Master plans embalm embryos; they are a form of cryogenics.
— Joseph R. Myers
Rumor has it that energy is seeping out of the Transition Town movement. I am not surprised. They went ‘whole hog’ for planning, and it is my carefully considered, worry-tinged opinion that the hog will do them in if they don’t come to their senses.
At the heart of the current TT process is the creation and implementation of the so called Energy Descent Action Plan for each locality. The Totnes group spent two years — 2 whole years! — on creating their EDAP. I am not the first person to wonder if the time, effort and money could not have been more profitably spent on actually “doing energy descent.” But it gets worse. The depressing secret is out: step #13 (sic) of their 12-steps is — groan — yet another plan (viz these documents from Dunbar, Scotland, for example).
Contemplating what to me looks like a bizarre cul-de-sac, I decided to poke my nose into the maze. The Transition Handbook tells us that those who fail to plan, plan to fail. Is it really so? Rob Hopkins, one of the founders, has in a recent interview been once again advocating “that intentional, design-led, strategic approach. The whole idea is that you’ve got a limited amount of time, limited resources, limited financial resources. Just running out and just starting to do stuff not in a strategic overview, in a strategic framework, could be a complete waste of time. ” Hm… — what if it’s the other way around? For help, I turned to the history of planning, which, before the advent of the planning craze in our time, meant mostly urban planning.
While the planning impulse probably harkens all the way back to Plato and his ideal forms, it came into its own by mid-19th century when “blueprint planning” formed a preamble to leveling town walls and historical neighborhoods in European cities, to be replaced with broad, straight thoroughfares, massive rows of new apartment buildings, and other monumental projects. In blueprint planning, the planner has an end-state in mind and seeks to achieve it through high levels of codification and control. All subsequent planning systems are variations on this theme. Adding embellishments like closer attention to goals, prediction and analysis, public participation, advocacy for the underprivileged, or lately, dressing up this process in hip, spiritual, green-friendly garb does absolutely nothing to change the underlying logic of control.
Next, I looked into planning literature, seeking evidence that planning works as advertised. The author of Urban Development: the Logic of Making Plans — a lifelong professional planner — examines the rationale behind planning and finds it wanting. He notes that plans are seldom updated despite exhortations to the contrary, that people don’t make and use plans the way planning lit says they do, and that “the lack of estimates of net benefits of plans is a major gap in research about planning.” In the end, he recommends that plans only be used as adjuncts to decision making, and specifically warns away from their deliberate implementation. After all, he tells us, human beings generally want to focus on issues, decisions and solutions and not on plans.
Is it then unreasonable to wonder whether those 19th century planners were so in thrall to their own egos and so worshipful of their own rationality that the entire planning concept is fundamentally misbegotten? What but an arrogant sense of their own superiority would drive them to trample and wantonly destroy what had evolved over centuries of human habitation, as countless people through the generations negotiated each other within the intimate intricacies of local spaces? Like hostile aliens they swooped down to raze all that well-loved, well-worn richness, all the irregularities, surprises and nooks that make vernacular architecture such a delight. It hurts, remembering.
In the New World, towns were decreed, then forced upon the land. It never seems to work well. Roads and alleyways connect properties, not intuitive landmarks. Paths for those who would walk are missing. Right-angle street grids pleased some long-gone technocrat but fail to please the human spirit, and the land itself got carved up by geometry-minded surveyors like a slab of cheese. It hurts, living in its midst.
Isn’t planning one of the tools we use to bludgeon the world into submission? Why then do we act surprised when it lies bleeding at our feet? Living forms flow from one state to the next. Civilized humans push and pull, always wrenching, wounding in our scramble toward some vaunted future. Modern planning provides a battering ram, doing unto the world according to our will.
Sometimes I wonder if Lewis Mumford was a lonely man; his understandings were so far ahead of his time. He had an answer to Rob when he wrote: “Organic planning does not begin with a preconceived goal: it moves from need to need, from opportunity to opportunity, in a series of adaptations that themselves become increasingly coherent and purposeful so that they generate a complex, final design, hardly less unified than a pre-formed geometric pattern. Towns like Siena illustrate this process to perfection.”
Well, then, what does planning actually do, and why are people drawn to this way of ordering their thinking and doing? Here is my shot at it:
- it enables us to linger in the safe cognitive realm, unsullied by hands-on messiness; it creates an impression that ‘something is being done’ and provides a handy cover for delays and procrastination
- it gives us power to command tomorrow’s people to march to our tunes (but unless they are compelled, they probably won’t)
- it provides a tool for those inclined to force the world to give them what they want
- and it satisfies the hunger for a method that would help us bridge the gap between dreams and reality
It really comes down to ritual and incantations, doesn’t it. We all long for a magic wand that would give us the power to manifest our desires. But planning is black magic, machine-mind magic. Clumsy, always at least somewhat coercive, heavy-handed, inflexible, and absurdly linear, it is one of the reasons modernity is imploding all around us. If we are truly committed to coaxing “the world to come” with gentleness and regard for its own moment-to-moment unfolding, shouldn’t we seek to use and embody a process that truly works with the world?
If only we set the goals right, if we find the logical steps to get there, if only we march resolutely enough! Then we look away, baffled, when this path reaches once-promising milestones at the price of unplanned, untoward consequences. A far subtler tool is needed to lead us away from civilization’s impasse.
Christopher Alexander’s call for us all to reflect on the damaging processes we have inherited and to search in our daily life for processes that make for wholeness and life, tugs at my heart. Can you feel it? Another way is possible. On a clear day, I can see it emerging within the goodness of the present moment.
If we examine a complex natural system evolving, each next stage of its evolution depends on its previous stage. Mechanistic 19th-century science created a thought-model in which the next stage would be easily predictable from the previous stage. But it turns out that the world is not like the mechanical thought-model. More sophisticated discoveries have made it clear that in a complex system the next stage is dependent on the current configuration of the whole, which in turn may depend on subtle minutiae in the history of the previous wholes, so “trace-like” that there is no way to predict the path of the emerging system accurately ahead of time.
To create a living world, successfully, we must again find ways of making all building processes move forward in [an] experimental, responsive fashion. That one thing alone, as a kind of bedrock for all design and all planning and all building, will change the world.
NOT THIS!
Leaving Babylon 
February 29, 2012 at 10:01 am
I requested pre-publication feedback from two friends who know Transition much better than I. I was hoping to incorporate their criticisms and additional points into the post but learned that it would make it grow three times as long, due to their generosity with their time and with thinking it through. The feedback can be roughly summed up as follows:
1) Is it possible to document the claim about TTM’s energy levels?
2) TTM’s planning process has moved on; this particular take on it is outdated.
3) There is planning and then there is planning; isn’t strategic thinking necessary given the magnitude of the challenges we are facing? Don’t we need to think before we leap?
I want to quickly address the first of these. My information is of course completely subjective, and I may be wrong. I base my opinion on reports from trusted friends in England and on my own perusal of Transition news, net discussions, and conference reports over time. I also contacted the folks at transitionnetwork.org and asked them for simple stats that would show basic indicators over time. The answer they provided shows that ready stats are not collected in one easy-access place, and it is hard for them to know. They say about 400 official groups exist, but many more unofficial ones. The could not provide historical data, they do not have explicit standards for “active groups,” nor have they established confirmation bias-resistant criteria for them. They did provide a couple of links for folks wanting to pursue this further:
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/initiatives
http://transitionculture.org/search/roundup
It is also true that “group activity” is subjective: one person may think a group is very active if it meets a lot, another person is looking for activities of a “doing” sort. In any case, my claim is my own, and necessarily biased by my own limited perception. I would like to see the TT movement thrive; perhaps this discussion will contribute a tiny bit to helping it do so.
Now… about this planning thang…
February 29, 2012 at 12:31 pm
I CAN feel it, yes…something brewing in the ‘new old ways’ realm.
It’d be interesting to get a permaculture visionary’s take on how well that sort of planning fits here.
Re: Transition, i wonder how they’d elaborate on your #2 Q above. Easy for them to say they’ve moved on, but i am skeptical.
February 29, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Hey Jay D, thank you for prompting re the second point. My friend wrote:
I have to admit that I have not seen the Transition Companion yet, and further addition of Alexandrian insights cannot but have helped improve things. But my sense from the (very recent) Hopkins quote embedded in the post has been that my critique remains timely because Rob seems to indicate that planning first is essential if you don’t want to be wasting your time. And the experience of the Incredible Edible Todmorden goes contrary to his claim… there, they barged ahead with guerrilla gardening in the absence of comprehensive plans, and have done very well.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/todmordens-good-life-introducing-britains-greenest-town-1830666.html
February 29, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Hi Vera 🙂
And thank you for this stunning piece. And in fact for the whole unplanning thread, which has been a refreshing and clarifying read. Your thoughts make great intuitive sense and also resonate with my own (limited) experiences.
