Utopianism has, rightly, acquired an unsavory reputation. Since my preoccupations on this blog concern the creation of a place of refuge from Babylon, as well as the opening of a crack in the system where another world is born, I thought it prudent to shine a light on it. If only so I avoid falling into that abyss.
Utopianism is underlain, as I understand it, by the hankering for social perfection and the lure of ideal worlds. It typically involves four aspects:
* privileging of ideals over messy human realities, of future over the present, of pure geometries over wabi sabi, of ideas over nature
* imposition of top-down design
* refusal of responsibility and of paying close attention to untoward consequences; “ends justify means”
* social pressure or propaganda to induce people to “like” the results
Most of the people who’ve brought ruin to the modern world have been utopians, from Lenin to Mussolini to Pol Pot, from communists to neo-liberals, from early modern architects to Brutalists to more recent ego-excesses of the various Frank Gehrys. (I am not counting among them the literary creation of new worlds. Dreamers need to safely bat ideas around, and fantasy and sci-fi novels make that possible.)
Utopians delight in arm-chair design. They fall in love with their creations. When they try to implement them and other humans balk, things get ugly.
Utopian memes have misled people into thinking that top-down design of ideal societies is the right strategy for creating a better world. Even permaculture has been infected, imposing top-down landscaping designs upon the land with predictably disappointing results. I have called the opposite of top-down design “unplanning.” Unplanning imitates nature, envisioning and applying human processes that are rooted in adaptive, feedback-responsive steps.
I think in terms of “better.” A whole lot better than THIS. And while optimal is hard and ideal is impossible, better is often very doable. And when “better” seeds new “attractors” (vortices of energy) into being, a sudden phase shift into something quite different becomes possible.
The world I am dreaming into existence cannot come into being via utopian schemes. It evolves from small beginnings. It arises through a myriad of adaptations made by millions of people. There is a vision, but the vision itself co-evolves with each step each human takes. We make the path as we walk. Following in the footsteps of Candide, we cultivate our gardens. And invite others to join us there.
Frank Gehry: ruining the world, one building at a time
Leaving Babylon 
February 3, 2015 at 1:12 pm
So true! And as for equating, making a connection between, architects like Lenin or Mussolini and the likes of Gehry; absolutely! Hubris acted out in Titanium and concrete.
It’s all in the word itself. Utopia. Nowhere.
February 3, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Muy bien! I especially like your antipathy to design and your embrace of adaptation. One thing I would add is that adaptation is NOT mitigation. Mitigation is the group/gubbmint/bureaucrats trying to minimize the problem. Adaptation is evolution by natural selection in action. It springs from the individual and the group goes along because it works.
February 3, 2015 at 2:09 pm
It’s interesting that “utopia” comes from Latin for roughly “noplace.”
I have mixed feelings about design. Let’s face it — everything is “designed;” it’s just a matter if it’s conscious or not.
Wikipedia says design is “the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system.” One could say that opposable thumbs and the ability to plan are what separates us from the rest of life. Perhaps we’ve failed miserably in the planning part — I see the result of not designing to result in consuming all our resources and dying in our own excrement — no better than yeast cells.
I think what you’re rallying against is not design, per se, but rather design controlled by a “mastermind,” or single creator. Collaborative design can produce things of both great beauty and great function.
There is a danger in not designing. David Holmgren reminds us that “Wherever (and whenever) in the universe available energy and matter are abundant, self-organisation leads to increasing complexity of activity and structure.”
A designer’s first goal must alway be to simplify, as Einstein noted, as much as possible, but not too much.
February 3, 2015 at 2:51 pm
Jan, yes, I am railing against top-down design. I wrote about it a while back here, in my post on Emergent vs imposed design. And emergent is how mother nature does it. Adaptations to what is actually going on, right now, one step at a time. Like Walter says, watch out for settling for mere mitigation, though. Tony, glad it resonates. Hubris indeed!
Is self-organization design? Food for thought.
February 4, 2015 at 2:33 am
Oh Leavergirl! I say go to the source. Utopia is a book written by an English guy in 15oo something about a place that functioned. He by the way was a “Sir” and got himself executed. You can read the book online. It was, maybe one of the first of its kind, an attempt to create a positive vision of the future. Nowadays in popular language Utopia is a synonym for “a bright future that is impossible”. Amateur scholar that I am I went through the text of Utopia and went to mark the bits that, with hindsight and the knowledge we have to day, were impossible. I didn’t find any. Utopia contains an implicit agreement on the island that every 5th year people rotate to go work the land. Otherwise they live in the city on a take what you need basis for food and everything else. You have to remember that the age of empire started 10,000 years ago and Sir Thomas Moore’s book was written in a time of top down control that was beginning to break up. The Magna Carta came a bit later and then the French Revolution. We live in a world totally designed for us by a ruling and monied class. Adverts literally bombard us and tell us what to do, think, and feel (and buy). Rather than classing Totalitarian regimes as Utopian I’d like to brand them logical extensions of the Empire and domination culture we live in.
So how to do it? How do you transition from a Domination Culture that visibly or invisibly controls people to a planetary culture that on the one hand doesn’t dominate but on the other provides necessary organisation?
Look at Transition Network and their recent embracing of sociocracy. Promising.
