Human Permaculture

New Society

Who Will Mobilze Disaffected Whites

on the "left"? Via a comment at VoxDay - "The long and short of it, OWS was initially a movement about getting justice against those who were perceived directly responsible for the 2009 recession. It didn't take long for it to get hijacked by every liberal under the sun to be about any and all issues concerning the far left wing, including those concerned with allegations of societal sexism/racism and every other ism under the sun. Given that the people who started OWS were predominantly white and predominantly male (though not exclusively), they were ousted from their positions as the movement grew too large to control by social justice extremists through the form of "progressive stack", a type of moderation of discussion that ensures people with too much "privilege" are given less say."

Leftists Get Some Things Right

But it can be difficult to read the other things...

Get Apocalyptic: Why Radical is the New Normal by Robert Jensen (Transition Voice)

Even more ideological silliness: Masculinity and the End of Time
Patriarchy is identified with every significant moral failing, while the author is not willing to go to the extreme of radical egalitarianism, he tries to blend masculinity with femininity to create the new "man," who is not equipped by nature to be any sort of authority with respect to wife.

Patrick Deneen Reviews E.J. Dionne's Book

And criticizes left communitarianism:
Community or Leviathan?
Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent, E.J. Dionne, Bloomsbury USA, 336 pages

Russell Arben Fox Reviews Mark Mitchell's Book

Mark Mitchell’s Politics of Gratitude (Theoretical and Otherwise)

The last liberal at FPR? His main critique of the book:

In terms of putting some fleshing out the implications of his preferences for a culture characterized by greater humbleness and gratitude, Mitchell addresses politics, economics, the environment, the family, and education. Here, while the strong and passionate insights continue, I think his attempt to knit them together into a new political alternative to contemporary American liberalism and conservatism falters somewhat. This is no fault of Mitchell’s arguments, which remain compelling even when I disagree with them (and as someone whose localism and communitarianism is more left-leaning than his, the number of my disagreements mounted as I read). It is, rather, a matter of the missing, common thread through his arguments, one which cannot possibly be supplied by mere political and philosophical argument.

Consider how his argument in the chapter on politics develops. Here his guiding light is Tocqueville, and his prescient observations about how self-government and democracy give rise to demands for equality, and how that demand will likely result in greater centralization, as people look for systems of government and economy capable of ensuring equal treatment across borders. Mitchell correctly observes that the real problem which Tocqueville’s observations lead us to confront is the fact that perfect equality is impossible, at least so long as technology fails to completely overcome nature (which is the heart, as he sees it, of the technological scientistic project), and hence that when the desire for equality runs up against such natural differences, “vast energy will be expended to alleviate the incongruity,” which obviously points towards the creation of a vast regulatory state (p. 85). I respect the author for reluctantly acknowledging that America’s federal arrangement was probably fated, “right from the beginning,” to move power away from the states and towards the national government (p. 94), and his subsequent recommendation that the 17th Amendment–which provided for the direct election of senators–be reconsidered has merit. But in the end, as part of his consideration of subsidiarity, he confess that “a metaphysical account of human nature and human society is necessary for sustaining the independence of various spheres of authority” and that “the revitalization of religious belief may be a necessary long-term solution to the problem of centralization” (pp. 97-98). And while Mitchell’s book never turns to outright proselytism, this becomes a recurring theme throughout the rest of the book: a politics of gratitude will likely be impossible until the American people return to taking as a baseline the fact that they are divinely created beings with a need to be grateful for their lives and livelihoods.

Now there is nothing wrong with this connection of religion and political reflection; Tocqueville, among others, does this expertly. But if it is to be done persuasively in our pluralistic, democratic, and individualistic society, it should not, I think, be so entwined with a specific worldview, as it is in this book, whether Mitchell intended to communicate that worldview or not. But communicate it he did: religious humility and gratitude, for Mitchell, is the obvious concomitant of an agrarian, land-center economy, and outside of that kind of economic environment, the rational appeal of religious faith and the persuasiveness of our need for such a revival is simply not much there. Though Mitchell insists that “many of the virtues” he praises can be “encouraged by owning a small business,” he gives no convincing examples of how that might be so (p. 120). His discussion of neighborliness makes reference to barn raising (p. 122); his discussion of the natural world becomes most impassioned when talking about growing a garden (pp. 147-148); his discussion of the family revolves around personal examples of families escaping technological tools and engaging themselves with the land (pp. 164-166). Again and again, the grateful sensibility he urges upon his readers is connected to turning towards a more rural, more agricultural, less specialized and complex, more earthy and religious way of life.

Fox believes that Mitchell's agrarian, localist vision that is laid out in the book is insufficient:

But what it does not do is sketch out an alternative “conservative” political language which could move our modernized, pluralistic society away from an over-reliance upon individualism and towards a different kind of politics. Rather, it is a call for an alternative way of living, a return to a context where politics occupied an entirely different space in our lives–a less important, more participatory, more republican one.