A couple of years ago I hit a slump after consciously admitting that the transition-type initiative I’d started in my (then) village wasn’t going much further. I should say that it had already achieved a respectable number of practical successes, of which the finest was a community-run and -owned shop (still going). One of the reasons (in my view, and on top of the hard work and dedication of many people) that we managed to fast-track what we did was because we consciously side-stepped planning wherever possible – including voting not to go the ‘official’ Transition Town route because of the required investment (time and money) in their training and registration processes, which we couldn’t justify on any level.
Nonetheless, the planning bug got us in the end. Of the projects other than the shop, some were themselves plans (including the parish plan) and one was a newsletter giving updates about plans (as well as the shop). It all became very … draining.
For me the darkest day came when I represented our little group at a wider gathering-of-the-groups in our area. At some point it dawned on me that the whole event was going to be a planning exercise. I walked out, quite impulsively, before lunch, although at the time I couldn’t explain my intensively negative reaction. (The navel gazing that ensued became some analysis here).
Just before I left, while watching the break-out sessions and group facilitation from my bleak perspective on the sidelines, I thought: “What the hell are we all doing in here? Ah, I know: we’re doing what we’ve been trained to do.”
I was thinking of schooling – specifically the schooling that takes able and/or middle-class students up to further education and beyond. As the inimitable and brilliant Ken Robinson says, “as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.”
These bright, educated people in the meeting were trying to solve problems the only way they (we) knew how – using pen and paper and left hemisphere, sitting down in a heated room, drawing up lists, plotting diagrams, mapping ideas and charting timescales.
I’m not saying that none of this had merit and I gather some of their efforts are showing signs of bearing fruit, for which they should be commended. But I agree with you that as a process, such a focus on planning inevitably lacks the spirit of, misses the point of, and will very likely produce results counter to whatever it is that’s needed in the end, because of the points you make so eloquently in your post.
As for a permaculture perspective – interesting one. I’ve done a PDC but have little practical experience as yet. Overall, I feel more enlivened by the permaculture approach than by Transition (even though the latter came from the former, I know). Permaculture seems more rootsy; it short-circuits people’s energies straight to the land. It seems to support intuition and action more than talk. But not all of us can (or should) get to the land. I guess the transition movement just shows how hard it is to shoe-horn permaculture thinking into a debt-laden, time-poor, disconnected, land-deprived, capitalism-driven, planning-obsessed community and have anything happen quickly 😉
February 29, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Upon a quick etymology check – ‘plan’, 18C, via French, from Latin ‘planus’, flat. Planning as flattening….
So close and yet so far from ‘plain’ (simple, clear), ‘planet’ (wander), or ‘plant’ (to shoot).
March 1, 2012 at 1:25 am
How interesting to question planning, which seems to be one of the tenets of our modern religion: progress requires planning! Yes, too often we seek plans that aim to meet all the needs of a system, but due to the complexity of the real world those plans ignore too many difficulties, unpredictable forces and events, individual peculiarities, and so on. My local Transition Initiative seems to have wisely (or accidentally) avoided such planning. On the other hand, many people trying to design the future using alternative energy sources would love to turn out grand plans, if only they could get their hands on the reins of power. Control of nature and society is awfully tempting!
March 1, 2012 at 9:36 am
Could we re-publish this post at Energy Bulletin (energybulletin.net) ?
We are big fans of Transition at EB, but we also like good debate. Personally, I’m not a fan of spending too much energy on EDAPs for the reasons you’re mentioned, as well as others.
As your correspondent said, the “Transition Companion” takes a less linear approach than the “Transition Handbook.” An EDAP is not required or even particularly urged. I’ve spent two years on a local Transition initiative and we’ve not spent more than a couple of hours on the idea of EDAP.
Rob Hopkins **DOES** think highly of the planning process, but he is only one of many voices in Transition. He is well worth listening to, but in the end we make up our own minds.
March 1, 2012 at 10:57 am
Our perceptual field is tilted precipitously by urgency. We demand action! We don’t want to go through the puzzlement and truly hard – because it is unfamiliar, unmapped, and unplannable – work of getting out of the mindsets and world views we have been saddled with.
Eagerness, that “optimistic” side of urgency, leads us to always look for a way to plug any new insight back into the old plan, the old models, the old habits reasserting themselves and “healing over” any breach.
Planning is a limbo, as you say, where we can hover between desire and execution and pick at our sense of impending futility without letting go of our habitual patterns.
Every social signifier of import, of authority, of success; offers us a haven firmly within the old paradigms. These all obscure and hide any possibility of discovering another way. These draw us in to find a place either soaring above the crowd as “leaders,” or lining up to welcome the solace of following some prescription.
All of these short-circuits await us and draw us back into business as usual with some new flavor or novel trappings.
Without recognizing the extent of our traps, and finding a way to draw our attention away from failed striving, we cannot experience what it is to stand on solid ground – not teetering on the slope of urgency – and find the focus and the rigor to listen for the steps that present themselves without any of the magical incantations of “assurances” we are accustomed to – while knowing full well that studies and analyses do nothing but massage our discomfort with a false sense of security and certainty.
March 1, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Your perspective on planning (or unplanning, or improvisation, or whatever it may be called) is great. Additional comments from readers are also especially worthwhile for breaking some entrenched mindsets.
You’ve taken the Transition Movement, urban planning, and architecture as your archetypes for the planning impulse. In the Information Age, knowledge management (KM) and project management (PM) are recent professional specialties that center on planning, and general systems theory arising in the middle of the 20th century all point the same mistaken direction: attempting to rationalize the irrational. Everything I’ve observed about group and organizational behavior give the lie to central planning. Facts on the ground, and for that matter, our sustained attention to problems, are rarely of a duration to make planning much more than a ceremonial activity — except perhaps in a few instances where significant force has been applied from above in totalitarian regimes.
I don’t have any direct experience with the Transition folks, though I do get a newsletter. My appreciation from what I read is that while the oil economy continues to function, no one really, truly wants to experience the hardships involved in the lack of basic services (tap water, electricity, heat, transportation, etc.), so it’s a little like the Hokey Pokey: put the left foot in, take the left foot out. From the relative comfort of modern life most of us know, very few of us really want to transition to a life of deprivation, austerity, and isolation. So my prediction/expectation is that we’ll continue to skirt along the edges of real social reorganization up until the time the wheels come off the bus, and then the ride will get so wild no planning will matter.
My tame, preferred model for unplanning is improvising a meal from within the guideline of a recipe or past experience. As I discover things that work for my taste, the options grow narrower, but once in a while, I get a wild hair and try something completely unplanned, with results that surprise in one fashion or another.
March 1, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Very impressive and perceptive mini-essay, Antonio.
I’d be linking right to the “deepest take” i’ve been so far able to find…except have yet to figure out “cut-n-paste” on my smartphone. It should be quite a good fit here, now that Mr. Dias has kept the deeper focus going that leavergirl’s post calls us to attend to.
As for the shallower end of this key continuum of (“un-“/)”planning” for now, one thing i’ve noticed from my own limited involvement with a very active “Transition Initiative”, as i did to a predictably lesser extent with the local Green Party is: There’s a common aversion to go far enough with, e.g., “Working Groups” to actually get so-called “actionable” stuff done, much less followed through with… …Which takes us back to a key constraint on Permaculture’s sort of planning challenge: What meaningful follow-through can be expected on long-term projects, so as to not result in a worse situation at or near a given site? (E.g., the Designer brings in a few non-native plants to achieve a desired eco-effect, but it all ends up abandoned months or years later…and without enough follow-up management, invasive tendencies and species naturally take over to result in just another well-intentioned anthropogenic eco-mess. This is perhaps the biggest issue of conflict between those two particular approaches, each of which holds great appeal.)
March 1, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Checked back in to read Brutus, and mention some de-confusatory stuff i left out…but typing from other than a computer keyboard feels too crippling, so hopefully tomorrow for more flesh-out, if need still be.
Brutus, your calling out out of central planning as mostly [unconsciously?] “ceremonial” was my best dark chuckle of the day. My own contributions aside, this seems to be quite the high quality blog comments depot!
March 1, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Ok, ok, methinks i should at least clarify just a bit what the ‘ two approaches’ i mentioned are. Meant permaculture’s more heavy-handed approach (due to focus more on meeting human needs) vs. the particular restoration orientation that prioritizes the usually more practical resilence of more “native” habitat regimes. Much more “planning” is necessitated by permaculture, whereas the other emphasizes a more hands-off approach that depends upon fewer human demands from the land…meaning for sure a smaller population of us envisioned.
