Spirit of Place
by Jason GodeskyOn Saturday, a conference—”Reaching Atlantica: Business Without Boundaries“—concluded in St. John, New Brunswick. There, a number of major corporations, including Irving Oil, BMO, Air Canada, Aliant, CIBC, Ganong, Shell, and ExxonMobil, met to discuss the Atlantica initiative to create “the International Northeast Economic Region (AINER),” a “free trade” market zone straddling the borders of the United States and Canada. Atlantica Watch says this initiative would like to see “provincial and state legislation which eliminates the minimum wage, promotes union regulation, and encourages massive reductions in social and public service spending.” That may well be true, but there is a deeper and far more interesting element in this. Businesses often mimic natural systems to a sufficient degree, and are sufficiently competitive, that they can serve as canaries for civilization as a whole: when collapse begins to reach its inflection points, businesses will feel the pinch first.
While traveling to St. Louis, MO by air last October, I remarked on the state of airline travel:
As the price of international sales increases, international sales themselves will see the diminishing side of a marginal return curve. Corporations willing and able to operate on a more local scale will find themselves able to out-compete enormous competitors in a thousand specialized niches. When every niche is filled by a local analog, the multinational corporation will find little room to insert itself, and justify its existence. The franchise flourished not by providing quality, but by providing familiarity to the traveler. It has no place in a world with no more travelers.
Comcast Spotlight offers geographically targeted advertisements on cable television, and their own advertisements have made much of rising gas prices. Customers don’t want to travel very far when it costs so much, the ads argue–so shouldn’t you advertise locally?
It takes great amounts of energy to overcome the natural limitations of geography. As we gain the energy to do so, we establish higher levels of complexity. We are able to establish multinational corporations and draw arbitrary boundaries. We are able to split natural regions into parts, and combine regions that do not sit well with one another. When that energy begins to decrease, we are forced to observe the natural regions defined by ecology, geography and climate–we are confined to our bioregion. If we’re spiritual, we might call it the “spirit of place” as Michael Green does in Afterculture.
Months ago, Steve Thomas mentioned something fascinating to me. He told me of Joel Garreau’s 1989 Nine Nations of North America. The Garreau Group website describes it like this:
Forget the maze of state and provincial boundaries, those historical accidents and surveyors’ mistakes. The reason no one except the trivia expert can name all fifty of the United States is that they hardly matter. … Consider, instead, the way North America really works. It is Nine Nations. Each has its capital and its distinctive web of power and influence. A few are allies, but many are adversaries. Several have readily acknowledged national poets, and many have characteristic dialects and mannerisms. Some are close to being raw frontiers; others have four centuries of history. Each has a peculiar economy; each commands a certain emotional allegiance from its citizens. These nations look different, feel different, and sound different from each other, and few of their boundaries match the political lines drawn on current maps. Some are It’s valuable to recognize these divergent realities. ‘The layers of unifying flavor and substances that define these nations help explain the major storms and excursions through which our public affairs pass.
The truly interesting element that Steve pointed out to me is best illustrated:
On the left is a map of Jean Garreau’s “Nine Nations.” On the right is a map of indigenous, Native American culture groups from the Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. Not only is there a significant overlap in terms of boundaries, but there is even a distinct overlap in cultural traits. Garreau’s “Mexamerica” has a far heavier heritage from the Southwest cultures they inherit from than most groups, but Garreau’s New England—running along the same boundaries as the proposed “Atlantica” free trade zone—is also home to much of the United States’ “liberal east coast” population, residing very near to the once-home of the Haudenosaunee (better known as the Iroquois), who formed one of the most complex forms of representative government in the uncivilized world, a model that influenced the founding of the United States.1 Garreau’s “Ecotopia” resides in the same lands as the Pacific Northwest tribes who managed to develop complex, resource-intensive chiefdoms that still managed to maintain an ecological balance. Today, this region, too, has a certain secessionist, bioregionalist movement: the Republic of Cascadia, annd its Sasquatch Militia.