Or there is my book “Inventing for the Sustainable Planet” which suggests a “go along” culture.http://avbp.net/?page_id=102
February 4, 2015 at 11:35 am
The alternative to prescriptive “ideas” (plural) is a single idea, a single pivot point to choose a different future. I think your piece explains why to see it as utopian would be mistaken. We have the choice to end the global use of money and exchange en masse, leaving life to unfold as it may after that. Ongoing clarification of this choice at the Facebook page, Count Me In—Money’s Out.
February 4, 2015 at 8:26 pm
Funny. I think of myself as utopian in many ways, but for me utopian means a better world is possible.
I totally agree that a better world can’t be built from the top down. I agree with Stephan Hinton that the ” people who’ve brought ruin to the modern world” were very much a part of the Empire/domination paradigm. It wasn’t the ideas of Marx, Lenin, and the communists that was the problem, it was the implementation. As Emma Goldman said, they were simply “state capitalists”. Twin Oaks and the other income-sharing, egalitarian communities are communist and utopian, but they are also libertarian (in the sense of being open to what members want) and to a large extent self-organizing. (Twin Oaks is a wonderful example of emergent design. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would create quite as byzantine a political structure, but bizarrely enough, it basically works for the people that live there and is thriving after nearly fifty years.)
My thoughts on design is similar to Dwight Eisenhower’s take on planning: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Trying to impose a design, ‘top down’ as you put it, is crazy. Flexible design that adapts and moves with emergent self-organization (as permaculture is supposed to do), makes a lot of sense to me. What history has also shown is that when you simply get rid of an oppressive institution, without an alternative to replace it, most often people recreate a similar institution (with different people–and sometimes even the same people) because it’s predictable and familiar and the alternative seems to be very scary chaos.
February 4, 2015 at 8:52 pm
I wouldn’t disagree with you about utopianism creeping into to permaculture, but to the extent it is, it is not truly permaculture. The fundamental process of permaculture is Observe (first! preferably for at least an entire year), then Design, then Implement, and keep repeating the cycle continuously. Every design should be custom made to fit each place and its inhabitants, human and otherwise, quite the opposite of a top-down approach.
February 5, 2015 at 10:54 am
Well, John, as I understand it, Holmgren brought into permaculture his landscape architect training. So this is no accidental admixture. And generally, yes, people observe. Good. Then they make a top-down pretty design, often with massive grading of the land, and go whole hog. I understand that they keep adjusting after that… but sometimes they have to scrap the whole thing and start over.
This is not what I mean by evolving and adapting. If I had a new piece of land, I would follow Christopher Alexander and look for the one or two magic spots on the land, and seek to protect them, and to enhance their specialness by subsequent work. I would let the “centers” as he calls them, bring forth the next steps. Observe, then do a little, then see what happens. Learn, adjust your ideas to what the land wants. Observe, do a little, see what happens. Learn… and so on. The feedback loops need to be pretty tight in a system that evolves, and the beginnings need to be small rather than sweeping. My two cents… what do you think?
February 5, 2015 at 10:59 am
Stephen, you are the only person I have ever known who has actually read Utopia (she says with a sheepish grin)! I am not surprised that none of it is technically impossible. But for the problem of power. We are still in that same predicament. TT got into sociocracy? Well that is excellent, you just made my day! Can you provide a link?
Will check out your book.
February 6, 2015 at 1:02 am
When I homesteaded a piece of property back in the early 70’s, I looked at how I could fit in, not how I could landscape it according to some kind of “design.” When we got onto our current land 10 years ago, I looked at how I could fit in, not how I could landscape it according to some kind of “design.”
The problem is design. It is contrary to adaptation.
February 6, 2015 at 1:19 am
– Establishing the Main Center of the Neighborhood:
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/establishing-the-main-center-of-a-neighborhood/2014/12/19
February 6, 2015 at 10:42 am
Yes, Alexander calls it “unfolding.” I have called it “emergent design” but maybe unfolding is better. An evocative word…
February 6, 2015 at 11:43 am
He too calls it “WHOLENESS-EXTENDING-TRANSFORMATIONS”:
http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/noorefs/w-e-transformations.htm
February 6, 2015 at 1:21 pm
I recently got a book out of the library on the self-organizing principle in nature. It was garbage. I cannot even remember its name. [I tried going back in my account history and was unsuccessful. I do wish I could remember.] For those who are always looking for some inner clue or inner clock that “unfolds” some pre-set design, I suggest further studies on randomness.
Primary example: the molecular clock. Because there are a regular number of random mutations in our evolutionary history, we can simply count up the number of mutations that differentiate us from a common ancestor and calculate the “molecular clock.” Thus we get a separation of about 5 million years between us and chimpanzees. Using DNA testing we can refine the timeline. Nevertheless, it is still based on random mutations, NOT on some pre-set design.
The Roman Catholic Church has been able to integrate their metaphysics and finesse evolution by the simple expedient of rejecting randomness. They accept how evolution works (the mechanical basis) but not the underlying process of randomness. Many people have fallen for this. In evolutionary biology, the Intelligent Design trope has gained some credibility, but it is largely because people are searching for a “design they can believe in.” I read the PhD dissertation that originated Intelligent Design and it is just garbage. Also, it is worth noting that the promoter of this garbage is the Discovery Institute, a rightwing thinktank in Seattle. Conservatives want to keep people stupid, which is why they conflate “test of a belief” as “test of a hypothesis.” In short, Intelligent Design is just a “kinder, gentler” Creationism.
