I’ve been rereading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. This passage from Chapter 5 is shockingly relevant to the farm crisis today. It describes the early stages of the consolidation and corporatization of farms that continues to accelerate. Even more relevantly, it illuminates the systemic nature of that process, that defies any attempt to locate blame. Here, agents of institutional landowners are coming to notify tenant farmers that they must leave their land.
This is an interesting piece. I grew up in a very agricultural part of the UK, namely Lincolnshire. During my lifetime that areas culture and demographic has changed completely. In my father's childhood there was community. Families that had owned and worked their farms and small holdings for generations. Everyone knew everyone, and everyone's grandparents knew everyone's grandparents. I'm not saying it was a perfect society or that there was no conflict or crime, but it was rare and usually sorted out within the community without recourse to "authority". There was a culture of pride in hard work well done and a culture of appreciation and respect for a good neighbour. The village pub was where community issues got resolved and had more relevance than any county council hall. Quality food and produce was sold by locals to locals, and every shop kept a ledger of micro-credit open to every customer. Every customer could be relied upon to pay what they owed as soon as possible. Nobody had much but everyone had enough. Wealth was measured and understood in terms of acres. The work was a community endeavor and everyone turned out at harvest time to help everyone get their harvest in. In two generations it was all destroyed. Farming conglomerates bought out all the family farms. Mechanization resulted in a community of either unemployed, or employed in the factory in town ( like my father who worked in metal box most of his working life). Community cohesion disintegrated and now the demographic is completely changed forever. Most of the villages properties of substance are owned by commuters to the city or are second homes for those that live and work in London and beyond. The farms are all owned by big industry and the labor, such as there is, is contracted out to people with no ancestral connection to the land. I live in Portugal now and here in the rural areas of the Central mountains I see village life hanging on to a similar culture and way of life that my parents knew in the UK. But they are hanging on by their fingernails and ultimately I fear it shall go the same way. Where I currently reside there are whole terraces of olive trees abandoned, never harvested. Why? Because it's not cost efficient. There isn't enough profit to pay for the labor. Yet a generation ago nobody needed paying for that labor. It was a community effort that everyone got together and fulfilled because it meant community abundance and everyone having enough. It's like that adage about knowing the cost of something but not it's value and it makes me sad to bear witness to it all over again. But I take hope from the changing demographic here, because many people from across the world have settled here with permaculture ethics and community vision, and I hope and believe that we can integrate with the local culture, sharing together the best of what we know and what we are to create something new and wonderful for the future. Fingers crossed that we have one. 🙏
I saw the same destruction of the small town, local small business, small family farms of my youth starting in the 1970’s in Wisconsin and Illinois. The agrarian small farm lineage of my family reaching back into 1600’s New England ended with my father’s generation. Myself and none of my nine siblings and cousins live that life.
Can a system solve the problems that the system has created?
This is what goes through my head whenever I am asked to sign a petition, to try to help shift the winds of government.
If the USDA has the power to shift the balance toward Big Ag or toward smaller farms with the brush of a pen, maybe this power - in itself - is the problem.
As someone who works in the realm of local food systems, I can say that the loss of government funding and programming is painful, disheartening. But also potentially empowering. Because it means that our work really matters. That we have to find ways to feed ourselves, to support each other.
One of the greatest impediments to action or change, I have found, is the knowledge that if we don't act *someone else will.* And the government stepping out of the "someone else" role can open up all manner of new possibilities. Especially if they can get out of the business of enforcing all manner of permits and licenses and certifications and zoning laws and paper trails that add costs and prohibit some of the most common-sense activities.
I did also, because when we do not, Secretary Rollins and her ilk in the current government take our silence for consent. I agree there are govt programs that need(ed) cutting, & maybe SNAP wasn't the best program - I have seen appalling junk food in a school where I sub, being handed out to children "for free." However, they take our silence as consent to privatize everything in fewer and fewer hands, not the subtlety or artfulness of our dissent.
What's sad is that the abysmally ignorant (sorry, it stuck) don't realize what's being lost. I listened to two women in a bar (in Harrisburg) saying they didn't like outside (too hot or too cold), they didn't like geese (their dogs went nuts), in the house with the AC running and eating junk food was life to them. Lots and lots of folks like that. The US is spoiled rotten, it's people oblivious.