March 1, 2012 at 1:49 pm
[…] has just written a thought-provoking post about the Dangers of It (as has Antonio Dias over at Horizons of […]
March 2, 2012 at 11:43 am
Hey everybody, thank you for such fantastic thoughtful responses! I am heartened that we are on the same path here.
Vanessa, I too have been reflecting on how the long years of schooling have warped us… sitting around preparing for life via abstractions is a horrible way to spend one’s young years. And then we perpetuate that pattern where ever we go. Great examples, thank you! (Btw, my next post is about permaculture. Hugely looking forward to your input.)
John, planus — flat! Figures… Empires flatten everything living…
Welcome, Paul Heft! Good to know some Transition groups avoid the planning pitfall. As for the bright green people, they are so deep into planning they’ve turned it into a new form of madness. Just look at the ridiculous, 100% planned, symmetrical cities of the Zeitgeist people… Control squared.
Bart, yes, a decentralized network need not go along with the founder’s preoccupations. Considering, though, that there are still groups toiling on their local plans, I am adding my voice to those who urge otherwise. And if a plan is desired by a particular group, why not just take advantage of Chamberlin’s well researched and detailed Transition Timeline book, and just jump in? A plan can be an “attractor” that gets people motivated. Ok, but why reinvent the wheel?
Antonio, what can I say? You nail it. What we got right now is new wine (the what) in old process skins (the how).
Brutus, exactly. All those disciplines were built on instrumental rationality, and reliant on reason invading areas where it’s got not business meddling. The EDAP plans I have seen are full of electric cars and wind farms, and a bright, bushytailed sense of green-around-the-edges business as usual. Plans are linear, while the world is complex. 🙂
Your unplanning sounds like mine, and Alexander speaks of “generative sequences” … on which more anon.
Jay D: argh, that’s a good example of an area permies need to rethink — imposing a plan that then must be maintained indefinitely seems to go smack against the spirit of permaculture…
March 2, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Let me share a bit more of my conversation with one of my correspondents, and pop a couple of questions.
He said: I think there is truth in what you quote Rob as saying – if we want a living biosphere, for example, we don’t have unlimited resources and time in which everyone can do whatever they feel like, so perhaps some strategic thinking is in order. You and I would hope that any conclusions/plans that emerge from that take place within a mindset of freedom and common purpose rather than one of top-down management, but it would seem equally inappropriate for us to decree that because of this concern nobody within a Transition initiative is allowed to think strategically! 😉
I said: I am not against strategic thinking per se; I am against strategic thinking as a big preamble to doing. The way the business people conceive of the business plan. And I would ask… is crafting plans the best way to create common purpose, or are there better ways?
And then I said: Let me make one more comment on what I am trying to express with the whole planning critique (quite apart from TT). The planning expert quoted in the post recommends that plans only be used as adjuncts to decision making, and specifically warns away from their deliberate implementation. That is at the root of my concern re plans. The pattern of a great big concept [a grand plan], then people having to fit their futures into it. It feels completely wrong in its essence and destructive to those very goals.
And he said: Re: “the pattern of a great big concept, then people having to fit their futures into it” feeling completely wrong. My big question on this would be “isn’t that exactly what we face though?” The great big concept in question for TT being the reality of climate change, peak oil and economic collapse..?
Since this conversation took place, I looked into strategic thinking a bit more, and it seems to me to have been hijacked by the corporate and military types. I have a sense of some form of “… thinking” that helps with alignment and course correction. I am scratching my head as to what this might be called. I do think such thinking is sorely needed.
And then, what of his point regarding the need for a big plan in response to a big problem (the three big challenges he cites)? In order to conserve our limited resources? Your thoughts?
March 2, 2012 at 4:19 pm
A great post from Sandy Krolick on the BS of Business Schools that have jumped on the “sustainable management and entrepreneurship” bandwagon.
http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/business-as-usual-social-entrepreneurs-and-other-psychopaths/
March 2, 2012 at 5:03 pm
[…] Compassion cannot be reduced to any prescription. Any prescription evades the possibility of compassion and returns us to more of the same, what Vera Bradova has called “New wine in and old skin.” […]
March 2, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Wow, over 5,000 “spam comments” we’ve been spared? Thank you, WordPress!
Vanessa, glad to hear your experience described… i wonder what it was exactly that made you flee that TT session..? Basic revulsion toward their approach, too left-brainy, planny? Any specific “triggers” you’ve come to gag and run from? (I can probably relate.)
LG, i’m gonna mull over your Q. As for what to call a new approach to thinking to drive our activity on that planning “continuum” i mentioned yesterday, one possible word is “integral”. For a sense of where that “community” is at right now, check out the recent post and dozens of imteresting comments at “Beams and Struts” online mag; see the ‘Occupy Integral Manifesto’ post…would be interested in the how it sits with readers here.
March 3, 2012 at 4:50 am
Hi again – great to read these insightful ideas and thanks Vera for additional research and questions.
Agree it’s hard to write planning off entirely; I take Dwight Towers’ point that planning has its place when it comes to organising personal tasks. But definitely worth questioning deeply when the purpose is a grand plan type thing.
I still needed to do some left-brain thinking to get this going though 😉 So here’s my take on types of disaster resulting from the earth-bludgeoning abstraction that is that sort of plan:
1. The goal is reached but (however admirable and appreciated) brings unexpected, damaging side effects.
2. The goal is reached but has been misjudged completely. We get there, but wish we hadn’t.
3. No goal could be agreed upon. Result: messing around with compromises and plan tweaking.
4. The goal is clear and critically needed. However the route is unknown, skills inadequate, forces pitched against us = excessive time taken to create a plan that may be unworkable.
1 and 2 (if they can be anticipated) would suggest avoiding bothering with the plan. Obviously the anticipation part isn’t exactly easy. The precautionary principle might be applied: don’t bother with a plan unless you take on the burden of proof that the plan will not cause harm in the future!
What to do in the case of 3 and 4 is less clear, but, trickily, I think we are somewhere in the overlap area between these two scenarios with the Grand Challenge of our time.
So I suppose it’s not obvious that we should abandon the idea of making plans (or at least organising our thinking) entirely (assuming we get sensible guidelines, not BrightGreen style things, and assuming that somehow, a goal can be agreed … or the need for a goal side-stepped…).
How could this be made a more human process, that supports organic evolution? I’m mulling Vera’s idea of “… thinking” that helps with alignment and course correction; Alexander’s “generative sequences” and Mumford’s observations.
More questions than answers, still. I wonder if there is a way in which we can each allow ourselves to be the small cells in the whole and not to worry about the direction of the whole, but to operate according to some pattern or rules of harmony so that one way or the other, the needed properties emerge. Can we find a set of conditions or filters for any plan of action, that allow that to happen – or is that more hubris?
Starter ideas:
Do nothing unless it is with love.
Do nothing unless it increases beauty.
Do nothing that doesn’t build or conserve soil.
Do nothing at a speed greater than than allowed by solar power or human power only. Then there is always time to change direction, realign.
Do nothing without tuning into feelings and responses on an emotional and visceral level (those aspects of the process of creation embodied (not just enminded) by the artisans of old).
Will leave it at that. Realise my eagerness to respond resulted in an over-long post up there and this is leaning the same way!
But Jay D: glad my personal descriptions piqued your interest and it sounds like we may have experiences in common 😉 For more, try the link in my comment – to a blog I wrote at the time (it explores that emotional response quite deeply).
March 4, 2012 at 11:00 am
Vanessa, thanks for reminding me you linked to your important writing at your blog; i read your last two posts and most comments so far and found them very fulfilling ( which i can’t say near as often as i’d like). I did what i’m sure many readers do with such subtly yet clearly embedded links–make a mental note, which doesn’t quite make the full transition to the long-term memory bank…unless maybe there’s a stronger resonance with the writing already. Which i did not yet have, as you were barely on my radar then; but you sure are now. So, Please put me on the list of those awaiting that last major post or two you allude to. Hey, more appreciations to WordPress, we can sub to get notified of new posts, huh?
As to the topic at hand and “TT”, definitely the “planning” beyond pulling off events and such seems to be the weak link, whereas the ‘education about how things work’ on practical levels, like how towns get their food, and re-skilling workshops, have the double benefit of
multiplying resilience on a personal level as well as building the crucial skills and bonds of real “community”.
March 4, 2012 at 11:26 am
Leavergirl, as to the Q you posed at the end of that recent comment (3/2@12:36), two points to make.
1) Not sure he read you right, which seems to tweak things a bit. Of course we are facing being forced to confront the “concept” of a collapse that must be prepared for. What he may not get is you saying that that concept people must fit their lives into (part of the problem in itself as your posts point out?) does not necessarily imply facing the concept of a master plan to cope with the collapse concept.
