Humans seek to understand and master their environments. This is the essence of rationality. The danger arises when the ego manifests itself as separate-from and over-against the Toa of nature. This consciousness of over-against and separate-from has been the dominant mind of western culture arising out of the logic of empire. This logic seeks to dominate and tame nature as though she was a threat and could be conquered. Out of this logic was born global empire, mass industrialization, and world wars ending with megadeath, holocaust, and nuclear destruction.
This is the modern condition. Humanity alienated from itself. The tool maker becomes the tool. Yet as the poet Holderline foresaw and the philosopher Heidegger reminds us "as the danger grows so grows the salvation." The Danger is the madness and dehumanization of ego driven techno-alienation. Yet even as the Danger grows so grows the power of possibility that results from the technology and science of global mass industrialization.
We have begun to understand systems: Cybernetics and deep ecology; the integration of game theory, non-linear dynamics, sociology, economics, biology, and evolutionary anthropology. Having had the ego consciousness of separate-from and over-against we have come full circle to bringing about the consciousness of to-gether and with.
The permaculture movement embodies this new consciousness. It is a praxis of awakening. It is a movement seeking salvation from the impending apocalypse of techno-driven dehumanization. It is a movement that seeks to re-integrate and re-late the part with the whole. It is not a system of thinking itself. It is merely the expression of a new mode of consciousness that is empowered with science and technology. Not a sterile science, but rather a vital science of life. A science which does not flow from military and prison industrial complexes or governments reacting in fear. A science grounded in life and biology which would seek to reintegrate humanity into systems of sustainability and abundance where life can flourish and mind can evolve. In the future I will delve deeper into my own philosophy concerning this and also into my own praxis as I seek to break the chains of a culture bent on death. I will balance the abstract theory with concrete, life-changing action.