This might seem like missing the point but it needs to be said... How can a man own land? Whom did the "owner" buy it from? "From the previous owner", right? No, I am not asking about the one before; I am asking about the first one.
In my experience, when you ask this question, those who believe in the story of capitalism would tell you that "The owner bought it fair and square." But if one asks, "How did the person they bought it from come to own it?" and work backwards in history this way, it turns out that the first private owner of the lands and the means of production SEIZED THEM VIOLENTLY from people who tended it but did not consider it to be anybody's private property.
Land was seized violently from the tillers of the land by early feudal lords. European ruling class people violently seized land from the natives in the "New World" of the Americas and in other colonies in Africa and Asia, and forced "not-so-lucky" people (indentured servants, slaves, prisoners, impoverished etc.) to work the stolen land for the seizers' benefit. Capitalism is fundamentally based on an anti-Golden-Rule "morality" of ruthless violence, theft, domination, coercion and a profound disconnection from Sacredness/the Heart/God. There is nothing even remotely "natural" about it.
Land ownership (only the land that was there before any humans) is a myth. The land is owned, if by any, by all. And then all are responsible for its upkeep.
No doubt that’s a relevant question on the blog of the guy who wrote Sacred Economics, which was my first introduction to the idea that all property is fundamentally theft.
Paul Kingsnorth, co-founder of the Dark Mountain project with Dougald Hine, has just published a book about The Machine that we’re talking about here: Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity https://share.google/IEs5mY5ErLjKDB47J
I grew up on an Iowa farm and have witnessed this firsthand over many decades. My father adopted “no-till” practices in the early 1980s and was committed to the farmer’s co-operative movement. It was hard then to get farmers to see how working together and changing their treatment of the land would improve their own lives. I have signed the petition and pray that we can make a change now.
I've been listening to Kingsnorth talk about his book and about The Machine and the stances that we might take in revolt against it. I also recommend E.M. Forster's prescient novella from 1909, if you can imagine! He presages Zoom calls, the isolation of COVID and the instant-gratification technology of Amazon. https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Machine_stops.pdf
“I have called you before, mother, but you were always busy or isolated. I have something particular to say.”
“What is it, dearest boy? Be quick. Why could you not text it to me?”
“Because I prefer direct speech in this case. I want—”
“Well?”
“I want you to come and see me.”
Vashti watched his Facebook image fade and re-align.
“But I can see you!” she exclaimed. “What more do you want?”
“I want to see you not through the Machine,” said Kuno. “I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine.”
“Oh, hush!” said his mother, vaguely shocked. “You mustn’t say anything against the Machine.”
Some people say that it's very unspiritual to utter, one is tired of hearing the same old lies again. I disagree, and I'm tired to the bone of the victim society in which we all victimize ourselves by pointing fingers at 'systems', 'complexes', 'processes', and 'mechanisms'. None of these factors are causes of misery, for none of these would exist without people who enforce somebody else's demands.
If some person lets himself get pulled into the machine as much that he receives orders to rob another of his life's work he got a problem. What is a problem? A problem is a question. The question put before the enforcer is the very same every time: Do I want to live harmoniously as a decent human being, or am I initiating harm against another just so I stay out of harm's way? - And the answer, almost always? I had to do it; I'm not to blame; it's just this evil system we're living in. As if this evil system were not made up of people most of whom are willing to throw their neighbour under the bus for the sake of their own wellbeing. And that is exactly the evil Hannah Arendt was talking about. This is the real dynamics at play here: people caring first and foremost about themselves and theirs, and therefore not being willing to stand for truth, virtue, and human decency. 'Systems' are a cheap excuse. They work only as long as we willingly partake in them.
It was not the officer who shot the kid - it was ME, the soldier.
It was not the president who sterilized indigenous women, it was ME, the physician or nurse, who did it.
It was not the bank owner who ruined the farmer - it was ME, the court officer.
So, as described by Steinbeck, the gun originally pointed into the right direction, the tractor driver, the one who actually attempted to cause harm to the farmer. The farmer would have been right to remove the man by whatever means it took. Not a beautiful outlook, and surely lethal to the farmer himself, but one which is way more just than the continued 'systemic' destruction of life we all initiate when we are giving in to threats of violence against ourselves in case of disobedience.
