Why farmpunk?

A farmpunk could be described as a neo-agrarian who approaches [agri]culture, community development and/or design with an anarchistic hacker ethos. "Cyber-agrarian" could supplant neo-agrarian, indicating a back-to-the-land perspective that stands apart from past movements because it is heavily informed by conceptual integration in a post-industrial information society (thus "forward to the land" perhaps?) The art and science of modern ecological design—and ultimately, adapting to post-collapse contexts—will be best achieved through the combined arts of cybermancy and geomancy; an embrace of myth and ritual as eco-technologies. In other words: the old ways of bushcraft and woodlore can be combined with modern technoscience (merely another form of lore) in open and decentralized ways that go beyond pure anarcho-primitivism. This blog is an example of just that. Throughout, natural ecologies must be seen as the original cybernetic systems.

**What we call for at the farmpunk headquarters**
°Freedom of information
°Ground-up action + top-down perspectives
°Local agricultural systems (adhering to permaculture/biodynamic principles) as the nuclei of economies
°Bioregional autonomy
°Computers are optional but can be used for good—see peer to peer tech, social media for direct popular management of natural or political disasters (e.g. Arab Spring), or the mission of the hacker collective Anonymous
°You

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Michael Meade: "It Takes More Than a Village"

An entry for modern humans in an alien's field guide to earth would be incomplete without noting the centrality of meaning and symbols to our lives and behaviors. The struggle to find empowering meaning (and perhaps eradicate corrupted meaning) marks us all, but regardless of the intensity of the pain it may bring, the importance of meaning itself is never nullified (even if we periodically declare it is), but highlighted, perhaps never more than by nihilism itself. What is quoted and linked to below is an under-represented angle on the current socio-political atmosphere by Vietnam vet, mythologist, and youth mentor Michael Meade. This guy is a true elder!

He has an amazing ability to be holistic and not divisive in his language. At the same time, he doesn't unite his readers to the point where their unique identities are erased and subsumed under one "hero's journey." Meade is not the "Joseph Campbell" that the academy loves to depose. (I often wonder if even the actual Joseph Campbell was that "Joseph Campbell" XD)

"A society is playing with fire each time it rejects the innate nobility of its youth. Youth not only carry within them the dream of the future; they also tend to act out the imbalances and injustices of society as well as the deep grievances of their communities. Injustices that are not faced inside a culture will eventually be lived out on its streets as a kind of fate." - Meade
Read the rest of his commentary here.
Posted by the faun at 9:39 PM

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