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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Technological primitivism?
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Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
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Posted
There seem to be two forces at play in the world as we experience it today that will shape our lives for the coming century.
One is the pull towards ever increasing industrialisation, globalisation, commodification and liberalisation (both in social and economic attitudes). This was a process begun centuries ago with changes in farming methods and land use, and continues right up to the present day with our relentless tapping away at smartphones. It is metropolitan, cosmopolitan and "futuristic" in outlook.
The other is the pull towards a simple (perhaps naive) common land philosophy which aims to bring food production and consumption closer to home, move away from industrialised labour in a far off land, and rebuild manufacturing bases in countries of the Global North. (This is by no means solely a "progressive" movement. You could argue that it's the natural conclusion of all conservative thinking.) It is localised, indigenous and "pastoral" in outlook.
I don't want these two forces to be contradictory, or at least to be SEEN as contradictory. I really like it when people say "the Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city" because it expresses that these are two pictures of a perfect society and implies that we are "half-desiring" of both pictures.
So I guess what I'm asking is - how do we fuse the two together? Can we? Is the "garden city" a theological idea that could bear some fruit in modern society?
[ 14. August 2013, 11:28: Message edited by: Orb ]
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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Posts: 5032 | From: Easton, Bristol | Registered: Aug 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
My niece and her husband are in group (2).
They grow and shoot all their own food, only buying whey they absolutely have to.
My eldest son is the same, although he can't grow food, he tries to have a very light footfall in the world. He never buys clothes and hardly ever buys shoes. Last week I offered to buy him a new pair of trainers - he said 'why? I have a pair' - he does and they are his only footwear.
We call him 'swampy' but he actually looks fine, not scruffy at all.
Here is proof.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I admire them, but I'm far to lazy to live that way.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Orb:
The other is the pull towards a simple (perhaps naive) common land philosophy which aims to bring food production and consumption closer to home, move away from industrialised labour in a far off land, and rebuild manufacturing bases in countries of the Global North.
These two things are separate - I see no evidence of the latter actually occurring to any great extent, though many people talk about it.
Where it has happened (mainly in the US) it's because wages have fallen to the point where it's viable to move back. Largely because the former working class has now been totally immiserated and the government provides some kind of subsidy via tax credits/working benefits etc.
In terms of the former; this seems to simply be a form of consumerism with it's own elitism and form of one-up-manship. As the organic movement went mainstream, the localivore movement became more popular, which in turn is giving way to the 'artisanal'. You aren't going to get many farmers markets outside upmarket areas of towns and cities.
Actual primitivism is a minority pursuit.
[ 14. August 2013, 14:41: Message edited by: chris stiles ]
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Orb:
The other is the pull towards a simple (perhaps naive) common land philosophy which aims to bring food production and consumption closer to home, move away from industrialised labour in a far off land, and rebuild manufacturing bases in countries of the Global North.
I think naive is the right word.
I think this philosophy enshrines a predominantly first-world aspiration to an ideal which is not actually achievable. This aspiration is not in reality sustainable and is selectively applied.
I am part of a local organic produce cooperative where we collect a basket of food every week from a local farmer and everyone takes their turn at distribution, which takes place at a social centre in a nearby low-income housing project. One has to eat what is in season (think endless supplies of courgettes and aubergines at some times of year) and go and pick up the food at a set time each week, but we are hooked: supermarket food is simply tasteless by comparison.
This all sounds like something approaching your ideal, but:
The reality is that you have to be reasonably well off to pay for six months' worth of vegetables up front, and they are more expensive than shopping at a low-cost supermarket. Despite the venue being a low-income housing project, most people (including me) live in more affluent neighbourhoods and drive there. There is a huge skew towards what we call here the "higher intellectual professions" and amazingly for France, there is even a disproportionately large number of evangelicals/protestants.
And crucially, as far as I'm aware back-of-an-envelope calculations suggest that it would be impossible to feed the current world population on the basis of the methods used for this basket.