When you go to the bottom, what you find is that humans have freedom of choice in every single moment, that our choice counts, and that the entirety of all individual choices results in the well-being of society. A society of immorally-acting beings can never be free. It will receive the inhumane result of the inhumane behavior of its members. From my perspective, politics is not a lagging indicator of consciousness, it is the precise indication of our collective lack of consciousness: how far we as humankind are willing to let ourselves get corrupted.
Charles, I don't utter these words cold-heartedly. I went through the 'problem' often enough without noticing what I was supposed to learn from it, so I get what's going on in people when they fail. Being grateful for the patience others had with me, because they gave me time to develop, I especially appreciate, today, the angry responses of some people who were not accepting cheap excuses such as 'following rules', 'feeding my family', 'everybody does it', or 'keeping my butt safe'. I needed to learn how to discern objectively between right behaviour and wrong behaviour. This is the first life lesson we MUST get, because it is true & important at that level, and we can't proceed without it. It is only by living through duality that we gain a higher worldview and arrive at unity consciousness. Basic morality skills need to be taught before any attempt of inviting someone into holistic viewpoints can succeed. A mental baby is not ready for spiritual procreation.
So, I agree. We can't successfully control any part of the system, because we never control all the people in the world; not even the overlords do. I can control what I, myself, look at, how I think and feel about it, what I learn from it, and how I turn it into action, even after I was traumatized and enslaved. If I don't - it'd be just a waste of my lifetime.
I wrote a very similar essay (down to the quotations used) a couple years ago, and I certainly did not have in mind using Steinbeck to turn everyone into a victim, nor do I think Charles had in mind either. The point is the recognition that our individual actions, collectively, create entities that become something more than us. Our creative drives actually give birth to a twisted, sick form of life. That's all a system is, it's a lifeform exhibiting collective intelligence, much like an anthill or a bee colony.
The path forward is not feeling powerlessness in the face of what we have wrought, but recognizing that the sickness in the system extends from our own sickness. But if all we have is individual moralizing and finger wagging, the old “people know right from wrong, and it is choosing wrong that is making things the way they are, people need to choose right instead” then I believe we completely miss what is needed to help individuals transform and heal.
It's not that there is nothing of value in that, but Abrahamic religions have been taking that approach for more than a millennia, and where has it gotten us? No, we need to come to terms with the truth that, when we act from an open heart, feeling love and belonging, we naturally do the “right” thing. But feeling open-hearted, safety, belonging, love… it's difficult for many people. And from a place of fear and pain, we do the “bad” or selfish thing.
Those alive today are not responsible for the mistakes of the dead. But we have inherited the pain and the trauma they have left behind. We have to turn towards it, towards the patterns of separation we have inherited, not from a place of shaming and moral exhortation, but by recognizing competition, war, and predation has not served us. Yes, they may be sins, but more importantly, they do not make us happy, and they disconnect is from the most important things in life.
We have to call people towards good behavior by reminding them of the beauty they're missing and the pain they will continue to experience if they continue to look away from the disasters unfolding in front of them. Yes, by their own hands, but not their own hands in a vacuum, but having inherited engrained behavioral patterns, through biology and culture, that go back thousands of years. And amidst systems, yes, systems, with immense power to influence and control people. Is the ultimate power with humans able to make free choices? Of course. But we need to acknowledge the reality of systems in order to access understand and forgiveness for how we got here. That's the force that unlocks our hearts and gives us the energy to shift these seemingly entrenched patterns.
I can go along with most of it; just don't get hung on the word, morality. The morality of Abrahamic religions is normative; not the morality I'm talking about which is measured by the initiation of objective harm. It has nothing to do with subjective interpretation or finger-wagging, but with observing that-which-is: "I understand the harm I've done, so I'll stop it", as opposed to, "I follow the commandments just because so-and-so told me to." The latter, of course, has driven society into exactly the mess we are facing today; as you said, it's based in blame and fear - and in ignorance.