This bioregional view of North America changes the perspective on many issues, not least of which the recent brouhaha in the United States over “illegal immigration.” The current border dispute between the United States and Mexico revolves around what CNN’s barely repressed resident racist Lou Dobbs calls our “broken border” with Mexico. The border is broken—in that it is an unnatural division of an organic bioregion, and thus must always require a great deal of energy to maintain. The United States is in the initial stages of collapse; this border controversy is the most direct indicator of that fact one could ask for. The Bush administration has sent the National Guard to militarize the border (while trying to obfuscate that fact by trying to not call it militarization). Other plans are even more absurd, such as a fence. To review the history of this strategy:
- 208 BCE. The first Chinese emperor begins construction of the Great Wall of China to keep out the Mongols. They build the only man-made structure visible from space over the next 2,000 years. Genghis Khan and his sons conquer China a thousand years after construction begins. They walk around it.
- 122 CE. Construction begins on Hadrian’s Wall, 80.5 miles of walls and fortifications from Carlisle to Corbridge, to keep the Picts out. When the Romans withdraw in 410 CE, the Picts sail around it, and do so much damage to the British heartland that they pay off Anglo-Saxon mercenaries to fight the Picts. The Anglo-Saxons then turn on their employers, take over the island, and call it “England.”
- 1930 CE. After World War I, France builds the Maginot Line to defend itself if there is another war with Germany. There is another war with Germany, in 1940, in which Hitler has his Axis juggernaut walk around it. France is conquered in a few weeks.
There is a consistent flaw in the “wall” plan, and though it’s often been tried, it has never, ever worked. But it does exmplify in a very straightforward way the energy that complex societies put forward to create artificial divisions between organic regions.
In the case of Mexico and the American southwest, these were once one country, until one of the United States’ most shameful wars of aggressive conquest and imperial ambition, the Mexican-American War. The southwest was conquered from Mexico: a fact that is all too often overlooked in today’s immigration debate. The most extreme group emerging from this is likely the Nation of Aztlan. Mexica culture is an integral part of Mexican national identity, and the Mexica told legends of their mythical homeland to the north, Aztlan (hence their more common name, “Aztecs”), lying somewhere in what is now the southwest United States. The Nation of Aztlan wants to take that land back. Their message is marred with homophobia and anti-Semitism, but they also show the reality of the current situation as the unnatural division of an organic region.
Nowhere in the world do these arbitrary divisions have more impact than in the Middle East. In “Blood Borders” for the Armed Forces Journal, Ralph Peters discusses the ways in which a more “just”—or a more organic—map could diminish the conflict in the Middle East, and why the unjust boundaries dividing the area’s organic bioregions are the ultimate source of the continual violence there. “Chirol,” an author at an excellent blog I found today, “Coming Anarchy,” writes on a similar theme with, “The Real Central Asia.” These, in turn, provide fodder for John Robb’s latest contribution, “The Melted Map“:
The big differences between this struggle and those of the past is that first, it will be never ending. Big states, even those drawn along ethnic, religious, or national identity, may never provide the level of support required by those contained within their borders. The drive for a valuable identity, one gives as much as it gets to every member the group, may be a race to the bottom. There is no inevitable equilibrium point.
Second, the competitive advantage is rapidly conferring to the revisionist group, no matter how small. These groups can, and will, continually gain strength (economic, technological, and influential) through interaction with an increasingly open global platform. The acceleration of technological progress will only make this process faster. As these groups move to challenge the state for control over identity, they will in many cases opt to fight. To fight, they will increasingly use a new method of war — the systems disruption and open source warfare that I detail here on this site — that leverages the power of networks to undermine the functioning of their larger, more cumbersome competitors.
The stage is set. History has started again.
The future Robb foresees is, I think, just another way of saying “collapse.” As we run out of the energy required to divide organic bioregions arbitrarily, we will be forced to observe the natural boundaries created from ecology and geography. The mode of open source warfare he has catalogued has a great deal in common with the guerrilla warfare tactics that define tribal war. Fukuyama called the end of the Cold War “the End of History,” with history as a great trajectory towards the eternal utopia that is the capitalist, representative republic. This has always been criticized as an incredibly myopic view of history. Rather, if we take “history” to mean only the brief aberration of human civilization, then its tale is quite different: the movement towards an inexorable peak of energy, where it can maximally disregard the basic rules of nature and social organization to do things in the most wasteful, counter-productive, nonsensical and frankly, stupid, ways imaginable, only to then find the energy basis for their way of life snapped out from under them, beginning a catastrophic free fall back towards equilibrium.
