox’ is being censored.
Thanks Rachael,
The way neoliberal psychopolitics operates is through capture and division, much like the way it is moving through LBGTQ+ communities at the moment, elevating militants while silencing those with nuanced, generative and socially divergent approaches and views.
So, we would say the heterodox in each of the LBGTQ+ communities is also being silenced. This is why detransitioners are being gaslighted and peoples in LBGTQ+ communities who are calling for language expansion rather language enclosure (such as ‘mother’ being deleted and replaced by ‘birth parent’, etc), are unseen in the big medias that people are (so strangely) still clinging to.
Why neoliberalism needs to amplify the most militant voices and disappear from view the more reasonable, socially open ones all falls to power and money. Divisiveness smashes organised resistance and peoples’ unity movements, and gets people spending.
The transhumanising and medicalising of young people are yet more threads of global capital colonialism and are highly profitable while at the same time incarcerating via the unbridled powers of AI. More on who is behind the trans agenda here.
Sex and gender is currently neoliberalism’s golden frontier, and Pharma is right there once again making toxic promises to unhappy, disconnected youngtimers.
Our response is to stay in connection with anyone wishing to engage and respond, rather than hurl mud and react.
True poverty is having no place to live except that which you claim through the authority of your right to mortality alone (ie, a piece of ground that you sit upon). Those who have control of the land grant more or less according to their desire to have folk sufficiently satiated to serve a role in the economy. The rest is smoke and mirrors and general confusion.
“As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.”
— Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Welcome back Pat, we’ve missed you brother.
hehe
lol … when I weigh in it’s always a sign I’m having a quiet day at work 😉
thankyou for that link to Jennifer Bilek. And for Patrick’s deep reflections.
Thank you again, Patrick. Your nuanced & generative approach is deeply heartening & I honour your extraordinary patience, which would seem related to time wealth. With the somewhat decreased media focus on Covid, I’ve been noticing the intensity of social polarisation around transgender issues, especially re the medical dependence aspect, & getting the impression that a lot of the flak directed at those resisting the top-down program isn’t actually, & certainly isn’t only, coming from trans people. Thanks also for the Bilek interview link. Seems to me that the more we lose touch w/ the reality of our bodies & their embeddedness in the natural environment, the more vulnerable we are to this technological takeover. As a city dweller, I constantly encounter other people’s shock & at times impatience that I choose not to own a mobile phone. And now that we have a generation of humans who’ve never lived w/o a mobile phone, their inexperienced & impressionable minds can be uninterruptedly moulded to suit any ideological agenda enforced via algorithmic decree.
Thanks Shane, wow kudos living without a phone. We share one between the three of us, but you’re very much inspiring us to do what we’ve wanted to do for an age. We also hopped onto your blog, liked what we read and subscribed. Thank you for your thinking and feeling and then sharing what you’re observing.