2) How to approach it instead? Maximize “open space” and direct democracy; minimize “planning” wherever practical.
…(Well i guess three points are needed.)…
3) “We” could take the lead on the desperately needed redefinition of “practical” which my #2
makes more obvious.
March 4, 2012 at 1:07 pm
I think you’re right in suggesting that having a plan can sometimes be a false friend, as action towards developing the plan can substitute for action toward the goal. I think that what’s absolutely required before action is analysis (and, possibly, plans arising from that), such that any action taken is in the right direction — not ones that may well be contrary to the goal.
That is: we need change, but it needs to be the right type of change.
Just my tuppence, on a very interesting topic.
March 4, 2012 at 3:21 pm
What a thought- and comment!- provoking post. Loved everyone’s comments, and welcome to Brutus and Vanessa.
Planning (flipcharts, diagrams etc) is so often a delaying tactic to getting ON WITH THE BLOODY JOB. Everyone always if full of enthusiasm and the planning fallacy (you guys know that one, yes?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_fallacy
But when you ask them to do the work – the often boring, thankless, frustrating tedious work (and as per Brutus, imagine how much nastier it will be after the shit hits the fan), then they find a NEW shiny project to be involved in. In my experience, there are the people who genuinely want to get something done, and have the tolerance and the stick-at-it-ness to do it, and then there’s the people who want to be where the action is, but basically free-ride. And in the absence of any effective accountability structures – “You said you’d do that work. You’ve brought excuses twice now. Either you are overestimating your capacity, or you’re lazy. In either case, this is your last chance.” – then a kind of Gresham’s Law applies – the ‘bad’ drives out the good.
The kind of “planning” experience that Vanessa recounts is, I suspect, of this nature, and bravo for using the law of two feet!
March 4, 2012 at 9:00 pm
Why on earth would anyone in their right mind seek to detract from Transition? Sure, it’s imperfect. Sure, mistakes are made, and planning can be inefficient. It is evolving. And sure there are countless spontaneous local initiatives, where people successfully grow and share food, and car-pool, and share spare rooms in return for garden assistance, and arrange group food-purchasing, preserving, whatever. These may be independent of the Transition Towns movement, possibly more productive and if they wish to remain separate, that’s fantastic. The people involved in these groups are already adapting for energy descent, or for a softer landing if there is a catastrophic collapse.
But please remember, those people who have self-organised are very likely people who are already abreast of the world challenges, and usually skilled in self-reliance. Todmorden’s story is brilliant, but it was instigated by a collective of organic gardeners and small-farmers.
The disconnect between most people and their food is profound. Ever worked in a school kitchen garden? Many kids have no idea that potatoes grow underground, and tomatoes on vines. Some can’t identify basic vegetables, because they have only ever seen them processed. So, as the awful truth outs, where will supermarket reliant parents, concerned to ensure some food security, turn to?
Transition offers a credible starting place for people with “no idea”. It has a page on Wiki – ie. in the comfort zone of suburbanites. It is adaptable to local conditions.
Of course planning is involved. Forget historical analysis. Without some sort of plan people trip over each other in confusion. Permaculture is a design system/science that seeks to adapt our observation of what works in Nature and apply the principles to organising our everyday lives, personally and collectively. It is essentially about reflexive planning.
How about everyone stop showing how so clever you all are at critiquing the only international initiative that holds out some hope for people to take control of their situation, or to at least minimise the damage they are doing to the future. How about you put your energies into assisting the movement? If you have problems with its implementation, maybe, first check that your info is current, and then take it to the source rather than publicly undermining confidence in a project that actually holds out hope. We need to pull together. Please.
March 4, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Welcome, Angie!
Thank you for putting in your two cents. All voices are welcome.
I have two questions for you. I wrote the piece partly in order to nudge TTM away from the planning that the founder has been promoting. I feel this process detracts from their effectiveness (for those groups that rely on it), and which I very much wish to aid with my post. Is that not a good thing? Are people who criticize always automatically undermining, in your view?
And second, what do you mean by reflexive planning?
“Without a plan, people trip over each other in confusion.” Hm. I will think about that. Have you never seen an example of an effective group effort that did not use plans and goals?
March 5, 2012 at 12:36 am
The flattening effect of planning is an artifact of one’s perspective.
When one stands above and apart from the issue at hand, looking down upon it, as a Superior Being, it is easy to formulate plans that are abstract and schematic in nature, and a bit blue about the gills when it comes to immersion in the present reality.
When one is immersed in the issue, like a raccoon in a three-block square territory, then plans take on a more immediate and three-dimensional character. Without drawing a single map, a raccoon may have 20 different dens in that small territory. Everything is either a food source, a threat, or a safe-house. This is also how people live in crime-ridden & resource-poor areas. Plans made there tend only toward survival and the getting of goods. Whether food, fighting, domination, sexual favors, or drugs are the object of choice depends on the individual.
Plans that include aspirations to escape from the poverty and crime are difficult to formulate and implement under the stressful conditions therein. Abstract schematics fall by the wayside in favor of small-scale concrete diligences requiring drive and persistence to adhere to over long periods of time–somewhat like the description of 5-year planning efforts described earlier. These plans have a directional vector–upwards out of a pit is the common metaphor–and a certain rigidity of vision that can recoil on the planner once the main objective is achieved.
But consider the planning model that applies to a woodland scout.
There, planning is founded on:
–practical skills for self-reliance under varying conditions
–years of observation leading to deep knowledge of one’s surroundings;
–alert reception of any novelty in the surroundings that becomes second nature and may even develop to a point of psychic receptivity;
–dendritic patterns of movement that allow for flexibility and a multi-path approach to the objective;
–openness to guidance that emerges from within (intuitively) or reasoning from without (heavy rains likely flood the low road, hence take the high road and the shallowest fords);
–time-to-objective demoted to be one of many factors, not worshipped as the Lone Efficiency God.
Alternating among receptivity, reflection, and response gives scout-model planning a tripod to stand on. And there may be more legs to this model; I habitually seek at least three.
This is planning as a Live Thing, not a Map. Whether it acts like a Sheep, a Goat, a Snake, a Butterfly Effect or a Stinging Hairy Caterpillar it is not dead and dried and pinned to a board. It has less dogmatic certainty up front and more catalytic potential in action. It Flows with the Go.
Speaking of Go, there is a planning strategy in that game that calls for one to ‘build away’ from the strong places of the opponent. It is a kind of negative planning, that creates multiple possibilities the same way you use the center and corners in Tic-Tac-Toe to avoid being boxed in. Long range planning that builds a wait-and-see attitude into its process, a pilot and correct-course tentative mode of action can be compared to this game strategy.
March 5, 2012 at 12:49 am
I’d say a public post entitled “Tedium and black magic” and sees you groaning in contempt is pretty undermining, yes.
God, there is so much shit happening, why take to folk actually DOING SOMETHING with such negativity? Why criticise this project, of all things? Too easy. If you are so concerned to give them a nudge, attend a local group and submit (respectfully) your concerns. Haven’t got a local TT? Well, you could start something better!! A plan-free retro-active response to the big 3 threats?
By reflexive planning I mean that we permaculturalists develop a garden design, our working document, which is then implemented over time, or sometimes in a Permablitz, where a bunch of people get together and install the garden and infrastructure over a day/weekend. Either way the process is planned, tasks agreed and allocated and a good amount of decision making and communication required, ie a plan of some sort. The plan is routinely adjusted according to unanticipated/changed circumstances.
Yes, I’ve seen amazing unplanned group action (spontaneous donations and assistance to those of us who lost our homes and livelihoods after the worst wildfires in Australia’s history three years ago) and I’ve watched some of the good intentions dissemble rapidly into a mess. Aid projects worked best where they were organised.
I take Climate Change very personally. My girls choked on smoke and screamed in fear, while people, animals, everything around us burnt hideously in an unprecedented weather event. We should be dead.
So I’m angry that you and people like you will sit at home on your computers believing that your negativity is helpful. If you feel that the Transition movement is lacking set out some constructive alternatives.
And three people discussing some reservations about Transition on one forum does not signify “energy seeping out” of the movement. That is misleading. Remember, the movement will be hammered by all the power of those intent on keeping us enslaved to the main economy. And it is being hammered by the scared denialists. Do you wish to support their attack?
So what I’m saying is your criticism could be more productively directed at the real problems.
March 5, 2012 at 7:42 am
Great to have such a diversity of views here. I’m keen to come back on Angie’s impassioned response and will do so shortly.