As you can see, I'm not against a dose of this "common land philosphy" myself, especially since I can afford it and the vegetables taste better, but I don't think there will be wholesale adoption of it except by force of necessity due to some massive social and/or environmental collapse. The reality is that hardly anybody - and that includes me - who enjoys them is really willing to give up the benefits of "ever increasing industrialisation, globalisation, commodification and liberalisation".
(cross posted with chris stiles)
[ 14. August 2013, 14:50: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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MrsBeaky
Shipmate
# 17663
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Posted
Here in Kenya, people are killing each other for the sake of land. City dwellers with any money will also have a country plot.(NOT estate)
Having your own shamba (farm)remains a cultural norm and desire but there just isn't enough land to keep doing this in many areas.
There is some brilliant work being done on sustainable farming methods and the poorest people here have always been and remain locally based for all food purchases over and above what they produce themselves. Only second hand clothes are imported and sold in the villages.
The one notable exception to all this being the mobile phone on which much of life here depends!
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"It is better to be kind than right."
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Posts: 693 | From: UK/ Kenya | Registered: Apr 2013
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
In addition to the above comment about second-hand clothes (industrially-produced!) and cellphones - the epitome of the consumer society -
we have Boogie's nniece:
quote:
My niece and her husband are in group (2).
They grow and shoot all their own food, only buying whey they absolutely have to.
Where do the guns and ammunition come from? One of the most disaster-causing industries?
Sheer numbers mean that we are forced to work in large-scale societies and must specialize within a money economy (true since cities came into being). The small-scale idealized farm is only available to those who can pay for it from their "day" jobs.
In my local area, driving the school bus in order for the kids to go to a central school subsidises a few farms that people claim to live on/from.
Or doing touristy crafts or working at the local special-care or nursing home...
The self-sufficient small farm died when the roads were paved.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
How much land does a human being need in order to live "simply"? - having somewhere to live, growing their own food, making their own clothing and generating their own energy? I don't know, but at a rough guess I'd say it has to be somewhere in the order of a hectare.
Our first problem, is that in the UK there are currently about 2.5 people per hectare on average. And "on average" includes all the land in the UK, including the currently unpopulated areas. In our cities, the population is more like 50-100 people per hectare.
And I don't think we need to go further than that. If your population density is greater than can be sustained with a "simple" lifestyle, then you're going to need technologically-assisted production of food, energy and consumer goods, and a transport infrastructure to distribute them. Does anyone remember the petrol tanker drivers' strike in the early 2000s? Driven by panic, supermarkets were emptied of food and essential goods within a day or two - but the important point is that that's all the stock they can hold anyway. Turn our motorways into goat pastures, and the city populations will be starving within a week.
We're stuck in a very dangerous position. City dwellers can't live simply. We can, of course, live more simply. Many people in the UK could, without any serious inconvenience, reduce their buying of food by about 20% (taking into account the vast quantities of food that's thrown away). We could probably reduce our energy consumption by about the same. We could try accumulating less "stuff" - including electronics goods that use plastic, metals and rare earth elements. We could try replacing our laptops every 5 years instead of every 4. We could resist buying the very latest smartphone. But, of course, as we've realised from the recent recession, the trouble with simplicity is that it depresses industry, at least in the short to medium term.
And so on, and so on. In short, we could aim for a simpler lifestyle. But as in the old joke about someone asking for directions, "if I was going there, I wouldn't start from here."
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I hate hanging participles! Sorry, I should have said -
quote:
Driven by panic, people emptied supermarkets...
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
How much land does a human being need in order to live "simply"? - having somewhere to live, growing their own food, making their own clothing and generating their own energy? I don't know, but at a rough guess I'd say it has to be somewhere in the order of a hectare.
That appears to be optimistic.
According to this page the UK average is 5.45 global hectares per capita (gha) and even the best organic farming communities only manage 2.4 gha.
According to this page, two countries with a gha of 1.00 are Angola and Tajikistan, repsectively 148th and 125th out of 185 countries in the OECD's Human Development Index rankings.