This is the big hustle in design. It is all about the fallacy of “well there must be a reason!” Once you get beyond this infantile looking for a reason, you will actually be able to think more clearly.
Of course, the real work still needs to be done, but you do not have to believe in something to do it.
“I don’t believe in yoga. I don’t believe in kings. I don’t believe in Elvis. I don’t believe in Zimmerman. I don’t believe in Beatles. I just believe in me. Yoko and me. That’s reality. The dream is over.” – John Lennon 1970
February 7, 2015 at 2:31 am
Self-organization in nature results in wholeness, through the unfolding of the 15 transformations: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-fifteen-geometric-properties-of-wholeness/2014/03/01
The 15 transformations are there, without them our universe, or any other universe, would cease to exist. The same is true about biological life.
“I believe the fifteen transformations I have discovered will turn out to be naturally occurring, and necessarily occurring in all complex systems. The laws leading to their existence, will turn out, I think, to be inevitable or necessary results of the unfolding of wholeness, under the right conditions. And I believe, too, that our 20th-century notion that mechanical effects without the guiding influence of these fifteen transformations, can create the beautiful structures we encounter in the universe, is simply wrong. In other words, it is the action of wave motion, mitigated by the fifteen transformations, that creates the beauty of the breaking wave; it is the operation of natural selection, mitigated by the action of these fifteen transformations, which generates discernible and coherent forms in the play of genetics and evolution; I believe it is the operation and unfolding of the most ordinary flower or stem of grass, mitigated by the operation of the same fifteen transformations, which generates the beauty of the flower. I believe that it is the same fifteen transformations which mitigate and channel the crumbling and heaving and bending of the geologic strata which generated the beauty of the Himalaya; and these fifteen transformations, too, which mitigate the action and swirling of the vortices on Jupiter, or the rippled piebald configurations we call a mackerel sky.” – Christopher Alexander, New Concepts in Complexity Theory, page 21
Click to access complexity.pdf
February 7, 2015 at 2:06 pm
The key words in Oyvind’s (sorry for the misspell but I don’t have the character on my keyboard) post are “I believe” and “I think.”
To speak of natural selection as “mitigated” by fifteen transformations is misguided. Natural selection is a description of a multitude of things that happen. It is not a “thing.”
People can believe whatever they want, but in a collapsed world, their beliefs will become damn dangerous to their well-being.
February 7, 2015 at 4:15 pm
Well, Walter, the quote with the “I believe” and “I think” is from an architect who has done some amazing things in the world, and who is valiantly trying to turn the tide of the utopians. Whether his 15 transformations will stand the test of time, I am not sure. In any case, it’s just a stab. So, improve on it. How do you see self-organization unfolding?
February 8, 2015 at 1:16 am
Vera, you miss the point. The burden is on you (or the architect) to prove the thesis of self-organization. Saying “I believe” doesn’t prove anything. There are all kinds of people valiantly trying to do something. The proof is in the doing, not the believing.
February 8, 2015 at 4:15 am
“To speak of natural selection as “mitigated” by fifteen transformations is misguided.”
This is not about natural or sexual selection, it’s about the unfolding of wholeness. The 15 transformations are underpinned with massive empirical findings, as well as mathematically.
– Empirical Findings from “The Nature of Order”: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/empirical-findings-from-the-nature-of-order/2014/04/15
– Life and Complexity in Architecture From a Thermodynamic Analogy: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/life-and-complexity-in-architecture-from-a-thermodynamic-analogy/2014/06/18
– Applications of the Golden Mean to Architecture: http://meandering-through-mathematics.blogspot.no/2012/02/applications-of-golden-mean-to.html
– Why Monotonous Repetition is Unsatisfying: http://permaculturenews.org/2012/01/04/why-monotonous-repetition-is-unsatisfying/
– The Fifteen Fundamental Properties of Wholeness: http://www.tkwa.com/fifteen-properties/
I’m sorry that you seem to suppose there is no “I”, and that you this way has surrendered to a cartesian world view: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-mechanistic-idea-of-order/2015/01/21
This way you have in reality no other choice than to follow Rem Koolhaas, to surrender to nihilist modernism.
Vera, the 15 transformation have proven their existence for 13 billion years now. Should this not be sufficient? Just look at your hands, and you’ll see “alternating repetition”. Look at a woman’s breast, and you see “local symmetries”. Look at a face, and you see “strong centers”. Look at a tree, and you see “levels of scale”. When you enter a lake in the woods you see “the void”. Look at the moon a cold night, and you see “broad boundaries”. Look at an old cabin, and you see “deep interlock”.
Knowing the 15 transformations when you walk in a forest, or an old town, is like knowing the song of the birds.
February 8, 2015 at 12:41 pm
As I said, Walter, this architect’s proof is in the doing. Are you saying that you think the concept of self-organization is bogus?
February 8, 2015 at 2:29 pm
Yes Vera, I think it is bogus. I thought I made that clear. Of course, you and anyone else can believe what you want.
February 8, 2015 at 3:55 pm
Hmmm… birds self organize into a flock with perfect synchronization. How does that fit into your thinking?
“Of course, you and anyone else can believe what you want.”