First though to Jay D: thank you for the compliment – really delighted to know that my articles struck a satisfying chord or two. Will try to keep it up for the next one 😉
March 5, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Angie, hello – and sorry you’ve found this thread unsettling. I’d like to respond by saying that as far as I’m concerned (previous bouts of soul searching notwithstanding) the Transition movement and its accomplishments are a Good Thing. Neither the concept nor the resulting actions are under criticism here, in my view, but rather the tendency for the process to get bogged down (sometimes, not always) in planning exercises – especially once the ‘low-hanging fruit’ (in terms of implementable projects) have been taken.
Leavergirl’s article is the latest in her series about plans and planning in general. It just happens that the Transition process throws into relief the diversion that plans and planning can present. Plan-making can also (in my experience) obscure underlying barriers to change – given the tendency to think “we just need a better plan and then we’ll be ready to go” (when in fact we’ve hit a road-block that will not be circumvented without, say, an economic revolution. Or land reform).
Also worth exploring are the deeper, as yet not fully grasped, impacts of planning (in general), which are arguable (and still being argued) but are surely important in the context of Transition too, exactly because some form of transition is such an important thing.
The positive observations here about Transition and its achievements are clear, if you read back through the comments. It’s a pity that they have not registered strongly with you and that you’ve been moved to anger as a result.
As it happens I devoted three years of my life to a substantial suite of Transition projects (although we didn’t go ‘official’) in my village. We achieved much, and it was one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had, despite the difficulties. I have also studied permaculture design and am currently working with a local school on a forest gardening and edible hedging project. This is not exactly sitting at home at the computer being negative.
The good stuff almost goes without saying (it’s widely celebrated elsewhere in any case). Less often explored are the elephants in the various Transition meeting rooms which, if they could be brought into the open and addressed, might just allow this movement and similar others to push past the energy-crushing sticking points that so many groups (including mine) experience, to the detriment of their own potential and their contribution to wider society.
Who knows: a free-ranging debate like this could even give rise to the constructive output you call for – a new approach, perhaps, impossible to anticipate now but that one day might be a useful addition to the Transition toolbox.
March 6, 2012 at 12:14 am
I could not have said it any better, thank you, Vanessa. In fact, I could not have said it at all… your experience goes way farther than mine.
Also, Angie, please keep in mind that the title of the post refers to planning, not to Transition.
March 6, 2012 at 6:39 am
Thank you both.
(…a few thoughts…. formulating a repost…
…….and deciding that I shouldn’t engage, even if I feel that something isn’t just here – given leavergirl’ s bullying elsewhere in wordpress blog comments…
damn, I told myself I didn’t need the last word.
But, hey, I’m only human
I respect your loyalty Vanessa.
Have you seen this BTW?
The only “Happy Ending” they could offer came from Rob Hopkins. I applaud his work, and if you read back through your stuff here, with a bit of honesty you might admit to yourself that you trashed him because it made you feel good.
I’m bowing out.
This is silly stuff
March 6, 2012 at 4:43 pm
I sent an email to Angie querying whether she was saying Vanessa was trashing Rob Hopkins, and where. She wrote back:
March 6, 2012 at 5:08 pm
Vanessa; I love your “Starter ideas:
Do nothing unless it is with love.
Do nothing unless it increases beauty.
Do nothing that doesn’t build or conserve soil.
Do nothing at a speed greater than than allowed by solar power or human power only. Then there is always time to change direction, realign.
Do nothing without tuning into feelings and responses on an emotional and visceral level (those aspects of the process of creation embodied (not just enminded) by the artisans of old).
These are wonderful principles! I would perhaps add something about increasing the happiness/well-being of everything around us but really, that’s love, isn’t it?.
Oh, and DON’T “do nothing” just because a group of people has not yet been formed to do it with you. With principles such as Vanessa’s we can all give ourselves permission to act independently, experiencing the learning processes deeply and genuinely. Communities that happen naturally when people who have completed their personal “ripening” period eventually join together, will be both life-sustaining and sustainable, I think.
I have so little experience with of “community action groups” of any kind that I probably shouldn’t comment but, well-intentioned as they undoubtedly are, there is something about the way they are organized that seems artificial and brittle to me. Maybe they are designed with the part of our minds that devises clever machinery rather than the part of ourselves that raises healthy children, I don’t know. I don’t think they will prove able, in the long run, to provide people and the world with what we really need.
March 7, 2012 at 11:50 am
Yes, great “starter ideas” from Vanessa, and i like Tamnaa’s addition as even more bedrock. We could get a list going maybe and actually be kind of “building” something somewhat more tangible, considering we’re using words as building blocks, not cob or earthbags or… Maybe it’s clear that i sort of “see” in spectra; in this case of these starter ideas. General principles with big specific implications in their applications. Add in the ones i offered in Comment 21, i.e., maximize open space for direct democracy, minimize planning where practical, and redefine even how to gauge what is practical in the context of all these principles that get set out. Adding in, similar to both V and T’s, to guide our actions and attitude according to what engenders greater caring and less suffering. And T’s point at the end, that is often framed as needing a basis of “feminine power” rather than “masculine power”, though nice the way she bypasses those controversial labels. Base it all on our seemingly innate and trainable sense of “fairness”, as well as naturally not forgetting what Leavergirl set out about technology and psychopathology and such earlier on…and could be well on our way to a plan for leaving Babylon, couldn’t we?
Ah, but to many “visitors” to, say, here or an actual intentional community, such simple concepts at the core of a crudely sketched percreptual guidepost come across as nearly useless (“Naive and therefore impractical!”…but again i state the need for redefining such standards–we’ve seen enough of the failure of over-planning, in founding documents just as much as everything else, and maybe we can and must get back to some REAL basics if anything basically flawed is going to give way?!
March 7, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Another point Vanessa made struck me as very important: ” we’re doing what we’ve been trained to do.” Meetings, planning discussions, producing words… is what people with higher education level and social rank do, while the “lower” people are left to actually do what needs to be done.
I have found, though, that no matter how much high quality rhetoric I spread on my garden it doesn’t improve the growth of vegetables in the slightest.
Perhaps this holds true for communities as well.
Yesterday we visited family friends who live in a somewhat remote rural part of Northeast Thailand. We spent hours in an open-sided grass-roofed shelter sitting on a low platform of boards which had been polished by generations of bums. They were preparing for a wedding so a group of women were wrapping a sweet rice and banana delicacy in little banana leaf packages and boiling them on a charcoal fire. Two of the ladies took time to teach my wife the steps for turning cotton bolls into thread using home-made wooden implements. As I watched many meters of continuous thread being deftly drawn from the spinning-wheel (roughly the kind Gandhi used) I was really astounded. To me, this is real knowledge, real competence in living sustainably in the natural world. They can weave colorful sturdy fabric and make clothing derived entirely from the land around them. The same is true for food, shelter, tools, boats, baskets, mats, jars… just about everything they need to live. The male head of the family impressed me a lot. A tiny, lean-bodied man of 70 or so with biceps like baseballs, I watched him stroll casually into the surrounding “food forest” and return with exactly the right piece of bamboo or other wood which he then patiently shaped into useful pieces of household equipment.
As I spent time there, taking in the murmur of voices, the comings and goings of people of all ages, older kids taking care of younger, elders lying down for a snooze while activities go on around them… I began to understand that the competence of these people extends far beyond mere practical skills. I got the impression that they are also deeply competent in getting along together without coercion or conflict. This is what community looks like. This is natural cooperation based on personal relationships rather than the formal organizational structures of civilization.
As I see it, the education system that has shaped us is a powerful component of industrial culture. It has, in large part, destroyed practical and social competence, teaching us to depend for our well-being on machinery as opposed to nature, on institutions rather than on each other.
People who still live in traditional ways should be pitying the soft, incompetent people of Babylon but, sadly, they still tend to envy us. 😦
March 8, 2012 at 1:40 am
Relevant quote from today’s news; now this is quite a test case of some of what we’re talking about, eh?! Would love to know more about what’s being learned…well i guess this “anniversary week” will be churning out a lot of it :
TOKYO (Reuters) – “The Japanese Red Cross said on Wednesday an entire year has been lost in rebuilding tsunami-ravaged areas of the country because the central government and local authorities had failed to agree on a ‘master plan'”.
March 11, 2012 at 5:34 pm
Ack. I published the next post by mistake. I wuz gonna wait until Tedium shows up on Energy Bulletin. Sigh. WordPress should put a lock on that there Publish button!
It has been an amazing collection of comments, thank you all.
Vanessa, I hope you like the Perma post as well as the last… yikes. It seems that we are mostly in synch here… we plan because we’ve been taught it in those endless years of schooling, and because, as someone said, we middle classes are used to planning while the blue collar people do the work according to our expertise. But the world of the experts is fading… it does not work well.