I also agree that open-heartedness plays a crucial role in understanding which kinds of behaviour lead to constructive resp. destructive results, but not alone. Without gut feelings and reason, the heart can mislead us just as badly as each of the other two major ways of knowing. Good intentions alone do not result in good action; often enough they pave the road to you-know-where. Objektive knowledge is absolutely required, as is love, as is willpower.
Systems have none of these; they're akin to mathematical functions, programs, or mechanical machines. They are the sum total of individual behaviours. Systems are mock-alive, incapable of free development, creativity or any of the other properties of a living loving being. To see them for what they are can kickstart a heart quite powerfully, I've seen, but it seems to work differently for everyone. Which is fine. All I'm saying is, systems are not *making* us behave in certain ways, we often *choose* to go along with what they seem to be asking of us - which implies the good message that, as an individual, I can decide for my own path in any given moment.
As an individual whose thoughts, feelings and emotions resonate in harmony with Truth, I will take the moral decision to not initiate harm against another sentient being. If, by contrast, I believed I were an integral part of a social machine I would not have that choice; I'd be just a victim of invincible forces. In that case all the talk about soul, heart, will, morality, humanity etc would become pointless. Which is why I find the whole debate about how the system works on us a bit misleading. It has no existence of its own. The place where it all starts is within each of our selves - the one place in the world a human being absolutely does have the power to form by its own free will.
Appreciate the thoughtful response. I understand you better now. I wonder if you can see a middle ground? Rather than either systems or free will being absolute forces, they are simply forces of varying strength, depending on the system and individuals in question.
In other words, individuals can swim against the current of systems/ancestral transmission of trauma patterns, but it takes great effort and presence of mind, especially depending on the strength, health, and education said individual has. We shouldn't imagine that current to be overwhelming and impossible, but neither should we imagine an individual's capacity to swim against it unshakable and absolute. If we continue the analogy, less sturdy swimmers may need someone to lend them an oar to grab onto.
I don't disbelieve in free will, but I believe it is a capacity that can be present rather than something that is always present. There are people who are simply reacting, going along with the flow, without any real consciousness. We can and should make them aware of their agency, but we shouldn't assume it is always there and overwhelmingly powerful against whatever forces they're facing, or we might neglect to offer the aid, resources, training, or education they would need to be able to strengthen that capacity sufficiently.
I would consider myself a cycle breaker, so I certainly have a lot of respect for the capacity of individuals to transform systemic, cultural, and ancestral patterns. But ultimately I still don't believe we should put free will on too high of a pedestal, it is still organic and of the earth and soil. As such, it is prone to disease or simply not receiving the right nutrients and conditions to blossom. In such cases, we can have compassion for those who seem to be neglecting a higher calling.
I suspect this may seem wishy washy or unsatisfying to you, but my argument would be that however satisfying an absolutist position on free will is, and the seeming moral clarity it confers, not to mention motivation, meaning, and resolve for many, it also paves the way for judgment and a struggle to forgive others who are operating at a lower level of consciousness. And it defies common sense to say that one's conditioning and environment does not greatly influence the path they take.
Again, free will, such that it exists, seems to me to be an evolved capacity of an earthly organism. I laud attempts to increase the awareness of it and help more people access genuine choice and agency, but I worry about the implications (and truth) of the claim that everyone already possesses it and that it is more powerful than all the other forces in this world, in every circumstance. I believe a more hopeful and accurate message would be that we can continue to help life evolve towards more creative choice and agency, and bring more light to those whose consciousness is currently, for most intents and purposes, shrouded in the darkness of intense cultural, systemic, and ancestral forces.
Let me put it this way: Things are subject to forces; they have no choice. Programs have no choice; demons have no choice; egregors have no choice; machines have no choice; systems have no choice. Form follows function: cause and effect.
As living beings, we all do have willpower, care and mind. That's what makes us more than things, by definition. Without freedom, indeed, there can be no life. The point of freedom is choice, and the taker of choice is will. Will can only be applied where a situation is not determined.
No extra middle ground needed as I don't say that an individual's willpower were always present at full strength. The capacity is there all the time nonetheless. Consider the Hermetic Principle of Polarity. I don't think we're very far apart in our views. In any way, each of us has his wisdom as a crutch mainly to master his own path, but it's a joy sharing rations with others :)
I love your metaphor of the will being fed: sometimes we feed ourselves junk, sometimes good fuel; sometimes we eat too much, sometimes too little. And so our willpower rises or falls, but it's always there, just like the gut it resides in. Will also resembles a muscle: To train it properly, it needs awareness (the mind) and care (the heart). Between the three of them, they drive our consciousness, morality and agency.
