What is Permaculture? In 1978 two Australians, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren coined the term Permaculture, meaning Permanent Sustainable Agriculture. The model they then suggested included such things as edible landscaping, and forest gardens. These basic principles are not new at all. Until fairly recently, humanity had a very good handle on how to make the most of their area’s resources. If we look at the urban planning of many ancient cities they were incorporating many features that resemble modern Permaculture ideas, in ways many modern cities do not. One present day country that has long been using Permaculture principles, because of necessity, is Cuba. Permaculture needs to fuse with modern technology and industry, if we are to achieve sustainable abundance as a species. Unfortunately when promoting Permaculture as a cure for environmental, social, and economic problems we face opposition from not only the greedy profiteers, but also from, those who either as a result of misunderstanding, or selfish nostalgia for the past, pigeonhole it into something that is just not workable on a large scale, or in the places it is needed most, such as Cities and Suburbia.

Endangering Our Planet For A Selfish Nostalgia

Over the years some have attempted to make Permaculture yet another myopic sub-culture, by hijacking the term to mask the views, or agendas, of those I call Neo-Luddites. Luddites seem to choose a point in time to be nostalgic about and hypocritically view all technology that happened after that time as bad. Sometimes it feels like these people try to control every aspect of environmentalism, or “going green”, by superimposing their nostalgia based beliefs on them. Nostalgia for the time before The Industrial Revolution is quite understandable, however, many of those who long for those times have little understanding of them. Also many who have this type of nostalgia do not understand that many people do not hold this same nostalgia and, others who are living in such conditions in modern times do not want to do so.

Promoters of a Luddite lifestyle taint Permaculture and other Earth Friendly models with their nostalgia based beliefs to a point where these models seem distasteful or insane to others who do not wish to go to the same extremes. What is even more distasteful is that most people who promote forms of Ludditism are hypocrites in that they only follow Luddite type lifestyle when it is convenient for them or fits into their personal likes and tastes. If a person really is living a Luddite lifestyle that is fine if they can do so in peace and leave the rest of us alone to find earth friendly alternatives to fit our modern lives. Saddly, most of the people we will encounter who promote this type of lifestyle are promoting it through the Internet or television whilst at the same time condemning the rest of us for using such things.

Many of those who promote a Luddite lifestyle have the luxury of living in first world countries. I have lived in small towns, in a city in a third world country, on a rural farm, and in cities in the first world, and I can tell you that if you want “The Simple Life” then a First World city is your best bet. Although life can be fast paced in cities it is simple compared to living off the land. If you move to the country and try to live a Luddite lifestyle, and were not raised that way, you will most likely move back to the city very soon like many of those who joined communes in the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1990s did. People doing this has become so common place it has become a stereotype and fodder for comedy writers.

What it Can Be

Permaculture is something that must be able to transform country life, city life, and small town life in multiple ways. Most of all Permaculture needs to transform Suburban sprawl. Suburbia is a global threat with it’s carefully manicured lawns. Permaculture can only work if it is sensitive to the needs of people, and environments, and can not become uniform world-wide as one system of doing things. Permaculture must be about multiple systems. If Permaculture is to become a vehicle for planetary change then those practicing Permaculture must distance themselves from those who cloud it with a Luddite agenda. We are beyond the point world-wide where humanity as a whole can go back to other eras of technology as a means of saving the planet or cleaning up Earth.

When practiced correctly, Permaculture provides food at low impact to the planet. Growing ones own food, raising ones own meat animals, producing ones own eggs and so forth, all in a low impact way by allowing systems to work together. Basically relying on your own land and work for your own benefit. It is possible to adapt some of these ideas even in a city.

Progression Toward A Sustainable Abundance

Originally Permaculture was proposed as a more rational and permanent replacement for modern industrial agriculture. Permanent Agriculture or Permanent Sustainable Culture being shortened to Permaculture. I suggest that keeping this narrow definition of Permaculture is in opposition to the original goal of Permaculture. If those who coined the term Permaculture are deified and Permaculture turned into something sacred that can not evolve and transform than it as a system is useless. Some try to keep Permaculture at the level of a religion, which is unfortunate. Religions often involve people blindly going through the motions of a belief system that they don’t really understand because it’s always been done that way or because of threats of damnation.

Permaculture needs to be treated like a Spirituality or Craft. Something that needs to be understood so that it can evolve into something better as time goes by. We need to not only create systems of permanent sustainable agriculture, but also, to create a Human Culture on a world wide scale that seeks to create sustainable systems within all of it’s workings. When I see the words permanent sustainable culture this is what comes to mind to me beyond ideas of edible landscaping and forest gardens. Permaculture as the definition stands now is not a cure-all, it is purely an ingredient in a cure. Using the same terms of permanent sustainable culture to describe what humanity must create in order to survive and evolve we can begin to create regionally specific models that protect the earth and create abundance and wealth for all. New technologies need to be created and embraced that are sustainable and allow abundance for all. We may not be able to stop those of avarice and greed, but, we can though education and pointing out of hypocrisy, stop the hijacking of Earth Friendly paradigms by those who hinder our evolution because of their nostalgia for times gone by.