Love your points, esp. these:
“1. The goal is reached but (however admirable and appreciated) brings unexpected, damaging side effects.
2. The goal is reached but has been misjudged completely. We get there, but wish we hadn’t.”
The only cure for this is some form of unplanning where the goal, the person, and the action evolve all in tandem. Ey?
Maybe that’s what you mean, gkayb, when you talk of rigidity of vision and the need for live plans?
Tamnaa, thank you for sharing your story about those people in the back country. May they escape the devastation… may they understand the treasure they hold. Earlier on in the blog we had a discussion about whether true community can be created with intentionality, and we thought not. But then, how? Sometimes, I feel like I am having to twist myself inside out to understand what has been so carefully hidden from us by the bossist culture.
And btw, why do they envy us, those back country folks with their treasure?
Jay D, thank you as ever for shepherding the discussion on when I fall off the wagon. 🙂
March 11, 2012 at 9:59 pm
Fascinating discussion. Some last words.
I actually think Transition does the right thing when it comes to planning. It takes a look at general trends, such as peak oil and climate change, and comes up with a reasonable approach (localization and building community). It leaves the actual implementation to local groups.
The ideas and practices are constantly evolving. Information from far-flung Transition projects are disseminated over a loosely connected network. The central part of the network (Totnes, Rob Hopkins, etc.) have a common sense, flexible approach.
The “Transition Companion” represents the latest thinking of the movement. Rather than a centralized, detailed plan, it presents a portfolio of possibilities.
In fact, Transition seems to be evolving in accordance with the thinking in your column, leavergirl.
In a recent review, John Thackara writes: “One of the many virtues of this awesome and joysome book is that the word “strategic” does not appear until page 272; a section on “policies” has to wait until page 281. It’s not that the book is hostile to high altitude thinking; on the contrary, its pages are scattered with philosophical asides on everything from Buddhist thinking and backcasting, to time banking and thermodynamics. But the rational and the abstract are given their proper, modest, place.”
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-03-05/transition-companion
In contrast, the Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) does lend itself to an overly rationalistic and detailed approach. As a planning exercise, it may be helpful, but it takes so much work! And inevitably they are soon obsolete.
It reminds me of a management book which advised, Go ahead and make that general plan. And as soon as you’re finished, throw it in the trashcan, because the real value is in what you’ve learned from the process.
March 12, 2012 at 6:57 am
Vera, you asked “why do they envy us, those back country folks with their treasure?” and of course, I shouldn’t attempt to speak for whoever “they” might be as each person’s perspective is unique. I can only give my inadequate impression after a mere 4 years here.
As much as I dislike the term “developing nation”, I think it describes Thailand pretty accurately. Everything is moving toward an Asian imitation of American style industrial civilization. The economy is booming and, in our own village people are selling their rice fields for undreamed-of prices to be filled and built up with factories, warehouses and apartments. This is globalization from the Asian perspective.
I like to think that some of the rural people understand what is being destroyed and lost, but it seems to me they sense a certain inevitability in the flow of change and so they encourage the younger generation to jump right into the fray of modern life.
In Thailand the urban “big-shots” of business and politics have soft clean hands and pudgy bellies, their skin is pale and they wear western business suits which are totally wrong for this climate. It doesn’t matter because they don’t need to go outside much in the heat and sun. Their offices and cars and homes are air-conditioned.
Westerners are perceived in much the same way. We have access to all the luxuries without physically exerting ourselves. We mysteriously possess power (through the manipulation of words and numbers) which the rural people lack…. the power of money.
Our forlorn hope is that some of the older people do “understand the treasure they hold” and that we might do our small part to help preserve some of it. The lady who was demonstrating the cotton spinning technique for us seemed proud of her ability but nobody there was wearing homespun. Factory clothing is cheap and fashionable and only when it becomes unavailable will homespun again be valued.
I’ll post some photos about this whole experience on my blog.
March 12, 2012 at 9:13 am
So great to see this vibrant and inspiring discussion evolve (even if I can’t keep up with the pace). And delighted that my ‘starter ideas’ sparked more and deeper thinking; thank you folks for the appreciative comments. I agree that JayD’s ideas on decision-making should be included; no doubt many others too.
Exciting to think that first steps towards creating a sort of unplan, or implicit guide of some sort, for individuals, from which new collective beliefs and behaviours could emerge and evolve, might even be possible. Actually … I think that’s called a culture, isn’t it? 😉
Tamnaa’s description of the rural Thai community is utterly captivating. A shame indeed that even with their holistic knowledge and understanding they are defenceless against the march of global economic forces. I am reminded of Helena Norberg Hodge’s description of similar encroachments on and changes to the lives of people in Ladakh, in her moving book ‘Ancient Futures’. Wholeheartedly recommend it.
Bart: interesting to learn of the latest in Transition thinking. Truth is, I haven’t read ‘Transition Companion’ – so now I’m going to look out for it. Thanks for the update.
And a final word of thanks to Vera, for such a thought-provoking post and for steering this fascinating conversation. (And, aside, for getting that clarification from Angie, who I see has suffered enough that an emotional response is quite understandable. Although, by the way, I don’t agree about your style. Guess provocative analysis is not for everyone ;-)). Anyway I’ve just seen your permie piece and am dying to get my teeth into it. Back soon, there.
March 12, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Pendantry, I agree that a direction is needed. What I am questioning is whether directions that derive from rationalistic processes do not lead us astray.
Bart, good to hear that Transition is moving away from planning, and to a more flexible approach. I heard as much from one of my correspondents, and it’s good to hear it corroborated. I too am getting the T. Companion.
Everyone, Bart has gotten us on the Energy Bulletin, not just the post but also many of the comments! Back slaps and smiles all around. 🙂
http://energybulletin.net/stories/2012-03-01/tedium-and-black-magic-against-energy-descent-action-plans-edaps
Vanessa, you are right, of course, it *is* called a culture! When culture-shaping was stolen from us, we turned to planning. Argh.
Tamnaa, if those rural folks understood that the “power of words and symbols” they admire is all about plundering the hinterlands (their hinterlands) would they still admire it? And luxuries, well, I understand the lure. But the lure of “no physical exertion”? Nuts. Something’s awry in there somewhere.
Here’s Tamnaa’s cool pics, check them out!
http://tamnaa2.blogspot.com/2012/03/life-out-in-countryside.html
March 12, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Vera, when it comes to “plundering” (economic injustice, power imbalance), I think they know all about it because they’ve been on the losing end forever. Wherever you go in the world, it’s hard to find anyone seriously committed to ending disparity. Most people accept that it has always been that way and can’t be changed so they strive to be among the plunderers rather than the plundered. Even when long standing hierarchies have been broken down through revolution, we have seen new hierarchies set up and plundering continue. It’s a hard nut to crack. If peaceful, sustainable, egalitarian communities ever become a reality they will be vulnerable to aggressive plunderers unless humanity somehow matures beyond this stupidity.
About exertion, one of our students is a doctor who told us that the sedentary middle-class people are exhibiting escalating health problems. He called it “metabolic syndrome”. The active rural people don’t get this illness. Still, people reckon it’s better to be an unhappy, unhealthy Dilbert sitting in a soft chair getting paid a lot of money for tapping on a computer keyboard. 😦
While I understand the pressures people are under, I hate to see the breakdown of family, community, and traditional culture that results from this shift to western style modernity.
March 12, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Yeah, but I am scratching my head… they are not gonna be Dilberts getting lots of money sitting at a computer. They are gonna be in a sweatshop toiling their best years away, or in a brothel… and their treasures (robust health, families, community and traditional culture) gone.
Vanessa mentioned Ladakh. I hear Helena whazhername has been taking them out west and showing them the worst. I don’t know if it’s helping any. So depressing…
March 12, 2012 at 8:03 pm
“They are gonna be in a sweatshop toiling their best years away,…”
Well, on a construction site or in a factory or cleaning rooms in a hotel perhaps but their kids will get enough education to work in an office cubicle and send them money in their old age. The economy is very active, allowing a large rapid shift to the middle class. Nobody seems to have an inkling that it may not last.
March 12, 2012 at 8:08 pm
That’s the other part. Just because it used to be that the next gen could get better jobs and send them money from town does not mean that’s how the future will be. Tell’em Tamnaa… tell them. At least be a witness.
March 13, 2012 at 5:37 am
Sure, we do try to discuss this but so far our attempts have been met with puzzlement and polite disinterest. If something out there would actually collapse convincingly, our ideas would have more impact, or so I hope, but the world economic system continues to hobble along bravely as if nothing is wrong and our advice appears irrelevant to nearly everybody.
There’s a nice article about the Ladakhi people at:
http://www.peacefulsocieties.org/index.html
recommend looking at some of the other “peaceful societies” as well.