With his obvious sympathy for the ideas of Jefferson and Tocqueville, Mitchell is clearly moved by republicanism, especially in its classic form as a recipe for polities which were small, land-based, agrarian, and religiously (or at least morally) homogenous. But if that was his aim in this book of political theory, one which was obviously addressed to the America which presently exists, then the development of a better language of politics needs to wrestle with the applicability of republicanism and conservatism to our current moment, and there is not much evidence in this book that Mitchell is actually interested in addressing the arguments of Benjamin Barber, Richard Dagger, Philip Pettit, Michael Walzer, or really any other contemporary republican theorist (though he does briefly touch on the ideas of both Rousseau and Hannah Arendt). In short, this book, lacking an applicable comprehensive political theory, but containing instead a host of powerful and evocative arguments on behalf of a constellation of alternative “conservative” positions–mostly united through an emphasis on a return of farming and God–is really more about exploring and advocating on behalf an alternative attitude and lifestyle, rather than providing real, plausible answers to our contemporary ideological stalemates. The language of gratitude alone cannot create or sustain the agricultural or pious conditions by which its rightness will be understood; on the contrary, it is by being pulled by the power of Mitchell’s language into a greater involvement with God or gardening that the rightness of his points about gratitude become likely to be acknowledged.

So how much dialogue with liberalism or political theory is necessary? Is Mitchell preaching to the choir? Or is there a chance that those who are aware of having certain desires for a more agrarian, republican way of life, might be inspired by the book to take action to make this more of a concrete reality in their own lives? For those with enamored with liberalism or pluralism as a good in itself, can anything persuade them of the rightness of another view? Or is liberalism less a governing ideology than a convenient rationalization for how they live? How many inhabitants of the Uhmerican megacity are willing to question their desires and reflect critically upon their lives?

So far Mitchell has not responded to the review - maybe he won't.

More from Gar Alperovitz

(Divided into parts)

Gar Alperovitz in Berkeley

Gar Alperovitz will be speaking in Berkeley next week. The event is sponsored by KPFA. His latest book was just released this week: What Then Must We Do - Chelsea Green.

What Then Must We Do? Gar Alperovitz


A previous book:
America Beyond Capitalism





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Parts 2 and 3.

And a trailer for a lecture recorded on video:

Gar Alperovitz: The Next American Revolution (TRAILER) from Democracy Collaborative on Vimeo.

No Agenda Here

From CUESA FB:

Tomorrow at UC Berkeley: Michael Pollan interviews Sally K. Fairfax, co-author of "California Cuisine and Just Food," Berkeley professor, CUESA board member, and a whip-smart and wonderful lady to boot: http://bit.ly/W7J7nd

Picture is of the cover of the book.

Sally K. Fairfax - profile

Commonwealth Club event - archived podcast (mp3)

Food Security, Food Justice, Food Sovereignty

Farmers, workers, consumers, unite! New visions in food justice by Yvonne Yen Liu - EB

Another Asian-American who's assimilated to being a trendy SWPL? There's more to being a communitarian than engaging in the power struggle for disadvantaged groups and using that language. Who said '60s radicalism was dead? "Would well-known personalities in the consumer-driven foodie world, such as Michael Pollan and Alice Waters, develop solutions capable of addressing the needs of those outside of their white middle-class audience? Or would the answer come from somewhere else?" The same Alice Waters who developed Edible Schoolyard and travels the country talking about implementing similar programs in urban environments? I guess Alice Waters is a liberal who doesn't pass the purity test of another liberal. And so it is, with the one-upmanship that accompanies untempered zealotry.

Well, enough of using the person as an illustration of certain problems. I support greater autonomy for communities, the changing of zoning laws, and so on, so that there can be more local food production where possible, and discussion of solutions for those areas in which sustainable food production cannot be achieved except without a decrease in population size. In terms of concrete goals, there is nothing that I would oppose, as far as I can tell. Instead, I disagree with the simplistic causal analysis of poverty and injustice and the accompanying narrative and implicit blaming. Had the essay been written in a manner that was not grievance-oriented, it would find a larger audience. But it was published for Yes!, so the audience is already limited to those who share a similar identity and political viewpoint, and the essay was discussing a leftist conference and organization. The message to find common cause with those on the right so that change can be brought about has apparently not been heard by everyone, or it is being ignored.

Members of other ethnicities can have their own identity and group allegiance. But leftists can't help but prohibit whites from doing that because they blame whites for all manner of evils. (That sort of unwarranted blaming or ascription of collective sin becomes a form of bullying.) So whites must be stripped of power as much as possible. If people don't want white authority or paternalism, then they must show they can do what is necessary to rebuild community, starting in their own neighborhoods, rather than dreaming of castles in the sky.

Edit. A contrast, of sorts, at least with respect to the presentation of the message: To Close Loop of Sustainability, Organic Farm Commits to Local and Seasonal Eating Education

More:
The author's blog.
America's Food Sweatshops
Injustice in the Food Chain
Occupy, Resist, and Grow
Labor Across the Food System

Related:
Beyond the Good Food, Good Jobs Distinction: Seeing Workers as Part of the Food Movement

Overgrown: What happens when urban farms get too big? by Christopher Weber

Energy Bulletin links to items pertaining to Grace Lee Boggs

The Next American Revolution Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century

Links:
The Next American Revolution
Boggs Center (blog)
Bill Moyers Journal
A documentary in the works.