To me, compassion or judgment are not hinged on the distinction between right and wrong behaviour. They are a different set of choices which arise as another step, and in the early stages of our paths they can hardly be avoided. It's like the ex-smoker who curses other smokers for doing what he once did - until he overcomes his inner opposition. We learn compassion by going through judgment, just like we learn to experience unity by going through separation.
I clearly see things I, or others, objectively did wrong, and I feel no need to judge (condemn). In fact, I understand that I shouldn't; not because I'm just another human being but because it's utterly pointless - detrimental even. Trial and error make up much of the path by which we learn; judgment and punishment do exactly nothing to improve a journey. The time it takes to learn from a mistake needs to be given as a grace period, for someone to get the lesson. A hit in self-defense or a little scolding now and then might give them further incentive. After all, behaving immorally should not feel comfortable. It is essential for their progress, though, that everyone leaves the door to reconciliation open.
Please don't mind me stating my views as bluntly as I do. It doesn't mean I implied you're wrong, or that I expected you to adopt them. It's just the way I tell the story of the Universe. What we're attempting here is the harmonization of our stories. Thanks for sharing yours. Yet stories are never Truth as such; they merely point to some part of it. What we find at the end of the pointer can be known, though, and we better not doubt it when we found it.
This is such an interesting exchange. I would like to add that the simple act of choosing to exercise free will a huge force, and it's not measured in the same way that you would think of as other types of energy. It becomes exponential actually every time an end of visual chooses with conscious awareness. The value is inherent in that. At least that is my understanding of it.
Sorry, I get my wires crossed regarding the term 'end of visual'. A living being as point of consciousness? Apart from that, yeah, it can seem as if there is hardly any middle ground like, one applies will casually or it becomes very strong very quickly when applied with a little more intent. See it, perhaps, as a qualitative force rather than a quantitative function.
I have a question about this line in the petition: " Restore the $1 billion cut from local food infrastructure programs that children and families rely on for a healthy diet." Is this the SNAP program? Because if so, this is not at all in keeping with the reconnection to regenerative farming and taking responsibility for learning to cook and feed a family. I cannot in good faith sign the petition if this is not clarified and/or made clearer what it is referring to. Thanks Charles. Much food for thought.
One of my favorite authors and been revisiting lately too. Along with Timothy Egan's "The Worst Hard Time"... one thing I strongly believe in is creating alternative structures. Building parallel capacity through community engagement that aligns with what works for us. The alternatives for far too long rely on existing outside the system. We can't tear down the master's house with the masters tools, but we can siphon resources and built collective action. For two decades people have told me to use my voice and get elected to office or serve on committees. No. I don't want flaccid reform, I want restructuring. It's not gonna happen in the banks, government, waiting on the powers that be... We have to roll up our sleeves and build on the margins. Like oppressed people have always done, and still found joy and meaning without waiting for "permission" or help. We absolutely need better governance and leadership, but I'm done holding my breath and agitating for change. Nor do I wish to see total collapse and witness my community fall into further disaster. Change starts with honest assessments, not fear or isolation from the world as I see it. And we are deep in misinformation and information silos, we gotta keep communicating and learn more effective ways of winning hearts and minds ✊🏼
This taking is what happened in the thirties to my grandparents in Nebraska. Reduced them to migrants fleeing to Montana to survive. Wiped out what they had for over three decades to nothing. Charles Judson Phillips and Jessie Cleo Jackson Phillips had four children on their land. Then, the men in black government cars told them they could not plant. What good is a farm you cannot plant crops on?
My grandmother had to work as a seamstress in Montana and my grandfather took work as a laborer. Only one of many hard luck stories.
Charles, you know about confirmation bias as well as anyone. But you've been saying "there's no one to blame" for years, and each time you read something that confirms that you're eager to share it as a new insight.