I guess you know that Bhutan promotes a “happiness index” and tries go against the flow of globalization. http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/articles/
Far from perfect, I’m sure, but a refreshingly different take on the purpose of life.
Apropos of nothing much, we spent some time talking with a friendly young monk in a temple not long ago, who turned out to be from Laos. He said that his village still didn’t have electricity and that the people still used water buffaloes to cultivate their rice paddies (no motors). I’m sure there must be villages like that in Thailand but they are hard to find. There are people at this level of pre-development in many places around the world and (imho) they are the best hope for the continuation of the human adventure into the future.
March 13, 2012 at 9:32 am
If something would collapse convincingly… that is funny. There are plenty of “failed states” as an example… there is Greece… and of course there is Japan that would have suffered only minor damage if they had still been running things the way their tsunami-savvy ancestors did.
Bhutan went to TV years ago. I wonder how much money the royal family got to allow television in. Still, though, they’ve slowed things down.
Agreed. The people who know… they will hardly be affected when it starts unraveling in earnest.
Tell them… their culture has lasted “forever.” What’s going on in Japan will not be healed in a thousand years.
March 13, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Hello, late early-comer here! I am actually the mysterious “friend” and “correspondent” that leavergirl has been quoting above! Very kind of you to respect my privacy, my dear, but I don’t feel any need for anonymity here 🙂
Have been busy of late and hadn’t checked in on the comments on the post until now, prompted by an email from leavergirl and the EB posting.
Great to see that such a diverse and productive conversation has emerged, and yes, I’m with Bart (comment #38) that Transition seems to be evolving much as leavergirl recommends, which is why I was happy to contribute to developing the more Pattern Language based Transition Companion. It will be very interesting to hear what those commenters above who plan to take a look at the book make of it. I hope it pleases them, because I think the fundamental point that leavergirl’s post makes is spot on.
One contribution that I thought might be helpful here is the idea of ‘dissensus’, which I brought up in the foreword to an unusual book that came out last week The Future We Deserve:
Here is an extract from my foreword:
In the face of the dauntingly poor track record of futurism, this book adopts a radically different approach, and not just in terms of the diversity of authors. Remembering the Chinese proverb that “when men speak of the future, the Gods laugh”, it perhaps seeks to humbly laugh along with them, embracing a healthy diversity of disparate and even opposed visions, ideas and plans – the useful attitude that the postmodern theorist Ewa Ziarek termed ‘dissensus’.
In grappling with an uncertain future, this exploration of many paths may be only appropriate, reflecting nature’s own evolution, which never seeks to reach consensus on the ideal life-form, but simply creates, creates, creates. Such dissensus also underlies the Transition movement, with communities exploring diverse paths towards preparedness for likely future scenarios, even where the detail of any threats may remain unclear.
Trying to agree on one grand unified story of the future is a waste of energy because whatever we may decide upon, reality surely has other plans. It may be possible (and useful) to discern trends, but the specifics will always elude us. Accordingly, resilient approaches are those which make sense across a wide range of possible futures. They are humility in action, and they keep our eyes open. So let us explore dissensus – explore our various curious projects, inspirations and stories – secure in the understanding that while some of them will thrive and others die, our task is not to foresee the future, but rather to enable it.
I wrote in The Transition Timeline that we will certainly get the future we deserve. As one contributor puts it herein, let’s work for a future worth deserving. And who can know which obscure passion, vocation or tale might turn out in retrospect to have provided a defining contribution to our collective future?
As Bart said in an earlier comment (#7) characterising Transition is a tricky business – happily, it’s a diverse movement 🙂
March 13, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Great to get your perspective from Thailand, Tamnaa…dang, now i’m gonna have to find time to read your blog too?! … I should check out a few of your recommended blogs and sites as well…am fairly familiar with “Nature Bats Last” though (is it worth keeping up with, dunno)…wondering if you figure this blog of Leavergirl’s would be at least as worthy to link to? … Fine photos of ruminants and villagers and such…and observations to ruminate on… you deserve a thriving discussion there!
Hmmm…Perhaps if the tack is taken of ‘Obviously “the East” trends after “the West” and look what is already happening in the West’!, your efforts to open some minds more might find some purchase over time? I mean surely it can’t look like all is still well here to them, if pointed out how the no-longer-so-early warning signs of collapse are growing constantly in Western Civ… And that Douglas Adams quote on your blog’s homepage about how humans are uniquely adapted to learn from each other yet disinclined to do so, is one of the greats!
And speaking of great quotes, sometimes some of the most chillingly classic ones just sort of “appear” without much attention…at least i assume this one by our host (comment #41 in reply to Vanessa) wasn’t the product of careful crafting, but the one-liner wisdom is hard to beat: “When culture-shaping was stolen from us, we turned to planning. Argh.” Of course, guess it was partly/mostly “The Grand Planners” themselves doing the stealing, eh? But again, here we see the bellwether patterning—just as Tamnaa sees in the Thais, we relative peasants (compared to “the !%”) adopted the very processes that messed us up, cuz after all, if ya’ can’t beat ’em join ’em…even if joining means soul-selling, so to speak, and losing down the line. …but, maybe the core of the problem is reflected in Tamnaa’s own posts, and in his comments here (along with the Adams quote), along with the repeated refrain here and many elsewheres; i.e., we just ain’t strong enough yet in learning from what went before…even though it would seem to be our most valuable potential heritage, and relatively “free”.
March 13, 2012 at 6:17 pm
JayD; thanks, you’ve brought up some good points and given me some work to do. It’s been ages since I checked my links and really, I feel they don’t reflect my current thinking very well so I should do some housekeeping. Links put up during moments of enthusiasm are seldom taken down when disillusionment sets in. 🙂
Nature Bats Last was like that for me. I spent a while hanging out there and getting involved in some fairly intense discussion but I don’t go there any more.
“surely it can’t look like all is still well here to them,…” Well, you’d think that but from what I’ve seen, even Thais who visit and work in the US still see it as some dazzling pinnacle of prosperity. I’m curious about what you see happening around you that indicates change for the worse. Give me some ammunition.
LG; “What’s going on in Japan will not be healed in a thousand years.” Thankfully there are no Nuke plants in Thailand yet and there’s quite a lot of opposition against building them.
March 14, 2012 at 11:30 am
Tamnaa, i’ve got yer blog bookmarked now so will be checking back to read older and new posts…tried a short comment but i blew it (“Blogger” software a bit different it seems).
What an important challenge you have issued just above for we Westerners who are in this tiny minority of having minimal denial left about how things are falling apart around us here. We ought’a at least be able to give similarly informed ex-pats and visitors to “developing nations” the peace ammo you need to counter the mass rush off the development cliff you encounter. Could really make a difference. Or is it even possible yet? I’ll think about if there’s any way i can describe what i see happening around me…clear as day that the fabric is ripping badly now, but then why is it clear as night to American Dreamers and wannabes? (Rhetorical Q)
Anyone else have a take to give?
March 14, 2012 at 7:44 pm
JayD; If in perusing my stuff you come across anything of interest I’d be happy to see a comment from you. 🙂 While a few people have managed to comment, you are not the first to have had trouble. I have no idea what the problem is.
re: the crumbling of western civ., if I mention something about that, a savvy Asian might suggest that America has foolishly exported its manufacturing jobs over here and now it’s Asia’s turn to enjoy some prosperity. I think it’s even worse when we try to talk about environmental matters, eg negative impact of cars. For many decades our way of life has been based on profligate use of automotive and other tech so if we think Asia’s move to a similar culture is environmentally harmful, our preaching lacks moral foundation.
We westerners are the beneficiaries of empire and it’s hard to shake the perception (on both sides) of privilege and entitlement that haunts inter-cultural dialogue.
Vera; you mentioned the question of… “whether true community can be created with intentionality,…” and I think the discomfort you express about the Transition movement and Permaculture tie in with this very well… the word that comes to my mind is “artificial”. Can genuine community, real sustainability, be created artificially? It seems unlikely to me. Our modern reliance on artificial systems for nearly everything has left us yearning for real human connectedness and a sense of belonging in nature but, to a large extent, we’ve lost touch with how these values can actually be lived.
Hence all the meetings, plans and designs… attempts to artificially engineer something which can’t be created that way but needs to evolve and grow organically.
Is this close to the way you see it?
March 14, 2012 at 7:47 pm
The problem, my friend, is Blogspot. I’ve tried to comment and given up, in many Blogspots incl. yours. Sometimes if I try “anonymous” I can get it through. Often it fails completely and I give up in disgust. And their virtually unreadable captchas infuriate me.
Might I lure you into the Sea of WordPress? The water is lovely. Great support, too.