That’s a given, of course. We don’t need your permission. 😉
February 8, 2015 at 4:34 pm
Why do birds flock AS IF they are of one mind? Don’t know.
http://www.audubon.org/magazine/march-april-2009/explaining-bird-flocks
Perhaps they are taking cues from one another.
http://earthsky.org/earth/how-do-flocking-birds-move-in-unison
Vera, this is not a game of “gotcha.” You started out with a sound critique of design and provided a very nice differentiation between adaptation and mitigation. However, you then defaulted to unsound belief rather than saying “I don’t know.”
As I tried to point out, “filling in the blanks” because you don’t know is not sound reasoning. Your sources want to believe in something so they find something to believe in. This is not sound logic. The reason I quoted John Lennon is because he says it so well. You probably remember that he did this album after he and Yoko began primal scream therapy with Janov.
It is to my advantage to get more people out of their belief systems and thinking clearly. The two do NOT go together.
The reason for my throwaway line is that you CAN believe anything you want. It is not about permission. Otherwise I would have used the word MAY.
Let me repeat. This is not a game of “gotcha.” Throwing out isolated incidences does not change the paradigm.
February 8, 2015 at 4:50 pm
Well, now, Walter, you’ve lost me. I don’t know what you are referring to. I was curious how your claim of “bogus self-org” fit in with the birds’ self-org in the sky. In your view.
I am reminded of a study I came across recently, seemingly showing that when the brain is in logic mode, empathy gets shorted. (And vice versa.)
February 9, 2015 at 12:55 am
The DNA self-organizes through codes. So those who reject self-organizing reject that the DNA works successfully. The DNA works through adaption, not a masters plan. This is why codes that react to adaption is the way to create our communities.
– Generative Codes: The Path to Building Welcoming, Beautiful,
Sustainable Neighborhoods: http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/library/generativecodesv10.pdf
Those who believe that life is designed or can be designed, should join the mad American christians who propose so called “Intelligent Design.” When doing this they reduce God to a tyrant like Le Corbusier.
February 9, 2015 at 12:35 pm
Øyvind (I found a way to get the Norsk character) – Sorry, you cannot shoehorn me into your belief system. You can say black is white all day long and it still will not be true.
If self-organization is random elements that interact, the term is meaningless. The word “organization” requires an organizing principle.
I deal with this kind of spin every day in my activist efforts here on the local level in Washington state. Simply stating something is true does not work. Likewise, trying to spin my DNA argument into its exact opposite does not work.
Things happen. It is called randomness. There is no organizing principle. Saying that because they happen means it is self-organization is just rubbish.
February 9, 2015 at 12:56 pm
Walter, nobody here is trying to shoehorn you into anything. This is an interesting debate, but I wish people would stick with friendly behaviors and abstain from calling their fellow commenters’ views rubbish. How does that further our understanding?
I myself think that self-organization does exists; flocks of birds and schools of fish, ant and bee behavior, etc., seem to indicate so. Also, in artificial life, so called, computer “boids” set up with minimal basic rules also begin to exhibit self-organizing patterns (like flocking) that come as a surprise to the scientists who set up the initial system. On the other hand, much of what I have seen in the lit is largely unhelpful, and I am not surprised that someone would throw it out as empty hype.
I am right now sticking with the difference between emergence and imposition, which is crucial enough; some day I want to delve into self-org again; maybe by that time there will be better sources and clearer thinkers in the field.
There are a couple of useful things I did gather on my run through self-org literature: 1) the “agents” must be autonomous (free to act as they see fit) in order for self-org to emerge, and 2) the very few local rules that get things going depend on small clusters of “agents” being able to observe and imitate or otherwise respond to their immediate neighbors. Ipso facto, in social situations, bossism prevents self-organization from emerging. In other words, domination keeps groups of humans stupid.
February 9, 2015 at 2:03 pm
When comments are rubbish, the best thing is to call them rubbish. You are doing a disservice to both yourself and others when you elevate a false sense of propriety over pertinent comments.
This elevation is contrary to your veiled swipe at me about bossism by the way. Keeping people in the dark about reality is a real sin. As an aside, it is humorous to see you take veiled swipes at me but then not have the courage to admit it.
Back to the real argument. Consider your own statements:
“I myself think that self-organization does exists; flocks of birds and schools of fish, ant and bee behavior, etc., seem to indicate so.”
The key words here are “I think” and “seem to.” This is what Intelligent Design is based on, by the way. You want to believe in something so bad, you are willing to fall for nonsense. As I have said over and over again for many years and in many contexts, just because it appears to be a pattern does not make it so. As I pointed out to Øyvind, organization requires an organizing principle. If you cannot see the difference between applying a human word – code or DNA – to what actually happens at the microscopic level – you really should go back to high school biology for a refresher. This is not some sort of Freudian game where applying the word, reifying it, and then using the links between the reified concepts gives new knowledge. It is basic biology and randomness provides the new material and a whole bunch of interactions (that we call natural selection so that we can refer to it easily) that determine if the individual organism can pass on its genes (another convenient word).
I found it particularly insulting that Øyvind would try and spin my comments about randomness and DNA so that it appears I am supporting Intelligent Design, when in fact I have been fighting it since grad school (in multiple venues I might add). I also find it insulting that you buy into nonsense and then act all high and mighty when I call you on it. This is very serious stuff Vera. There is a lot of work to be done and indulging in nonsense so that you can feel all warm and fuzzy is neither scientific nor prudent. Actually doing the work requires clear paradigms.