We see movements towards bioregionalism all around us. Global terrorism, illegal immigration, “free trade,” all of these are ways in which we’ve begun to come to terms with the fact that we will need to give up our arbitrary boundaries and create human-scale societies situated in a specific bioregion, adapted to a specific ecology, part of a specific “spirit of place.” We will have to “become native” by submitting to that spirit, and becoming part of it, rather than defiantly clinging to our alien, invasive status. These trends that define the course of current events are the surest signs one could ask for that our civilization is already in collapse—they are precisely what collapse is, the breakdown of complexity to lower, more local levels. This is the “good part” of collapse: the breakdown of multinational corporations in favor of smaller, local stores; not the abolition of government perhaps, but “to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,” to quote Grover Norquist. Of course, the implication of this is the loss of economies of scale, resulting in higher prices—driving up the price of gas even higher, or more importantly, the price of food. That, historically, has always been the immediate cause of famine: not lack of food, but lack of affordable food. There is no easy way down, but down we will go nonetheless. In the end, it is the least of the evils arrayed before us, because there is so much hope in its aftermath: the only catch is that we will know the people who will suffer and die for this misadventure in civilization.
Make no mistake of the process unfolding before us. We are becoming native; we are being subsumed by the spirits of our places. It will be a painful process to be sure, but when it is done, we will no longer be alien or invasive. We will once again belong to a place.
This article’s more a jumble of ideas on a theme, than an actual piece of writing. As long as it’s just a structure-less pile, two more to throw on:
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 12:50 PM
Which state is it with a movement for secession? It’s up in New England. Vermont maybe? Can’t recall.
We now live in a highly fragmented world. It’s gotten to the point where everyone associates only with those who happen to agree with them. Hardly anyone talks to those who vote for the “other” party. Just look at the online world. Forums and blogs cater to narrow psychographic slices. As I read your piece on gays last week, I thought to myself, “Too bad he’s preaching to the choir here. The people who really need to read this never will.”
So maybe it would make sense to go the next step and break up the country into more culturally homogeneous regions, but there’s a small problem: the corrupt control freaks who have all the tanks, missles, and jets. They hold onto their power as Gollum holds on to the ring.
Comment by Peter — 12 June 2006 @ 1:08 PM
Peter, it is Vermont. Look up Thomas Naylor.
Comment by Taylor — 12 June 2006 @ 1:14 PM
Thanks. I won’t be holding my breathe waiting for Naylor to succeed. If his movement did get so far as seriously threaten secession, we’d see a repeat of Hungary in the mid 50s and Czechoslovakia in 1967 with tanks rolling through the state capitol.
Comment by Peter — 12 June 2006 @ 1:26 PM
Yes, but you’ll note what happened to Gollum & ring. Tanks, missiles, and jets aren’t fueled simply by raw ambition, after all.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 2:06 PM
Besides the Vermont Independence Convention, there’s also Maine, Massachusetts and New York, which decided to do their own foreign relations earlier this year with Venezuela. There’s also the special interest groups trying to secede, most notably the Free State Project of the Libertarian Party, but the Christian Exodus to South Carolina is in a similar vein.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 2:12 PM
There’s also these two guys http://karavans.typepad.com/karavans/2006/05/tribe_wanted.html
Comment by Peter — 12 June 2006 @ 3:05 PM
This is off-topic: I have a question that I’ve been meaning to ask the Anthropik group for a week or two now. I have postponed asking it, in part, because I don’t really have the language for it, but here goes anyways. It concerns the creation of taboos or banned activities within tribes or larger societies. A perfect example is the prohibition against eating pork that arose back in the middle east over 2000 years years ago. The practical rationale for the creation of this taboo is that pigs require a lot of water which is not readily available to desert nomads. So the powers that be within the tribe issue an edict against eating pork. Then overtime they discover that some members are choosing to ignore the policy, so they bring in the Big Guy. Dare to eat pork and the Big Guy will smite you down with a bolt of thunder. That finally gets their attention.
Now my area of specific interest is big business and the resultant concentration of capital in fewer and fewer hands that it brings. If there is a collapse, and humanity doesn’t start over with some new taboos against allowing businesses to grow past a certain size, we will eventually end up in the same place of gross inequalities (although in a world of much lower energy levels) as we find ourselves in today.
While I’m self employed and very pro small business, I see big business as the biggest threat to humanity today. Big business destroys the environment. Big business has co-opted our government. Big business has turned most of us into consumer zombies.
