Parallel Culture, Part I

I attended a regional planning conference in Providence, RI yesterday and was pleased to hear the terms "peak oil" and "relocalization" stated without the batting of an eye. One session was about global warming adaptation rather than mitigation which means that urban planners are now well beyond the convincing stage and thinking more in terms of how to address the certain impacts. But while most planners fall on the windward side of progressive, their lack of numbers and reluctance in many cases to influence politics will not likely result in significant cultural impact. Progressives collectively do not carry the cultural water nearly enough to effect a strong cultural shift as yet.

But relocalization encompasses a fascinating collection of engineers, commodity analysts, progressives, environmentalists, cultural skeptics, nationalists, survivalists, IT folks, and others who share a rational and detached focus on the trending of World events and see a perfect storm of indicators moving toward a tumultuous future. There is no question that U.S. conservatives are more foundationally plugged in to the dominant social paradigm and work to facilitate its greased workings. Yet Democrats and centrist Independents are also beholden to one degree or another to this system of greed, profit, consumption, planned obsolescence, fashion shifts, beauty aids, disposable culture that is the prime driving force behind global heating, ecosystem destruction, frankenfood, energy depletion, species loss, community fragmentation, etc., etc. Even the latter are clearly too afraid to say what needs to be said to put us on a track to make the substantive shift to a sustainable economy and culture. They feel that they must play up the religious, military, and economic growth mantras and frankly they probably do need to do that to merely get elected. But they always seem to disappoint in office as well in the few times they are lucky enough to get elected. There is a clearly definable spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann, 1974) preventing the discussion of sensitive issues that need to be bluntly and persistently discussed.

Thus, anyone concerned with issues of peak oil, global warming, or other degradations of our living and working space, should not look to established institutions to take us by the hand and lead us to higher ground. More likely they will find new ways to repress our dissent, cloak present realities, and prevent independent actions that threaten the dominant social paradigm. Frankly we cannot wait another four years for "leadership" to either be struck with an epiphany or be informed by corporate handlers that action must be taken. There are too many vested interests preventing needed change that some very creative and persistent steps need to be taken. One possibility is the energetic development of a parallel culture, including intentional community building.

Parallel culture is not a new concept. It has been pursued as academic exercise, literary thinkpiece (see B.F. Skinner's Walden II), and practical exercise (ecovillages, communes, etc). Up to now, most of these initiatives have been pursued as independent efforts without linkage to each other and not always goal-directed for self-sufficiency. Yet linkage and coordination would accelerate their implementation since best practices would emerge faster and provide models to pursue without needing to reinvent the wheel. Instead of singularly building brand new ecovillages or transition towns (as per Transition Culture), we could also identify small villages and towns throughout North America and, if they were abandoned or destitute, acquire them as cooperative ventures. Less terminal communities that fit the model for sustainability could be targeted for purposeful resettlement.

While this would be quite an ambitious exercise, one model for acquisition and development could involve selling shares in a co-op, others could be developed by benefactors or wealthy patrons, others still, particularly the less terminal, could be settled organically one family at a time. Note that I am not suggesting an elitist project to create sanctuaries for the rich. I am suggesting essentially a purposeful, coordinated strategic resettlement centered on viable small- to medium-sized cities and towns that are compact in form and surrounded by fertile soils (much like James Kunstler suggests would be most adaptable). A very specific aspect of this type of project would include an egalitarian social diversity and absolutely would not be exclusionary.

Traditional village or town center layout would be one of the more efficient models to adopt and acquisition of the town proper plus a sufficient number of agricultural acres outside of the village center would be a good starting point. This model of slowly developing a parallel sustainable culture so that it can seamlessly replace the existing culture analogous to a "bloodless coup" that would be the most benign means of building a better society. Obviously how much could be accomplished would be dependent upon the time remaining before a rapid cultural descent occurs.

Finally, the best way to pursue this idea is to assemble best practices in sustainable community building. No single model will be feasible since there are numerous subcultures and ranges of desirable community values and mores. A range of best practices for ecological, social, and economic sustainability will be useful as a resource including local food, governance, local economy, alternative energy, and the arts. Several good models currently exist (e.g. Ecovillage Network of the Americas) and others offer specific ideas that can be borrowed and melded into a more comprehensive, holistic model. While other sites may exist for this purpose, I began a site called Building the Replacement Culture to collect ideas and examples of successful alternative communities at:

http://newresettlement.blogspot.com/

For this project I welcome links, best practices, and other ideas to accelerate and disburse this idea. In Part II, I will discuss a more regionally focused resettlement idea.