Self-Organization...More...

[Chris Corrigan]

Okay.  Now that we have a self-organizing explosion of threads taking
place, let me extend one small side spoke a little, only because it is
touches on a recent contemplative passion of mine.  This doesn't have to
go anywhere, but I feel the need to say it.

Harrison Owen wrote:

> There is a needed change of metaphors here -- from auto mechanics who
> build machines to gardeners who understand that at the end of the day,
> the flowers will grow all by themselves, or not. Water and fertilizer
> help -- but the flowers do their own thing.
>

I agree with the need for a different metaphor, but I don't that
gardening is it.  The point about water and fertilizer kind of
underscores my point: gardens (in the commonly accepted sense) do not
self-organize.  Not at all.  They require a tremendous amount of
planning, cultivation and work.  You must beat back weeds and nurture
the things that you DO want to grow.  You must water if your chosen
plants are not native to your area.  You must mulch if they fear cold.

In short, gardening is, in my mind, the very antithesis of the new
metaphor.  It requires a large amount of energy from outside the system
to be put into the system.  That energy then dissipates with often
disasterous results for the surrounding system (algae blooms in local
waterways from over use of fertilizer, faster than normal water run off
from lawns requiring more water to be added to compensate for the water
running off, creating erosion and the rapid disappearance of your
growing medium....).  Gardening creates needs that send systems into
sometimes devastating feedback loops.

My preferred metaphor is that of the hunter/gatherer.  For a
hunter/gatherer, the landscape is rich to begin with and requires no
further intervention to make it that way.  Hunters and wildcrafters
protect systems by using them sparingly, thus preserving and sustaining
their yield without threatening the context in which they operate.  And
if the system collapses, hunters can move on to another piece of land.
They are adaptable, resourceful and flexible.  Gardeners (and by
extension, farmers) fence off their land, battle against the elements
and try to preserve what they have.  If the system collapses they are
hooped.

There is a new book out by Hugh Brody which explores this metaphor as it
applies to cultures.  I have a link to a review of it and some further
musings on this at
http://www.chriscorrigan.com/miscellany/bijournal/01-08-2001.htm

I realize that the map is not the territory, but while we are at play in
the field of the metaphors, I thought i would throw that intervention in
and see if it had resonance.  Hunter/gatherer is my business model.
Having been a gardener in my years with the federal government in
Canada, I realized that, beautiful as they are, growing cacti in the
rain forest just isn't sustainable.  Either you defend the enterprise to
it's inevitable death (and the to the detriment of the context which
nurtures it), or you give it up and try to think of something else to
do.

Us hunter/gatherer types just glide across the landscape, eating berries
and keeping an eye out for the next big (and tasty) thing.

Chris


--
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Consultation - Facilitation
Open Space Technology

http://www.chriscorrigan.com
corcom at interchange.ubc.ca

RR 1 E-3
1172 Miller Road
Bowen Island, BC
Canada, V0N 1G0

phone (604) 947-9236
fax (604) 947-9238

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