Speaking of consumer zombies, yesterday’s NY Times had an interesting article titled The American Way of Debt which is relevant here. To summarize the article, up until about 1900 taking on debt was a taboo. Then an economist by the name of Patten came up with the idea that if credit were made readily available to the average person so that they could have all the new goodies today, they could be made to work even longer and harder in order to pay off their endless debt.
“After 1900, the proliferation of mass-marketed products encouraged a more open tolerance for consumer debt. By the 1920’s, millions of middle-class Americans bought durable goods on time payments — sewing machines, washing machines, radios, automobiles, houses. Lenders acquired legitimacy, reinforced by reassuring names like Household Finance Corporation or General Motors Acceptance Corporation. “Acceptance” implied membership in a national community of responsible borrowers. Indebtedness could discipline workers, keeping them at routinized jobs in factories and offices, graying but in harness, meeting payments regularly. Good consumers would be good producers. The economist who proposed this idea was Simon Nelson Patten, in “The New Basis of Civilization” (1907). By providing new sanctions for spending, Patten helped create a cultural landscape where consumer debt could find a decent suburban home. He predicted that workers’ desires for things would not undermine their capacity for disciplined achievement, as generations of moralists had claimed; rather, the multiplication of wants would become part of the civilizing process, as workingmen and their wives would broaden their horizons and take pride in their accumulating possessions. Patten’s New Basis began the project that E.R.A. Seligman would complete in “The Economics of Installment Selling” (1927) — the abolition of the distinction between “productive” and “consumptive” debt.
Patten was onto something. The disciplining power of debt was undeniable. Even during the Depression, while Americans cut back on new borrowing, they also denied themselves food and clothing to avoid repossession of refrigerators or real estate. “Oh, the tension in the house,” one of Studs Terkel’s informants recalled in “Hard Times,” “when Pa used to scramble around trying to get enough money to pay that installment loan. That was the one degrading thing I remember.” In 1932, a Harper’s contributor observed that the middle-class homeowner “no longer has possessions but only obligations.” This homeowner did not exactly represent an ethos of self-gratification.” http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/magazine/11wwln_lede.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
I quote the above to show how big business has basically enslaved us.
So, back to my original question: how does a society go about creating a new set of taboos or ten commandments which would prohibit business from ever gaining so much power again?
Anyone here ever see the ancient (by now) movie Zardoz with Sean Connery? It’s about a post apocalyptic world divided between intellectuals and artists living in protected enclaves and the vast majority of humanity, known as “the brutals”, who reside on the outside. The people inside the enclaves attempt to control the brutals with religious type taboos against the behaviors thought to have brought about the apocalypse.
Comment by Peter — 12 June 2006 @ 4:46 PM
That’s what the forums are for.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 4:52 PM
There is no Forums link that I can see. I see the word Forum at the top but it’s not a link.
Sorry.
Feel free to delete.
Comment by Peter — 12 June 2006 @ 4:57 PM
Oh, that’s not good–should be a link up on top. You’re not using IE, are you?
Anyway, that link above–and this one again just for good measure–go to the forum thread I made with your comment, and my reply. Anyone else interested in the subject should join the discussion there.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 5:05 PM
Yes, I use IE.
My only concern is that no one will see it in the forum. Not a lot of traffic back there.
Comment by Peter — 12 June 2006 @ 5:18 PM
We’re trying to change that, but the idea of the forums is for conversations anyone can initiate–things that are “off-topic.” The blog has the conversations we start; the forums have the conversations anyone else starts.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 5:19 PM
I am new to your website and have been captivated by your theories on collapse. In regards to the current blog on the spirit of place, I have the same view on the recent border fence or wall as you do. It looks like the last desperate act of a crumbling empire. The good thing that might come of it is that the ecological disaster of millions of people tranversing the deserts might be redirected into different areas.
The spirit I detect in the country now is that we all are trying to find a new myth to guide us through this difficult transition period from one era to the next. The old myth of the american dream is wearing thin and something is needed to take its place. Some are resurecting the old myth of Aztlan from the Mexica empire and trying to apply it to today or perhaps taking a cue from Garreau and trying to draw up some new boundaries along bioregional lines.In my view these are all as made up as our present political boundaries and have just as much appeal to me.
