FARMING, ST. ANN, AND PARADIGM CHANGE
Randy Allie I'm the admin of Restoring St. Ann's Bay. Jamaica's tourist/industrial system has decimated farming there and in St. Ann Parish as a whole. The jobs have been all in the tourist industry in Ocho Rios and wherever else nearby that the tourist-oriented economy thrives. All the farmers abandoned the land in the parish. And abundant bauxite mining has taken over much farming land there too. We face an existential crisis of the land in the Garden Parish. I have no farming news to post from St. Ann, and somehow I believe that posting unidentified farming news that could be even from another country is a weaker message than one that points out where in Jamaica the farming is happening. (At least, tnews from another parish might raise the competitive spirit.) The brain drain from St. Ann has been spectacular. I doubt there are many who have space/time for abstract thinking anymore. But I can't swear to any of this. I'm just feeling my way, entirely, entirely alone. And from thousands of miles away.
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I find big things easier to comprehend than little things. Since most people (in the Western world at any rate) are just the opposite, I’m always going against the grain. I can’t find any corroboration for my view that it is very easy to correct Earth’s climate and other critical woes if we think big enough. And it’s tempting to go off in a corner and leave the world to its dealings.
Despite what astronauts say about Earth’s unity, beauty and fragility when seen from afar, policy to give meaning to that vision is absent. The awe-stricken astronauts were working at the level of sensibility and feeling, and these are never the concern of policy.
After I wrote my first blog post (“How To Do Everything,” below) I heard about the book “Endgame” by Derrick Jensen, for which the author won The Press Action Person of the Year award. Although I’m puzzled by Jensen’s radical views and by the acclaim given him, what he wrote stopped me in my tracks. Could it be that I received no corroboration for my views because there was none to be found within the broad culture?
Among the premises in Endgame :
Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
I reread my post, and the main fault I now find with it is the perhaps naïve assumption that it lies within the power of government to save the planet from the dire consequences wrought by industrial civilization. Ain’t gonna happen, most likely.
But I question whether direct acts of violence against civilization (as Jensen advocates) is the answer – these will most likely happen anyway -- or whether it is feasible, as an alternate strategy, to take peaceful but subversive actions to protect and restore the planet. As an example, what if it were feasible to cover dysfunctional paving everywhere (paving that does not use the sun’s energy to do anything useful) with vegetation (a simple, non-technologic solution to climate change)? It can’t be denied that looking at Earth as a seamless orb that depends on vegetation for its survival is something that civilization has proven hopeless at doing.
During the coming year I want to investigate, to my satisfaction, how or whether the broader society, driven by a revolution in the humanities and the arts, could potentially reverse this direction. (Examining the feasibility of a worldwide survey of land-use plans is one possible way to start.)
Can what is harmful in civilization be transcended through civilization itself?
Despite what astronauts say about Earth’s unity, beauty and fragility when seen from afar, policy to give meaning to that vision is absent. The awe-stricken astronauts were working at the level of sensibility and feeling, and these are never the concern of policy.
After I wrote my first blog post (“How To Do Everything,” below) I heard about the book “Endgame” by Derrick Jensen, for which the author won The Press Action Person of the Year award. Although I’m puzzled by Jensen’s radical views and by the acclaim given him, what he wrote stopped me in my tracks. Could it be that I received no corroboration for my views because there was none to be found within the broad culture?
Among the premises in Endgame :
Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.
I reread my post, and the main fault I now find with it is the perhaps naïve assumption that it lies within the power of government to save the planet from the dire consequences wrought by industrial civilization. Ain’t gonna happen, most likely.
But I question whether direct acts of violence against civilization (as Jensen advocates) is the answer – these will most likely happen anyway -- or whether it is feasible, as an alternate strategy, to take peaceful but subversive actions to protect and restore the planet. As an example, what if it were feasible to cover dysfunctional paving everywhere (paving that does not use the sun’s energy to do anything useful) with vegetation (a simple, non-technologic solution to climate change)? It can’t be denied that looking at Earth as a seamless orb that depends on vegetation for its survival is something that civilization has proven hopeless at doing.
During the coming year I want to investigate, to my satisfaction, how or whether the broader society, driven by a revolution in the humanities and the arts, could potentially reverse this direction. (Examining the feasibility of a worldwide survey of land-use plans is one possible way to start.)
Can what is harmful in civilization be transcended through civilization itself?
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- ASSORTED ISSUE, LOCAL OR OTHERWISE (including the...
- KILLING THE FARMER (POSTED ON fACEBOOK AS A POLEM...
- HOW DO WE AVOID FOOD WASTE IN AN EMERGENCY? - T...
- THE PRIZE FIGHTER The world order is like a fit p...
- REAL ESTATE PRICES "...the real estate bubble is ...
- WOOD
- 5g AND COVID 19 https://www.davidicke.com/article...
- JAMAICAN COLONIAL HERITAGE I CAN'T BELIEVE I WR...
- THE BOOK FORMAT I still plan to stay connected. Y...
- ST; JOHN'S HALL, BRAVO STREET Admin
- Eileen Garcia, 4/19/20 - How can we get to the ...
- TOWARD A REEXAMINATION OF AFRICAN IDENTITY Whe...
- ROOTS SHAMANISM https://www.vice.com/en_us/articl...
- TOWARD ENDING DEMOLITION As a strategic first ste...
- 7 April 2020 Dear Kingston Grants, INTRO...
- DOMINICA Kia Penso The darkest place I ever was a...
- KINGSTON GRANTS MESSAGE Dear Kingston Gra...
- TRANSPORTATION FOR SAB Gregory Hodeli...
- FARMING, ST. ANN, AND PARADIGM CHANGE Randy Allie...
- CONSPIRACY THEORY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
- PLACE AND THE OCCULT "I was struck — clobbered o...
- ASSORTED ISSUE, LOCAL OR OTHERWISE GETTING R...
- Dear Leaders, Residents and Friends of St. A...
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