February 9, 2015 at 2:07 pm
“If self-organization is random elements that interact, the term is meaningless. The word “organization” requires an organizing principle.”
Alexander’s “A Pattern Language” is a tool set of evidence based design for people to self-organize. It’s also called peer to peer architecture. Computer scientists have embraced it, and this kind of self-organisation is running both IPhone and Wikipedia, which both are based upon pattern language software.
Generative codes have evolved from pattern languages, and Alexander states them as much more sophisticated organizing tools. Pattern languages are not random elements, as they are strictly hierarchical and organized.
Self organization require a lot of technologies to work. It includes physics and mathematics, like “The Laws of Architecture from a Physicist’s Perspective”, which shows how pleasant architecture is organized according to the laws of physics.
Why people think self-organizing is randomness and random elements that interact randomly, I simply don’t know. It is much more scientific and organized than present days design, a better word for it is agile design: http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/December-2013/Toward-Resilient-Architectures-5-Agile-Design/index.php?cparticle=1&siarticle=0#artanc
Agile design includes the flock of birds self-organizing, and is developed from scientific research.
The huge problems is that architects are not trained in these scientific design methods, so that they cannot guide communities through the processes of organizing themselves. To self-organize needs a lot of training and education, and huge skills. Untrained people will just mess around randomly, unless they’re part of strong traditions carrying these technologies within them.
February 9, 2015 at 2:20 pm
Ah, Walter. Your swashbuckling style… that takes me back. And no, I did not swipe at you with bossism. I was referring to bossism in the workplace, that’s what I had in mind. If I were to swipe at you, I would call it bossiness.
Funny… I did not realize that Intelligent Design was being discussed.
As for “I think” — that is being honest and humble about my limitations. Nobody has the Truth. You included. As for false sense of propriety… not what I am aiming for. I am aiming for a friendly exploration. And I do believe — there I go again, huh? — that when process sucks, content becomes irrelevant.
February 9, 2015 at 2:20 pm
“If an embryo were shaped by fabrication, and not generated, the number of mistakes would be unbelievably large.
The human embryo is created by 50 doubling of cells. Starting with a single cell (the fertilized egg), after 50 doublings, the embryo has 250 cells. During this doubling process that occurs 50 times, each cell has the opportunity to adapt itself, and to remove possible mistakes by position, adaption, pushing and pulling. The total number of opportunities for correction, then, in the growing embryo, is (1+2+22+23+….250) = 251. Reversing the argument, we may express this by saying that the assembly of embryo cells, if not given a chance for adaption and instead made by design and fabrication, would typically have 251 mistakes – a truly enormous number, roughly 1015, or a thousand trillion mistakes. That is what would happen if an embryo were designed and built, not generated. If an embryo were built from a blueprint of a design, not generated by an adaptive process, there would inevitably be one thousand trillion mistakes. Because of its history as a generated structure, there are virtually none. – The Process of Creating Life, by Christopher Alexander, page 187-188
And the fundamental answer is, that there is a fundamental law about the creation of complexity, which is visible and obvious to everyone – yet this law is, to all intents and purposes, ignored in 99% of the daily fabrication process of society. The law states simply this: ALL the well-ordered complex systems we know in the world, all those anyway that we review as highly successful, are GENERATED structures, not fabricated structures.” – The Process of Creating Life, by Christopher Alexander, page 180
Yes, Walter, you suggest that the world is fabricated, not generated. Then you belong to the believers of Intelligent Design, and reject that life is generated, like fundamentalist christians.
http://permaculturenews.org/2010/08/23/the-holistic-flower/
February 9, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Woa, someone forgot to take their “nice” pill this morning.
February 9, 2015 at 2:30 pm
“. . . tool set of evidence based design for people to self-organize.” Based on people and human society. In the buffer zone of culture. Does not work without human support.
“. . . sophisticated organizing tools . . . .” Based on people and human society. See above.
“Self organization require a lot of technologies to work.” Based on people and human society. See above.
“. . . a better word for it is agile design.” Based on people and human society. See above.
“. . . guide communities through the processes of organizing themselves.” Based on people and human society. See above.
You cannot equate natural processes that go on without human support with processes that require human support. DNA, randomness, the rocks tumbling to the sea, etc. all go on without any sort of “design.”
February 9, 2015 at 2:33 pm
Jan – I recall you were cowardly enough to slam me on Resilience.org when I could not retort. I sent you a couple of emails calling you on it, but you never replied. Interjecting yourself here just to take a cheap swipe at me is still cowardly.
February 9, 2015 at 2:35 pm
Worth repeating.
I don’t insist that everyone treat each other “nice.” but some people just seem to have a hard time with basic reciprocity: the idea that, in order get your point across, you need to at least show the other person that their point was heard. You want respect, give respect!
As Steven Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) wrote, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
So it comes down to this, do you want to be a highly effective person? Or would you rather just be “right?”
I’ll leave you with one of my favourite Ben Franklin quotes:
I find the absolutely best thing about this approach is that I actually learn from other people, although my ego would rather I simply continue to know it all.
Stretch yourself, Walter. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” (Leonard Cohen)
February 9, 2015 at 2:38 pm
Øyvind’s quote: “Yes, Walter, you suggest that the world is fabricated, not generated. Then you belong to the believers of Intelligent Design, and reject that life is generated, like fundamentalist christians.”