The only thing new to come down the pike is the new tribal ethos that you and others of like mind have been posting on various websites. I have been especially impressed with the Afterculture website. The ideas that Green puts forth and the artwork that backs them up lend a visual idea of what could be that really touches a deeper level. It is my hope that something might develop along these lines to give people something more to hope for rather than just trying to fit into a smaller version of the same civilization that got us into this mess in the first place.
Comment by Drex — 12 June 2006 @ 9:04 PM
What impresses me about the “Nine Nations” is that they seem to be natural, organic groupings. These are the real regions of the North American continent, defined by geography and ecology. The evidence for that, I think, is how we end up breaking down along those lines even when we try very hard not to. No one’s actively trying to implement Garreau’s divisions, and the Nation of Aztlan is an extremely fringe group, and yet we see the Southwest moving inexorably towards unification as a single, functioning region, no matter how much we try to make it otherwise. Smaller states is the first step; smaller states provide more personal power within those states, as power continues to devolve, until you reach the level of the tribe. You can’t expect it all at once–just because collapse begins by breaking large, artificial states down into smaller, more organic ones doesn’t mean that’s where the process ends.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 9:20 PM
It’s amazing that CNN gives Lou Dobbs a soapbox to rant everyday against immigrants and ‘feriners’.
Comment by Paul, Travel Asia Pacific — 12 June 2006 @ 9:30 PM
Please–it’s “Ferners.” They come from Fern. There are two countries in the world: Merka, and Fern. I hear they’re playing some big game in Fern right now, ah’dunno, like the Super Bowl of Fern or somethin’….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 9:35 PM
I love the bioregional concept (Wendel Berry and Kirkpatrick Sale have some excellent writing on the topic), but I’m concerned about it as a foundation for “smaller states.” While I agree that smaller states is certainly a good first step, I think that these bioregions are still far too large to constitute an effective economic unit, in the sense that our economic systems need to be localized at an order-of-magnitude (or more) smaller geographically than the bioregions shown. Each bioregion is probably best seen as a basket, within which certain types of localized economies will reliably succeed. However, polities may actually be more successful in so far as they bridge two or more of these bioregions–historically, communities have been the most resilient when they sit at the division between two bioregions (or at least “micro-regions” within a broader bioregion). A settlement that leverages the economies of place made possible by combining forest/mountain region bordering a plain/river region, or something similar. So perhaps bioregions are better as a basis for an open-source knowledge base of economic system tools? Just a thought, but it makes sense to me that the “fairs and festivals” concept provides the most value-added when it brings together people and products from different environments… an on another tangent, maybe this means that the “prime real estate” of the future will be those places where three bioregions meet?
Comment by Jeff Vail — 12 June 2006 @ 11:04 PM
Hey –
I guess I looked at this in an entirely different way, Jeff. Sure smaller states being the first change… but in the long term I say these bioregions having more to do with cultural boundries than political ones. You rarely find a cultur that is restricted to a single band or a single village…
And that’s really what we have NOW as well. Our current bioregions are defined by thier cultural similairities, regardless of the political boundries we have tried to enforce.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 June 2006 @ 8:17 AM
Another pacific coast secessionist movement:
http://www.jeffersonstate.com/
Comment by neighbor — 13 June 2006 @ 12:07 PM
I guess I should amend that somewhat - it’s of historical interest, the secessionist movement was started in 1941 and never went anywhere. But when you drive up there, there ARE signs proclaiming that you’ve entered Jefferson…
I wonder, though, even if it’s currently more of a fad, if the thought isn’t still running deep in people’s minds. ?
neighbor
Comment by neighbor — 13 June 2006 @ 12:13 PM
Jeff — I was thinking of including a discussion of the permaculture idea of “increasing edge,” and when I do a real article out of this jumble of notes, I just might do that. But I don’t think the endpoint here is a collection of bioregional states at all. I think we’re seeing small eruptions along the major bioregional fault lines, exactly where you’d expect to see the first signs of collapse. I think collapse will proceed along those fault lines, and while bioregional states might be an intermediate step in that process, I don’t think that’s going to be terribly stable. Rather, I think those bioregions will become what they were before: culture areas, wherein cultures are generally similar, because they’re adapting to the same ecology using the same resources.