So simply getting to Adeodatus' starting assumption would apparently mean reducing living standards in the UK to the levels of Angola or Tajikistan, and that's without dealing with all the logistical problems he mentions.
As far as I can see this cannot happen without a catastrophic fall in population and/or collapse of modern civilization. Unless the eschaton happens first, I fully expect this to happen, but how long it will take and when it will happen are completely unpredictable.
I'm all in favour of first-world "simple living" as a default lifestyle choice, and I try to implement it at least part of the time, but I think that to pretend that politically acceptable "green" options are going to somehow achieve sustainability for anything approaching contemporary western lifestyles is completely illusory.
As Adeodatus says, we are stuck.
[ 15. August 2013, 08:36: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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MrsBeaky
Shipmate
# 17663
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Posted
Originally posted by Horseman Bree
quote:
In addition to the above comment about second-hand clothes (industrially-produced!) and cellphones - the epitome of the consumer society
I feel I should clarify:
In the villages there is often no electricity and certainly no land line phones. The cell phones are not snazzy smartphones but really old cheap handsets, one per family or group of families and there are no emergency services so when one of the children with spina bifida that I work with had a blocked shunt it was only the neighbour's cell phone that raised the alarm and got our field worker there in time to save the child's life.
Not really a consumer society situation
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"It is better to be kind than right."
http://davidandlizacooke.wordpress.com
Posts: 693 | From: UK/ Kenya | Registered: Apr 2013
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MrsBeaky:
The cell phones are not snazzy smartphones but really old cheap handsets, one per family or group of families and there are no emergency services so when one of the children with spina bifida that I work with had a blocked shunt it was only the neighbour's cell phone that raised the alarm and got our field worker there in time to save the child's life.
Not really a consumer society situation
Sure, but it's one that owes a lot to a consumer society. Without a consumer society somewhere, those simple cell phones would actually be uneconomic to purchase and own. In terms of things like coltan - they have as much environmental impact as more complex phones.
Similarly those cell phones rely on a network of towers and masts that are only cheap because of the economies of scale elsewhere.
It's the same with those clothes. They are the tail end of a very long global supply chain.
Extra environmental impact is being avoided - but it's being avoided on the back of economic activity elsewhere.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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MrsBeaky
Shipmate
# 17663
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Posted
I agree, Chris Stiles, with all the big picture stuff you've said.
Consumerism is written deep into the fabric of our lives, globally
But I haven't got the heart to begrudge my friends here their relatively small amount of hanging onto our consumer coat-tails. Not when it's so life and death.
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"It is better to be kind than right."
http://davidandlizacooke.wordpress.com
Posts: 693 | From: UK/ Kenya | Registered: Apr 2013
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MrsBeaky:
But I haven't got the heart to begrudge my friends here their relatively small amount of hanging onto our consumer coat-tails. Not when it's so life and death.
I'm not saying you should. I'm just pointing out that it isn't exactly some kind of alternative lifestyle that eschews consumerism.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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MrsBeaky
Shipmate
# 17663
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Posted
originally posted by Chris Stiles
quote:
I'm not saying you should. I'm just pointing out that it isn't exactly some kind of alternative lifestyle that eschews consumerism
No, it doesn't eschew consumerism. In the towns and on the television, advertising does its work and the wealthy are becoming more eager to have lovely houses and big cars etc
But, in the rural and more traditional areas the aspirations do appear simpler: a house for shelter, a farm for food and to generate an income to educate your children and give them basic healthcare. Many of us stopped being happy with just those things a long time ago.
So I have a lot of respect for people who choose (rather than being born in rural Kenya) to live more simply for the sake of others and the planet.