Back when I was a welder, fabrication meant “made.” However, your sense of fabrication is based on shoehorning evolutionary biology into an architect’s thoughts on design. Let me say it again. It is just rubbish.
Øyvind – You are quite insane when you try to tell me I favor Intelligent Design and equate me with fundamentalis christians. Stephen Jay Gould is laughing at you from his grave, as am I.
February 9, 2015 at 2:44 pm
Walter, when you call Jan cowardly, and Øyvind insane, I feel frustrated. I aim to create an environment here in the blog that is free of ad hominems. Would you be so kind and skip the personal invective?
February 9, 2015 at 2:45 pm
“I sent you a couple of emails calling you on it, but you never replied.”
“Haugen” does not appear in my ten-year archive of emails. (Except for this thread.)
Perhaps you mis-addressed your emails.
Or perhaps the email was so abusive that I tossed it and walked away from the fight. It takes two, y’know..
February 9, 2015 at 3:03 pm
Vera – Yes you can question the very basis of biology if you want, or any other natural process for that matter. However, I rely on science and scientists for basic “truths.” What you are doing is indulging yourself in looking for patterns that correspond to your beliefs.
Really now, are you going to believe an architect over people like Darwin, Newton, Stephen Jay Gould, etc. I am not going to. To paraphrase Newton, standing on the shoulders of these giants allows me to see a little further. AND since I have done the math and the research, I am confident in what these scientists say.
Let me give you an example. In my experience and based on my own research, Joseph Tainter’s idea of a reduction in marginal returns is a good explanation of the preconditions for collapse. Calling the point where marginal returns changes sign an inflection point is my idea. I know how the inflection point works because of my college calculus. Therefore I am standing on Newton’s and Leibniz’s shoulders. However, what I do with Tainter is critique his model and so I adhere more to some aspect of his theories than others.
Okay, still with me now? Even as I make a correlation between collapse of complex societies and the math behind diminishing marginal returns, I am still NOT asking anyone to believe me. As I say in my first book, “I am not worried about persuading you, nor am I worried whether you believe me. My main thesis is: We are now forced to deal directly with the laws of physics. It does not matter if you believe me or not.”
So to engage in these silly arguments has a value (as long as I do not devote time from other projects like getting my pruning done and it is raining today). It is part of my ongoing efforts for the last 45 years to break down fuzzie-wuzzie rubbish. This kind of rubbish is far more dangerous than the rubbish small-town kids get in their schools. This is why I constantly critique the pseudo-hipsters in Bellingham, for instance, while leaving the rednecks in Ferndale alone.
Okay I am done.
Vera – You are giving waaayyy more credibility to rubbish than you should.
Øyvind – You are just wrong when you equate pseudo-scientific rubbish with the laws of biology.
Jan – You are still a coward for taking cheap shots and interjecting yourself into other conversations.
Bye-bye. Good luck to everyone.
February 9, 2015 at 3:30 pm
“I am confident in what these scientists say.”
It appears to me that you pick and choose which scientists you listen to, in order to validate your pre-conceived notions.
In 1924, would you have been “confident” that “God does not play dice with the Universe?” Well today, it is widely agreed that “God does play dice.” Score: Heisenberg 1, Einstein 0.
In 1900, would you have been “confident” that acceleration can continue indefinitely? Well today, it’s widely agreed that “c” is a limit to such things. Score: Einstein 1, Newton 0.
In 1600, would you have been “confident” that the Earth was the centre of the Universe? A simple telescope shows today’s science contradicts yesterday’s science. Score: Galileo 1, Copernicus 0.
Today, modern string theory attempts to explain randomness and patters, such as why sub-atomic particles decay at certain rates, why the microwave background radiation is “lumpy,” and why galaxies form spiderweb-like structures, with large, matter-less voids between them.
Things like the “many worlds theory” would have laughed out of the room as little as 150 years ago. But today, it and derivations are widely acknowledged for explaining certain inconsistencies in the “standard model,” and leading interdisciplinary thinkers are linking Buddhism with cosmology, parapsychology with quantum physics, and Bose-Einstein condensates with black holes.
I recall Jack Staas, my undergrad psych prof, fielding the most outlandish questions from students. He would calmly reply, “I don’t disbelieve it, but I haven’t seen any evidence yet!” That stuck with me.
There is huge value in suspending disbelief! When I become “confident” of something, I feel a bit of sadness, as though the room has gotten smaller, as though the Universe has become less mysterious.
Open your mind, Walter!
February 9, 2015 at 3:59 pm
That about sums it up. What saddens me is seeing Walter busy burning more bridges. My sense is that he stopped being able to hear us a while back. And I know I no longer could hear the content through the hostilities.
And I’ll be damn if I know what caused the conflagration. Content-wise. Because I doubt we were saying what Walter thought we were saying. Process-wise… another story.