Neighbor — That’s actually what interests me most: not necessarily secessionist movements, but the lingering awareness of them, and the increasing trend towards this division as the early rumblings along civilization’s fault lines.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 June 2006 @ 1:22 PM
Hey –
Jason, that’s a really interesting association(the permaculture ‘edge’)… I will be waiting to see where you take that — if it doesn’t inspire me to something directly:-)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 June 2006 @ 2:19 PM
Neighbor et al.,
You wrote:
Very much so, and not necessarily that far under the surface. (I’ve lived in the State of Jefferson for two years now.) Most people locally are aware of it, and many think it would be a good idea if there were any way to make it happen — there’s a strong sense that southern Oregon and northern California have more in common with each other than either has with the rest of the states they’re accidentally connected with.
In preconquest times, BTW, this area was a linguistic and cultural gallimaufry, not quite Northwest Coast but not quite northern California either. The local First Nation here in the upper Rogue Valley where I live, the Takelma, spoke a language that isn’t closely related to anything else — might be a distant of the Penutian family, but then it might not. (It’s officially an extinct language, but there are plenty of surviving texts and some of us are working on reviving it.) South and west a bit is a tribe that speaks an Algonquian language, fer heaven’s sake: the only one west of the Mississippi. So the spirit of place here is definitely one that favors the unexpected!
JMG
Comment by John Michael Greer — 14 June 2006 @ 3:26 AM
Here’s a fragment from today’s blog by Big Gav. Big Gav writes:
While on the topic of non-authoritarian philosophies, the recent saga of the Swedish file sharing Vikings at The Pirate Bay prompted this revivial of Hakim Bey’s Temporary Autonomous Zone.
Then he quotes blogger Nicol Wistreich:
THE SEA-ROVERS AND CORSAIRS of the 18th century created an “information network” that spanned the globe: primitive and devoted primarily to grim business, the net nevertheless functioned admirably. Scattered throughout the net were islands, remote hideouts where ships could be watered and provisioned, booty traded for luxuries and necessities. Some of these islands supported “intentional communities,” whole mini-societies living consciously outside the law and determined to keep it up, even if only for a short but merry life.
Some years ago I looked through a lot of secondary material on piracy hoping to find a study of these enclaves–but it appeared as if no historian has yet found them worthy of analysis. (William Burroughs has mentioned the subject, as did the late British anarchist Larry Law–but no systematic research has been carried out.) I retreated to primary sources and constructed my own theory, some aspects of which will be discussed in this essay. I called the settlements “Pirate Utopias.”
Recently Bruce Sterling, one of the leading exponents of Cyberpunk science fiction, published a near-future romance based on the assumption that the decay of political systems will lead to a decentralized proliferation of experiments in living: giant worker-owned corporations, independent enclaves devoted to “data piracy,” Green-Social-Democrat enclaves, Zerowork enclaves, anarchist liberated zones, etc. The information economy which supports this diversity is called the Net; the enclaves (and the book’s title) are Islands in the Net.
The medieval Assassins founded a “State” which consisted of a network of remote mountain valleys and castles, separated by thousands of miles, strategically invulnerable to invasion, connected by the information flow of secret agents, at war with all governments, and devoted only to knowledge. Modern technology, culminating in the spy satellite, makes this kind of autonomy a romantic dream. No more pirate islands! In the future the same technology– freed from all political control–could make possible an entire world of autonomous zones. But for now the concept remains precisely science fiction–pure speculation.
Big Gav’s url: http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2006/06/global-warming-causes-cannibalism_14.html
Aaarh Billy, the stuff of dreams be that line, “the decay of political systems will lead to a decentralized proliferation of experiments in living.”
Comment by Peter — 14 June 2006 @ 12:02 PM
JMG, nice to hear from a Jeffersonian! Heading north on 5, once you’re out of Redding, it sure is a different country *ecologically* (same for 101, once you go through Hopland/Ukiah), though I see that the Jefferson map includes Redding and a few counties below it…
California (loosely defined - maybe mostly PNW?) was the most linguistically diverse part of of North America, pre-conquest… Last month I read a fabulous book that looks at native land uses in California, “Tending the Wild” by M. Kat Anderson - and she pulled together lots of information on the many diverse peoples of this region. Jason, you might be interested to look at it in relation to the discussion of forager/horticulturalist distinctions. Native Californians were incredibly involved with the land and with plant regeneration and selection, etc, but without engaging in anything the Europeans could recognize as farming (hence the European tendency toward disparagements about laziiness). The only drawback to the book is that there isn’t a companion volume to provide the “how-to” aspects of native plant care and USE (Tending the Wild has a more academic focus and lists all the ethnographic sources where you can find that information…).