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"It is better to be kind than right."
http://davidandlizacooke.wordpress.com
Posts: 693 | From: UK/ Kenya | Registered: Apr 2013
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
MrsBeaky and chris stiles, you're making a very good point here. Often, an element of "living simply" is a "make do and mend" attitude. What's often missed is that everything you mend, patch up, coax an extra year of life out of - it was all new once. If we want any cellphones or computers at all, someone somewhere in the world has to be making new ones, albeit fewer than at present. Getting rid of nasty, dirty, environmentally unfriendly industry altogether simply isn't an option, if we want to continue to have these things that are sometimes nice toys, but also sometimes save lives.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Re the 'primitivism' being a first world thing. I suppose it can be that. But it can also be using some good first world innovations to make the simple better. Like rocket stoves which consume far less fuel than simply cooking over burning things like wood or dung.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
How much land does a human being need in order to live "simply"? - having somewhere to live, growing their own food, making their own clothing and generating their own energy? I don't know, but at a rough guess I'd say it has to be somewhere in the order of a hectare.
That appears to be optimistic.
According to this page the UK average is 5.45 global hectares per capita (gha) and even the best organic farming communities only manage 2.4 gha.
According to this page, two countries with a gha of 1.00 are Angola and Tajikistan, repsectively 148th and 125th out of 185 countries in the OECD's Human Development Index rankings.
So simply getting to Adeodatus' starting assumption would apparently mean reducing living standards in the UK to the levels of Angola or Tajikistan, and that's without dealing with all the logistical problems he mentions.
As far as I can see this cannot happen without a catastrophic fall in population and/or collapse of modern civilization. Unless the eschaton happens first, I fully expect this to happen, but how long it will take and when it will happen are completely unpredictable.
I'm all in favour of first-world "simple living" as a default lifestyle choice, and I try to implement it at least part of the time, but I think that to pretend that politically acceptable "green" options are going to somehow achieve sustainability for anything approaching contemporary western lifestyles is completely illusory.
As Adeodatus says, we are stuck.
It's perhaps worth pointing out that the same link gives global figures - a capacity of 1.8 hectares, versus a usage of 2.7 hectares.
That's basically requiring an overall decrease of a third.
One of the fascinating things about that list is that gives wildly different figures for CAPACITY from country to country. For instance, Australia and Canada are both listed as having not only high usage but also a lot of excess capacity. I'm guessing this is because they have quite low population densities, but it's worth bearing in mind the density spread is very uneven - especially in Australia, which is simultaneously one of the most urban and least dense countries on the planet - and that the less inhabited land has some issues.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I would know what Orb as the OPer has to say about all this.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
I'm also wondering where, in the pursuit of "simplicity," we start having some serious discussion about managing a sustainable human population.
The birth rate is declining in various parts of the developed world, with frightening consequences looming for things like (in the U.S.) Social Security. At one time, something like 3 workers "supported" every retiree. Now the numbers are reversing, and we're looking at one worker "supporting" 3 retirees: not workable.
At the same time, we can't just keep producing more humans: there's not enough potable water, for one thing. And then there's the issue of feeding, clothing, and sheltering those folks.
Population booms and busts, with all the economic problems which follow in their wake, are clearly detrimental. Yet having children -- as many or as few as you wish -- is an enshrined human right (except maybe in China).
For now.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Well, as far as I know short of imposing policies China-style, the best way of encouraging people to have fewer children is to enable their standard of living to improve. In general, the more developed the country, the lower the birth rate.
To throw in another, similarly counter-intuitive example - in western Europe total mains water consumption is actually going down, not up. This is for a number of reasons. Part (at least in France) is due to people sinking private and largely unlawful boreholes. But much is also due to improved technology (eg dishwashers) and the increasing numbers of people living in houses as opposed to flats, enabling them to recycle rainwater.
Water consumption going down means lower revenues for water companies just as their century-old infrastructure badly needs rebuilding - and extending due to urban sprawl. The temptation would thus to be to raise water rates - except that this would then drive consumption down further.
I would never have guessed that total domestic water use is declining - I only know through having interpreted two days' worth of an industry conference. The complexity of these issues is a real problem when it comes to selling the right solution politically.
[ 20. August 2013, 19:28: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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