March 15, 2012 at 6:09 am
Big day for me learning what “captchas” are and eventually managing to disable them. Whew! I’m pretty sure that won’t solve the problem though. It seems some blogs have this flaw and mine is one of them. Actually I have a wordpress blog called “MY BLOG…. just another… etc. etc.” and I can’t figure out how to give it a better name. I’m beginning to suspect that wordpress is for smart people and that I just don’t make the grade. 😦
March 15, 2012 at 9:19 am
I heard you can transfer your blogspot blog into wordpress. Let me look for it.
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Here is what they say: Importing Content from Another Platform or WordPress Blog
We make it easy for you to import your blog content from a variety of other blogging platforms, including Blogger, Tumblr, Israblog, LiveJournal, Movable Type, Typepad, Posterous, Splinder, and Yahoo! 360. Simply log into your WordPress.com blog dashboard, then go to Tools -> Import, choose your previous platform and follow the instructions.
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If you don’t like the wordpress blog you have now, I would say start from scratch. Give it the name you like etc. set up the basics, then import. Good luck — any questions, let me know.
March 15, 2012 at 9:34 pm
Thank you Financial Press for alerting us to the post just put up by Rob Hopkins on Transition Culture in response to my Energy Bulletin post. I am honored: the response is very thoughtful, makes a lengthy exposition, and will hopefully spark further conversation. (And no umbrage is anywhere in evidence! Yey!)
http://transitionculture.org/2012/03/15/reflections-on-energy-descent-action-plans-a-response-to-vera-bradova/#comments
March 16, 2012 at 8:48 am
[…] post grew in response to a conversation over at Leaving Babylon around questions of […]
March 17, 2012 at 12:53 am
People may be interested in a reply to Vera’s column by Rob Hopkins:
http://energybulletin.net/stories/2012-03-15/reflections-energy-descent-action-plans-response-vera-bradova
March 25, 2012 at 1:50 pm
It’s seemed to me that the major problem with EDAPs is the assumption that the people doing the planning will be then in a position to expect others to do the work as planned. Well, that probably works with paid employees and heirarchical organisations, but it’s not my expereince of Transition. Sub groups and projects form, and they do what they personally feel inspired to do, whatever it says in the plan.
The only way an EDAP would have a true guiding legitimacy is if it truly reflected the priorties of the whole community, not just the Transitioners who choose to be involved in the planning process. And to do enough outreach locally to make the plan really reprensentative would involve a prohibitive amount of work. Much better to just get on and do what inspires you, I think.
March 25, 2012 at 4:08 pm
You nailed it, Sylvia. Welcome!
I have a book that puts it this way. You don’t expect your friends to fall in line with your plan for the friendship, right? So why do you expect that your fellow townspeople would fall in line with your plan for the community?
I think planning is a method born of domination, as you note. A habit it’s time to shed.
You rightly note how laborious it would be to pull everyone into the planning process. And the thing is… even if you could, the plan would be obsolete as soon as you finish… because new people are coming into the community, and new circumstances arise. As Heraclitus said, you can’t step into the same plan twice. 😉
March 26, 2012 at 12:25 am
Hi Sylvia & Leavergirl,
For me, the problem with the EDAP is that it easily becomes a wonkish exercise of a particular group. I sense that this is what you are objecting too, and rightly.
But Transition is on firmer ground when it comes to visioning. We should never under-estimate the power of a compelling compelling vision. History shows us that rapid changes can take place on a large scale, if the time is right.
The vision of a Transition-type society becomes more and more appealing as our current system becomes less and less tenable. For example, if gas prices continue to rise and the economy founders.
If there is no positive vision, then when society founders, we will be vulnerable to those who purvey darker visions.
March 26, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Hey Bart, have you just changed the word ‘plan’ for the word ‘vision’?
I think many people might have a good idea of some of the problems and challenges we face and also might take action (like growing food), without having a ‘vision’. Maybe a vision would emerge and develop after they take action? Maybe there is more than one vision, not just ‘the vision of a Transition society’. A Totnessian vision of vegan cafes full of artists doesn’t do much for me.
Or are you saying that the majority of people need people like you to provide them with the correct Transition Vision? Who are the vulnerable ones?
March 26, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Thanks Tom. Yes, I think “vision” is a better way to talk about the future than “detailed plan.”
Also, yes I believe it is urgent to develop positive visions. I have devoted years to encouraging them.
If you watch the news, you will see some of the competing visions — Business As Usual, wars to assure oil supplies, a militarization of society, scapegoating of minorities, concentrating wealth in the upper 1% . History tells us that when times get tough, people will be desperate for answers. Unless there are positive visions, they will turn to fear and violence.
You are right that we should be not get stuck in our own cultural niche. I think Transition is MUCH bigger than “vegan cafes full of artists.” Unlike many movements, Transition makes a point of being open, e.g. in working with groups (like conservative small business owners) who may not resonate with the climate change idea.
March 26, 2012 at 2:24 pm
I wonder… is there a difference btw a vision and a story? I remember Ishmael talks about how we are all enacting a story, and if we don’t like it, we need another story to enact.
But a vision… people don’t think of enacting a vision… a vision is more like a guide or an attractor, no? Just thinking off the cuff…
March 26, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Well good luck Bart! ‘Work’ always sounds important but I think that conservative small business owners might have their own vision already, (like lions have a vision for the slowest wildebeest in the herd).
March 26, 2012 at 4:56 pm
I know what you mean, Tom. It’s not always easy to talk with my Tea Party friends and relatives. Surprisingly, there is a LOT we can agree upon. A high school friend ran a small business in Colorado, and we have never been able to communicate about national politics.
However, we both are big on community, personal responsibility and reducing unnecessary regulations on small business.
I think he is attracted to the Transition vision of community. I don’t think he would run to a vegan cafe full of artists, but he wouldn’t object if I invited him.
March 26, 2012 at 6:37 pm
Bart, well said. I like the utility of naming the “competing visions”…however, the things you listed sound like aspects of the first “vision” you mentioned, “Business As Usual”…right?
LG, I forgot that “Ishmael said” (Daniel Quinn wrote) that we need to change the “story”. Maybe that is the word-image that would appeal to the most people. Some prefer ‘changing the “myth”‘, as in a new mythos, to naturally crystallize a culture around. And for sure we need a new “ethos”. Probably also there are even better words than “story” for many folks in this and other languages. Then there’s the more “spiritual” approach that intentionally dis-identifies with our “stories”, “plans”, etc. that depend on maintaining a lot of otherwise-false separation.
March 27, 2012 at 3:02 am
Bart, you and fellow Transitioners certainly don’t lack confidence. The importance of small businesses has been recognised for a long time though. (I myself was a founder member of a housing co-op and a workers co-op in the 1970s.)
People here in the UK are beginning now to look more closely at the small business sector again – possibly though because the only remaining government funding is for pro-business projects.
Today, as I write, the law in the UK is changing to reduce the burden on small businesses. In this case the Planning (zoning) laws are changing to allow businesses to build on greenfield sites more easily.
April 6, 2012 at 2:00 pm
[…] fascinating post over at Leaving Babylon by Vera Bradova called Tedium and black magic: the trouble with Energy Descent Action Plans (EDAPs) raises some interesting questions about Transition and planning, and EDAPs in particular. The […]
February 20, 2014 at 12:50 am
I agree with you that as a process, such a focus on planning inevitably lacks the spirit of, misses the point of, and will very likely produce results counter to whatever it is that’s needed in the end, because of the points you make so eloquently in your post. Keep posting.
April 4, 2014 at 2:56 am
Sorry for throwing in a comment that may already have been said, and running – I have shortlisted this for my “when I learn about planning and strategy” reading list, and will return.
Thank you everyone!
My short comment:
there is no planning vs not-planning binary
(the initial post is productively provocative, but I strongly disagree with the way it has characteristed planning, and especially implying that urban planning is the same as community or organisational action plans… they’re not! Though they share the same paradigm of reality and many of the same pathologies….)
an unreasonable focus on planning is unproductive
but planning is not evil
Can we instead, in a given context, ask what sort of planning is appropriate?
What sorts of answers does this question prompt?
(I hazard a guess that they’re more useful than “should we plan?”)
April 4, 2014 at 9:48 am
Welcome, John Baxter. I am rethinking my unplanning posts and will have more to say. I am hoping perhaps we can have a conversation about the points you raise. How you you figure urban planning and community planning are different?
I have not meant to imply that planning is evil… I think planning is useful for situations of high certainty. If you want to be in Hong Kong a month from now, some planning is in order. But planning the future as such, future being unknowable and (hopefully) full of surprises along the way, is a perilous undertaking. There are other useful processes that my unplanning search has uncovered. 🙂