Yes, it's an important insight. Often we jump to blaming, and often it's the system that's driving the problem. Many of the world's ills are traceable to capitalism. https://joshmitteldorf.substack.com/p/marx-had-it-right
But let's not short-change the opposite perspective. Maybe there are satanists who rape and dismember babies, and they want to wreak havoc. Maybe there are human beings who directed the creation of the COVID virus and who blocked the dissemination of effective treatments. Maybe there are underground bunkers with people who enjoy zp energy technologies they don't want to share with the rabble. Maybe it's true that Eisenhower signed a pact with gray aliens in 1953, and ever since it is not human beings but an ET agenda that is subverting human ecology.
There is a lot of reality that is being hidden from us, secrets, disinformation campaigns, censorship, shadow-banning. Let's work to open up those secrets, to peer inside the Deep State and the Breakaway Civilization and the vast military machine that is weaponizing weather. Once we are able to see how all this is perpetrated, we will be in a better position to know if there is blame to be assigned, and if so, where to assign it.
Yes and, Even if with some version of these realities are in existence, that does not mean that they have complete control or effectiveness. Fwiw. Our response to the fear of these things could be worse than the things themselves as well. It’s a lot of possibilities to be present to or not present to/too
I feel that we can not change the system using the system, it is time to create a more appealing and regenerative one.
I’m not against farmers and truly value them and what they provide but I feel that large farms never were and are not realistic moving forward. The inputs needed to keep them functioning are immense. Perhaps breaking large farms into smaller regenerative ones.
The way forward are small scale growers, millions of them in backyards, open lots etc. With proper knowledge, much can be grown locally and seasonally. These can be done right now and with no permission needed. Helena Norberg Hodge has championed this for decades.
The way we eat will change as well, it will be more seasonal, mushrooms, fruit, not sure how meat will fit in but it will be different.
As Bill Mollison says solutions are simple but not easy.
Thank you, Charles, for reviving Steinbeck's words in terms of today's reality. We humans have created this systemic "idol" that we've made with our own hands and have worshiped it by submitting to its demands as if there were no other way to live. Congress and the government are part of it, along with every other institution. We need to think more deeply about where our salvation lies.
Just a few years ago we were at 7 B and wondering if we had surpassed the carrying capacity of Earth...perhaps we had...and the Universe is trying to restore its balance...
There is a book written by Paul Emberson, 'The Death of Nutrition and the Resurrection of Humanity', available from Dewcross Press, the Dewcross Centre for Moral Technology in Scotland. It illuminates what is needed, what is possible, expanding in important ways the understanding of the biodynamic approach to agriculture. I add this to the conversation in case this is what some of you are longing for. Godspeed to all, your contributions are priceless.
This is an interesting piece. I grew up in a very agricultural part of the UK, namely Lincolnshire. During my lifetime that areas culture and demographic has changed completely. In my father's childhood there was community. Families that had owned and worked their farms and small holdings for generations. Everyone knew everyone, and everyone's grandparents knew everyone's grandparents. I'm not saying it was a perfect society or that there was no conflict or crime, but it was rare and usually sorted out within the community without recourse to "authority". There was a culture of pride in hard work well done and a culture of appreciation and respect for a good neighbour. The village pub was where community issues got resolved and had more relevance than any county council hall. Quality food and produce was sold by locals to locals, and every shop kept a ledger of micro-credit open to every customer. Every customer could be relied upon to pay what they owed as soon as possible. Nobody had much but everyone had enough. Wealth was measured and understood in terms of acres. The work was a community endeavor and everyone turned out at harvest time to help everyone get their harvest in. In two generations it was all destroyed. Farming conglomerates bought out all the family farms. Mechanization resulted in a community of either unemployed, or employed in the factory in town ( like my father who worked in metal box most of his working life). Community cohesion disintegrated and now the demographic is completely changed forever. Most of the villages properties of substance are owned by commuters to the city or are second homes for those that live and work in London and beyond. The farms are all owned by big industry and the labor, such as there is, is contracted out to people with no ancestral connection to the land. I live in Portugal now and here in the rural areas of the Central mountains I see village life hanging on to a similar culture and way of life that my parents knew in the UK. But they are hanging on by their fingernails and ultimately I fear it shall go the same way. Where I currently reside there are whole terraces of olive trees abandoned, never harvested. Why? Because it's not cost efficient. There isn't enough profit to pay for the labor. Yet a generation ago nobody needed paying for that labor. It was a community effort that everyone got together and fulfilled because it meant community abundance and everyone having enough. It's like that adage about knowing the cost of something but not it's value and it makes me sad to bear witness to it all over again. But I take hope from the changing demographic here, because many people from across the world have settled here with permaculture ethics and community vision, and I hope and believe that we can integrate with the local culture, sharing together the best of what we know and what we are to create something new and wonderful for the future. Fingers crossed that we have one. 🙏
I saw the same destruction of the small town, local small business, small family farms of my youth starting in the 1970’s in Wisconsin and Illinois. The agrarian small farm lineage of my family reaching back into 1600’s New England ended with my father’s generation. Myself and none of my nine siblings and cousins live that life.