February 10, 2015 at 12:37 am
I thought Øyvind was saying that there ARE principles involved, that they are soft-wired into the human brain (like programmable firmware that activates when an option is closed or a pathway is chosen); that there are fifteen of them, sort of like wallpaper patterns for symmetry, and who knows how many variations based on asymmetrical “meme” activation (like epigenetic methyl switches). How is this different from, say, Plato’s Forms, or Kant’s assertion that Time and Space are innate ‘great ape’ mental constructs that shape human perception? There is even some speculation that the ‘reason’ why mathematics so closely conforms to physical observations is that we only perceive those aspects of the universe that match our pre-conceptual logic structures–in short that we essentially ‘create’ the universe we live in by self-selecting (filtering in or out) the peculiar-to-us qualities (that are a small set contained in the much vaster set of All Possible Qualities available in an inchoate way) from the fundamental ‘formlessness’ or ‘clay’ of the universe and shaping Material Existence to our liking. I mean, if we were hermit crabs, we might use our mental claws as pincers to break off a bit of the ‘(h)ule’ (Aristotle’s term) and shape for ourselves a cozy shell as home. But would we be likely to create a Baltimore crabbing pot or soft-shell crab sandwich? Only the Edgar Allen Poe’s of the crab world could even imagine such a thing! Observation DOES change the properties of light, for instance, or the spin of a split quark(?) at a distance, or the state of a boxed cat. Order DOES emerge spontaneously from chaos: Julia sets and so forth. So why mayn’t random movement or observation and meta-patterns interact to generate beauty and home comfort according to a quasi-organized, clearly non-random, but statistically plausible set of groupings or quantum states?
By the way, if c is absolute, relatively speaking, and E=mc2, how come mass can break the speed limit of the universe (squared, no less!) to become energy? I know how applying the Lorentz transformations to Maxwell’s equations resolves into the formula, but that’s math. I am asking about the physical contradiction in saying C is absolute and yet squaring it turns mass into energy. It’s either a constant or not, ain’t it?
February 10, 2015 at 2:25 am
Uhm, I think you’re confusing a number of different things there.
Can you try a simple dimensional analysis? That resolves c into a constant.
February 10, 2015 at 2:34 am
Vera, I want to inform you that it will soon be published a book in Canada about the Norwegian eco philosopher Sigmund Kvaloey Setreng! His father was my father’s teacher. He is mostly philosophizing about generated contra fabricated complexity, and is fully aligned with the philosophy of Alexander. But he calls fabricated complexity “complication”, meaning it’s not real complexity, because it repeats itself.
Generated complexity, or adapted, is TRUE complexity, as it NEVER repeats itself!
Nature never repeats itself, so all complexity generated by nature has a true complex nature, or true complexity.
This is why we MUST turn human structures away from fabricated complexity or complication, to generated complexity, or agile design. Because only generated complexity is RESILIENT!
This is why I have as a slogan: RESILIENCE AFTER MODERNISM!
Deep Ecology was founded by Sigmund Kvaloey Setreng, Nils Faarlund and Arne Naess. The two first grew up in the area here I live, and they spent their childhood playing up in the Totenåsen Hills, just like me: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toten%C3%A5sen
Please read Nils Faarlund’s resent essay in FC Journal: http://thejournal.link/2015/01/tseringma-pilgrimage/
He’s sitting above Lake Skjeppsjøen, where we used to have our winter games when I was a scout.
I’m really happy you’ve grabbed these ideas Vera, and I hope you’ll reed the forthcoming book about Setreng to elaborate them further!
February 10, 2015 at 7:28 am
Is sociocracy bottom-up utopianism?
February 11, 2015 at 2:06 pm
Welcome, daveex. Why do you think that sociocracy may be utopian? In what sense?
February 14, 2015 at 2:01 pm
[…] By Vera Bradova. Original post here. […]
February 16, 2015 at 4:17 am
Dear Vera, maybe you should like to contribute to the comments thread for this essay at the p2p-blog: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/utopians-are-ruining-everything/2015/02/14#comments
February 16, 2015 at 11:07 am
Alain Ambrosi made this comment at p2p-foundation:
“I am surprised to read this on a blog which promotes the commons and commoning . Thomas More who forged the term ” Utopia” witnessed in his own life the first movement of enclosures in England (XVI century). His book Utopia is an explicit criticism of the Tudor aristocracy and private property and it promotes use value over exchange . He was beheaded for that. Before he wrote this book he was not a “dreamer” but a jurist, a philosopher and a man of state. William Morris who was inspired by More several centuries later was an artist and businessman, not simply a dreamer but a doer. His book “News from Nowhere” is more a criticism of his time than an imposition of “top down design”. David Bollier and others who define the commons today as “a pragmatic utopia” are direct descendants of the early utopians. I am surpised to see that the only utopians cited here are Stalin, Pol Pot, Lenin and Mussolini (why not throw Hitler in with them too?) – arguably very pragmatic dictators rather than the founders of utopianism.”
February 16, 2015 at 11:15 am
And this is what I said in response: “Thank you for your thoughts. I know my take is somewhat different. For example, Thomas Moore, who wrote Utopia, perhaps tongue in cheek, was no utopian, but a nasty customer who delighted in torturing religious dissidents in his own private torture chamber and in sending them to the pyre. He was beheaded because he stubbornly refused to recognize the legitimacy of Henry’s second marriage. If Thomas had tried to implement his Utopia, it would have been another blood bath.
William Morris was quite different. He not only spun utopian ideas in a book, he — as Øyvind mentions — embodied them in his own craftsmanship. He is a spiritual giant and an exception. (So were, in their own way, the Shakers.)