If you’re in the Rogue River Valley, have you had the opporunity to go to Salmon Ceremony? Hey - isn’t it next weekend? The Takelma Band (for those of you ouside this geographic region who might not know) have begun performing their traditional Salmon Ceremoy again, after a many year hiatus (now many other tribes are doing their own traditional Salmon ceremonies as well). Led by elder Grandma Aggie (Agnes Pilgrim), they’re praying for and singing to the salmon on the east fork of the Illinois River. They’re also working with the forest service to reinstate traditional burning practices, to help rejuvenate the land. Since they started doing Salmon Ceremony, the salmon HAVE been returning in noticeably greater numbers.
Lately, in multiple (venn?) circles you find a common theme - of returning to locality (Slow Food folks, permaculturists, Peak Oil people, etc)… I think this is a widespread recognition that it’s ALL about bioregion, in the end.
That’s good news.
neighbor
Comment by neighbor — 14 June 2006 @ 12:18 PM
First, the Great Wall of China cannot be seen from space. Second, the Germans did invade France via the Maginot Line by thrusting through the Ardennes Forest, a tactic which the French did not anticipate because they believed it was impossible and, therefore, the French left this section of the wall lightly defended.
Tim the Historian
Comment by Tim — 14 June 2006 @ 4:54 PM
There is a long standing disagreement about how visible the wall is from space.
A decoy force sat opposite the Line while a second Army Group cut through the Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as through the Ardennes Forest which lay north of the main French defences.
So, you’re right, part of the invasion went through Ardennes, but another part–the part I knew about–went through the Low Countries, i.e., around it.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 June 2006 @ 5:01 PM
Jason:
The Republic of Cascadia and Sasquatch Militia links you posted reference a more tongue-in-cheek version of the bioregionalist push for Cascadia. To get a more serious source for news and current thought on Cascadia, try .
Comment by Willem — 16 June 2006 @ 4:28 AM
Let’s try that again…go here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Cascadian_Bioregionalism/
Comment by Willem — 16 June 2006 @ 4:29 AM
For more collaborations in the Northeast, see also http://www.newenglandfutures.com
From the site:
“New England Futures is a marketplace of ideas for the future of New England engaging an open and growing collaboration of citizens, businesses, academia, government, media, foundations and non profits. The goal is to ensure that the region is thriving in the 21st century. Harnessing their entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity, New Englanders together will shape an ambitious agenda for action and take the steps necessary for achieving that agenda.”
Comment by Raku — 16 June 2006 @ 3:08 PM
As an upstate New Yorker, I always believed in my heart of hearts that I counted as a New Englander. I just couldn’t get behind this “mid-atlantic” bullshit. I mean, WTF? We got foliage, we got apples, we got maple syrup, we got snow and antiques and quaint country inns up the wazoo. But we can’t join your stupid little club, oh no - we’re stuck here with New Jersey. Freaking JERSEY. FUCK YOU, NEW ENGLAND! WE DON’T NEED YOU!!!
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 16 June 2006 @ 3:21 PM
Yet these days you’re whistlin’ Dixie.
Comment by JCamasto — 16 June 2006 @ 3:31 PM
Was that your rationalization for covering New England with kibbutzes and militia men? Revenge?
The problem is that people from New York City can’t see anything outside their city limits, and lump the entire rest of New York under the “upstate” title. And New Englanders are too busy being cliquey and snobby to see anything outside the NYC limits either. I always thought the upstate moniker was utterly ridiculous. I mean, upstate New York is the size of the entire region of New England!
Comment by Raku — 16 June 2006 @ 4:16 PM
First of all, we’ve also got hippies and Canadians and Celtic revivalists. And second of all, what’s wrong with kibbutzes? The only tribe not to like in that whole culture is the militia men. And even they got pretty cool after they, you know, stopped being paranoid survivalists and picked up hunting and gathering and such.
