Weeds in the Concrete

#blog

Planning

Many things I've been looking at in the last few years have tied themselves together in my brain, and I want to write about it. Ultimately, I want to convey this feeling of hopeful optimism which energises me when I see the problems of the world, and I want people to gain an intuition to start exploring indigenous / overlooked cultural solutions for confronting problems today.

A seed

This is some text that I hope will remind me what I wanted to convey when I first had this idea.

Our society and its plight right now can be adequately metaphored by cracked concrete. Each crack is a problem inherent to our concrete way of life. These include:

Economic collapse gives way to cheap playgrounds for the redevelopment of an economy based on sound principles; 100 yen houses provide the way to a cheap economy because rent primarily dictates the cost of apples and wages. This allows the potential for large scale experimental collaboration of people who flock to these towns, provided they work together. Old (perhaps ancient) ways of sustainable construction, cooking, clothing and living can be revived, which draw upon the (perhaps limited, but revivable) bounty of nature around them.

Desertification provides a vacuum for natural farming (or other solutions). Indigenous methods of food production and landscape management surely hold some keys.

Through farming and the recreation of cheaper, more locally sufficient industries, functional clothing for these tasks becomes desirable. With farming or outdoor work as an example, Indian lower-class lungi, Egyptian loincloths, Japanese peasant attire, or full body linen wraps become the natural choice. Neopeasantry has the opportunity to embrace and revive (with deference and appreciation) existing solutions from overlooked cultures, with an acknowledgement that they are the most fantastic (cheaply assembled and repaired) choice for industrious tasks. Rather than culturally appropriating fashion on the runway, it can be celebrated and revived for its original usage, to protect and serve people working for the betterment of their local community.

All of these problems, and many more, may be cracks in the pavement, but there are many "weeds" that exist to fill in the vacuum they leave. I say "weed" because these solutions are unnecessarily overlooked or discarded by the concrete colonial capitalism - which brashly assumes it has found the best solution without even an awareness that there is a hidden iceberg of cultural wisdom for surviving the problems of its own creation. In this way, by embracing and reviving overlooked cultural knowledge, we can take advantage of the arthritic gaps in our concrete world, recognising that solutions which embrace nature will always regrow through any layer of suppression.

The structure

I want to present these ideas in two parts

  1. A simplified narrative of how we developed these problems, which is the first chunk of the book
  2. A list of problems and opportunities serving as an entry point to a wiki, where people's natural curiosity can lead them through the web

If I ever were to write this as a book, it would have two front covers, front and back, depending on the entry-point. The spine would be split in the middle, with "why we're fucked" / "what to do" on the top and bottom.

Outline

The title might look something like:

Weeds in the Concrete: Ancient Solutions to Modern Problems

Outline

  1. The concrete: how did we get here?
    • It's all fucked up! How do we even start?
      • The market, the palace and the church
      • The world has to collapse
      • Nature doesn't care whether the next chapter is about humans
    • The Market: Economics
      • Late-stage under-regulated capitalism
      • Economic collapse is an opportunity if you have the right skills
        • More on the skills later, but for now, let's talk about why things are collapsing
        • One euro houses, 100 yen houses
        • Neoliberal racism is its downfall, and we can exploit it
      • Markets are not the core problem; under-regulation is.
        • Capitalism vs socialism (aka markets vs social planning)
        • Markets are helpful at large scales
        • Markets are unnecessary in a village
      • History repeats itself, so lets get the problem straight
        • If you don't understand the real flaws in the current economic system, you might accidentally repeat it. Collapse is a contraction; it just gives you more time to fix your broken system. Reform is essential.
        • Progress and Poverty
        • The poison: neoliberalism
        • The antidote: Georgism
      • A better road to socialism
        • Economic shocks kill people
        • Revolutions rarely work out
        • Reform is easier when you're small. Training a tree is easier than pruning it. Weeding in the first year is easier than the fifth.
    • The Palace: Colonialism
      • Our leaders make terrible colonialists, even by their standards
      • Peaceful assimilation trumps dismissive colonisation in the long run
        • The Persians
        • The Ancient Greeks
        • The Incas
      • Modern science looks only at the feet of ancient wisdom
        • Western medicine draws hypotheses from ancient culture
        • Modern science is a religion
          • The lab is no fit place for real (wholistic) understanding
          • The whole is far more than the sum of its parts, and we will at best, understand the parts
        • Rationality versus intuition
        • The best empirical knowledge is ancient
      • Conservatives have low standards
        • Antiquity was a scam. It used an imaginary tale of how things were to give us patriarchy, imperialism and unfair taxes.
        • The rise of the far-right is no different
        • Strategic necromancy. Why revive teenagers when you can resurrect the sages?
    • The Church: Dualism
      • Humans and religions as computers and kernels
        • Myth as biological safeguards
        • Relevant Blindboy podcasts
      • Abrahamic religions: "humans are not nature"
        • Banished from the Garden of Eden
        • Prometheus' punishment for acting against the gods
        • I'm not sure about other Abrahamic religions, and don't want to focus on it. Maybe someone else can identify a similar parallel.
        • Nature as an other, economic exploitation, and dualistic science
        • Assuming humans know better
      • Indigenous knowledge: "there are no humans and there is no nature"
        • The Maori: rivers as people
        • The Vedas: the soil is our mother
        • Australian First Nations: Country with a capital "C"
  2. The cracks and the weeds
    • Hobbies for the apocalypse. How should I spend my time?
      • Collecting seeds: cultural revival
        • Weeds live as long as their seeds
        • Learn about ancient practices
        • The best secrets are oral. Learn a dying language, connect with community
      • Become a weed: neopeasantry
        • If you cannot be handsome, at least be handy. The working class is hot
        • Stop waiting for rich people to fix things
      • Change what you can. Serenity, Courage and Wisdom
    • Land
      • Problem: economics makes living unaffordable
      • Opportunity: there are always cheap, collapsing towns
    • Food
      • Problem: we've forgotten how to grow food properly
      • Opportunity: ancient farmers in the calorie economy
    • Housing
      • Problem: our houses aren't ready for the apocalypse
      • Opportunity: ancient building techniques
    • Climate change
      • Problem: we're turning the world into a desert
      • Opportunity: reduce your consumption
    • Clothing
      • Problem: we don't know how to dress
      • Opportunity: revive functional clothing
    • Celebration
      • Problem: we don't know how to party
      • Opportunity: throw a festival
    • Community
      • Problem: everybody's lonely
      • Opportunity: have your neighbours over
    • Industrial goods
      • Problem: we still have all this stuff
      • Opportunity: repair bikes and champion helpful brands