The reason I am juxtaposing these unlikely so-called “realists” is because they all promised a very very bright tomorrow to people, got their support, and then proceeded to devastate them. Primarily because they carried dystopia, not utopia, inside them. Just like Thomas Moore.”
February 16, 2015 at 10:50 pm
Sorry I took so long to get back to you. Yes, while I got my PDC almost 2 decades ago, I am well aware of the way landscape architecture is making inroads into permaculture. It is born out of the desire to turn permaculture designs into products that can be sold. It is the need to satisfy the customer that drives that process of making a top-down design and imposing it upon the landscape. And, to my estimation, that is a perversion of what permaculture is supposed to be.
Holmgren may have been one of the cofounders of permaculture, but it has expanded so much beyond Mollison and his vision. Sepp Holzer, for example, uses pigs to dig ponds.
And quite frankly, I think the process you describe is an excellent example of how permaculture is supposed to work. I know in my own training, Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language played a big part, and I think it was influential in the development of permaculture.
February 17, 2015 at 10:53 am
John, I find it very cheering that at least some permaculturists agree with Christopher Alexander and are working his ideas in. Yes, the need to sell something impressive… then do it, and move on… that should be called landscaping, even if they use permaculture elements in it, ey?
February 17, 2015 at 2:06 pm
In fact, you have kind of inspired me…. perhaps the way permaculture design needs to be sold is as a subscription service, with a monthly fee giving the client/pupil access to a certain amount of the designer/teacher’s time per month. That would help reinforce that it is a never-ending process and allow for more incremental changes… and, allow the permaculture designer a steady income, so that it can be his or her day job.
Perhaps the ones doing one-off, top-down designs could call it permascaping to distinguish themselves.
But your objection also does bring up a problem I’ve been having lately with most of permaculture, and that is the idea of permanence. Trying to make a single design that will work forever into the future is an extremely daunting task, especially in the face of changing climatic and economic conditions.
February 17, 2015 at 2:30 pm
Thank you for your comment Wheeler! I’ve put it up for publication at the p2p-foundation blog on March 3. If the two of you could elaborate on this into an essay someday, when you have time and inspiration, it would be great! I will of course put that one up at the p2p-foundation’s blog as well. This is very important stuff!
February 17, 2015 at 2:43 pm
Absolutely. Mother Nature does not work that way anyways. She is always adapting and evolving. I love the idea of a subscription service. That’s how family doctors ought to work too, by the way… by subscription, to be motivated to keep us healthy, while heaving cash flow coming in. Øyvind, what sort of an article did you have in mind?
February 17, 2015 at 2:52 pm
I don’t know exactly. But I’m afraid that Permaculture in the end will lose all it’s original content, and be left as nothing but just another “green” branding.
Here’s by the way how I prepared Wheeler’s comment for the p2p-blog: http://permaliv.blogspot.no/2015/02/is-permaculture-turning-into-landscape.html
February 17, 2015 at 3:22 pm
Awesome post! Could you also add a link to my (a while back) post Permadesign? I would love love to see a real discussion of the issues raised!
February 17, 2015 at 7:29 pm
“I find it very cheering that at least some permaculturists agree with Christopher Alexander and are working his ideas in.”
Alexander has figured prominently in every PDC I’ve conducted. How could one do the required unit on Patterns without at least mentioning Alexander?
February 17, 2015 at 7:31 pm
“your objection also does bring up a problem I’ve been having lately with most of permaculture, and that is the idea of permanence.”
Yea, it’s unfortunate that “perma” is part of the word.
In essence, Permaculture is all about adapting to change — about “meta-permanance,” if you will.
February 17, 2015 at 7:32 pm
Adaptive durability?
February 18, 2015 at 12:34 am
Thanks! I found a very nice paragraph that ended my post perfectly. I reposted your essay Permadesign for publication at the p2p-foundation’s blog on March 5. Hope it will spur further reflection and discussion among permaculture people!
February 19, 2015 at 3:04 pm
Michel Bauwens responded to your essay in a post at the p2p-foundation:
– In defense of pragmatic ‘real utopias’: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/in-defense-of-pragmatic-real-utopias/2015/02/19
February 20, 2015 at 2:55 pm
Vera, Bauwens continues with a great article about William Morris: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/how-3d-printing-is-rooted-in-the-history-of-the-progressive-and-democratic-arts-and-crafts-movement/2015/02/20
I didn’t know about Morris before, but to me he seems like an early Alexander. They both obviously have the same vision for a living world.
February 24, 2015 at 10:37 pm
[…] Utopians are ruining everything Leaving Babylon Utopian memes have misled people into thinking that top-down design of ideal societies is the right strategy for creating a better world. Even permaculture has been infected, imposing top-down landscaping designs upon the land with predictably disappointing results. (Also see the follow-up post: Generating a future that works) […]
March 3, 2015 at 12:29 am
[…] After Vera Bradova’s obviously very provocative essay; “Utopians are ruining everything“, which spurred an intense discussion both at P2P-Foundation and at the original essay, John Wheeler toward the end made a very interesting comment: […]
January 18, 2016 at 1:42 am
[…] Utopians are ruining everything Leaving Babylon Utopian memes have misled people into thinking that top-down design of ideal societies is the right strategy for creating a better world. Even permaculture has been infected, imposing top-down landscaping designs upon the land with predictably disappointing results. (Also see the follow-up post: Generating a future that works) […]