I kind of liked being “upstate New York” despite being less than three hours north of the southernmost point of the state of New York. To me, it was like, upstate New York ended around Albany, and everything north of that was Canada. And it WAS a strictly north/south thing because the western panhandle didn’t really exist; it was invented by crazed Canadians desperate to sell everyone tickets to see Niagara Falls.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 16 June 2006 @ 4:45 PM
Well, I think hippies are pretty unlikable myself. The Canadians are alright, though. They have a nice flag. And their side of the Falls is way nicer.
Comment by Raku — 17 June 2006 @ 12:21 PM
Roxy, I’ve got some bad news for you… according to most of America, you and I and everyone on this site? All of us hippies. Every last one.
Comment by Giulianna Lamanna — 17 June 2006 @ 4:45 PM
I’ve been fascinated by the idea of the TAZ, or Temporary Autonomous Zone, for some time now. Now there’s a new book out on what they are really like inside. This book was a pleasure to read and my only regret is that it’s too short at a mere 277 pages. The book is “Clandestines: The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile” by Ramor Ryan. I wrote a short review. (You know where to click). I hope that you read it and then participate in a word-of-mouth campaign to get others to buy it. This is an amazing and inspirational book that deserves our support.
Comment by Peter — 18 June 2006 @ 1:19 AM
“So, you’re right, part of the invasion went through Ardennes, but another part–the part I knew about–went through the Low Countries, i.e., around it.”
The Ardennes are the southern part of Belgium and therefore part of the low countries. So you are both right. The French did extend their wall to the coast when Belgium declared neutrality though.
The Germans took the fortress of Eben-Emael by means of elite troops dropped on top of it - they had the plans, since the fortress was built partly by German engineering companies. Quite funny, in hindsight.
Comment by Simon — 18 June 2006 @ 9:30 AM
Guili wrote:
according to most of America, you and I and everyone on this site? All of us hippies. Every last one.
Damnit!! I hate hippies!!
Comment by Rory — 18 June 2006 @ 10:36 AM
Only to the non-hippies. To the real hippies we’re about as hip as Bill O’Reilly. Try talking small government and hunting with them, and watch them squirm!
Comment by Raku — 18 June 2006 @ 11:26 AM
Well, you are. But I think I’ve pretty clearly defined myself as non-hippie.
Yes, but who cares what they think? They’re a bunch of diry hippies.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 18 June 2006 @ 12:38 PM
HEY! I RESE-mble that remark. and actually I care what I think quite a bit… Though, frankly, I’m not sure what a “real hippie” is. It’s sort of like a lot of other categories. You are one if you consider yourself one. Check out: http://www.hipforums.com/forums/index.php to find out more about who considers themselves hippies.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 21 June 2006 @ 4:17 PM
Hey –
I have to disagree with you there, Chandra… those who consider themselves some THING rarely are… the only way to know a hippy (or a punk, or whatever) is to actually talk to them and find out who they are inside. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 June 2006 @ 4:37 PM
Well, now you’re just talking monkeysphere, Janene!
Comment by Raku — 21 June 2006 @ 5:01 PM
Hey Roxy –
I can see why you’ld say that… but really, I was kinda refering to what we used to cal ‘posers’
Janene
Comment by Janene — 21 June 2006 @ 6:26 PM
I’m not talking about posers, although they do indeed get swept into the fray. I mean there are plenty of people, for instance, who call themselves Christian who really don’t “get” what Jesus was trying to teach. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that everyone who calls themselves Christian deserves to be painted as phoneys because that. The same applies to any other category. I believe that that’s also a problem for Neopaganism, ’cause it seems to me that that’s the element that Tribe Anthropik has managed to encounter. My experiences have been different as I’ve mostly managed to avoid the fluffy-bunny element of the religion. Anyway, Self definition is still the best way I know to categorize people. After all there are those who don’t consider Catholics to be Christian, but almost none of them are Catholic.
Dang I hope the point comes through, because it seems to be coming out jumbled tonight.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 21 June 2006 @ 10:26 PM
Hey –
No… I know. I’m just sort of reflecting out some of my own current introspections… and this happened to be one of the things I have been thinking about. There’s no good cut and dried method to categorize anyone… (and we all know that)… but there are many valid ways of trying to make peace with labels so long as you are thoughtful and non-reactionary…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 22 June 2006 @ 8:42 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Langs_N.Amer.png
Comment by Flint — 7 September 2006 @ 11:04 PM