Self-Organization...More...

Sullivan, Tim J. MCF:EX Tim.Sullivan at gems5.gov.bc.ca
Fri Nov 16 15:08:08 PST 2001


Good thought, Chris, however....with 5 Billion plus on the planet now, and
increasing by leaps and bounds....we can't all be hunter/gatherers.
It is a metaphor of 'go lightly' that is feasible with much smaller numbers,
and will not drive the system to the "edge of chaos". The eco-system will be
stable. We live in different times. Now, its chaos for breakfast, lunch,
dinner and midnight snack. And the 'edge' is becoming the 'brink'.


--TIM SULLIVAN



-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Corrigan [mailto:corcom at interchange.ubc.ca]
Sent: Friday November 16, 2001 11:56 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Self-Organization...More...


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
<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 <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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