Fingers crossed that we have one.??
A future.
Can a system solve the problems that the system has created?
This is what goes through my head whenever I am asked to sign a petition, to try to help shift the winds of government.
If the USDA has the power to shift the balance toward Big Ag or toward smaller farms with the brush of a pen, maybe this power - in itself - is the problem.
As someone who works in the realm of local food systems, I can say that the loss of government funding and programming is painful, disheartening. But also potentially empowering. Because it means that our work really matters. That we have to find ways to feed ourselves, to support each other.
One of the greatest impediments to action or change, I have found, is the knowledge that if we don't act *someone else will.* And the government stepping out of the "someone else" role can open up all manner of new possibilities. Especially if they can get out of the business of enforcing all manner of permits and licenses and certifications and zoning laws and paper trails that add costs and prohibit some of the most common-sense activities.
That said, I still signed your petition :-).
I did also, because when we do not, Secretary Rollins and her ilk in the current government take our silence for consent. I agree there are govt programs that need(ed) cutting, & maybe SNAP wasn't the best program - I have seen appalling junk food in a school where I sub, being handed out to children "for free." However, they take our silence as consent to privatize everything in fewer and fewer hands, not the subtlety or artfulness of our dissent.
What's sad is that the abysmally ignorant (sorry, it stuck) don't realize what's being lost. I listened to two women in a bar (in Harrisburg) saying they didn't like outside (too hot or too cold), they didn't like geese (their dogs went nuts), in the house with the AC running and eating junk food was life to them. Lots and lots of folks like that. The US is spoiled rotten, it's people oblivious.
This might seem like missing the point but it needs to be said... How can a man own land? Whom did the "owner" buy it from? "From the previous owner", right? No, I am not asking about the one before; I am asking about the first one.
In my experience, when you ask this question, those who believe in the story of capitalism would tell you that "The owner bought it fair and square." But if one asks, "How did the person they bought it from come to own it?" and work backwards in history this way, it turns out that the first private owner of the lands and the means of production SEIZED THEM VIOLENTLY from people who tended it but did not consider it to be anybody's private property.
Land was seized violently from the tillers of the land by early feudal lords. European ruling class people violently seized land from the natives in the "New World" of the Americas and in other colonies in Africa and Asia, and forced "not-so-lucky" people (indentured servants, slaves, prisoners, impoverished etc.) to work the stolen land for the seizers' benefit. Capitalism is fundamentally based on an anti-Golden-Rule "morality" of ruthless violence, theft, domination, coercion and a profound disconnection from Sacredness/the Heart/God. There is nothing even remotely "natural" about it.
For example https://www.pdrboston.org/capitalism
This was recognized in mid 18th century by Jean Jacques Rousseau: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/369545
Land ownership (only the land that was there before any humans) is a myth. The land is owned, if by any, by all. And then all are responsible for its upkeep.
No doubt that’s a relevant question on the blog of the guy who wrote Sacred Economics, which was my first introduction to the idea that all property is fundamentally theft.
The first author (that I know of) who characterized property as theft was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, so it's not a new idea.
Paul Kingsnorth, co-founder of the Dark Mountain project with Dougald Hine, has just published a book about The Machine that we’re talking about here: Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity https://share.google/IEs5mY5ErLjKDB47J
I grew up on an Iowa farm and have witnessed this firsthand over many decades. My father adopted “no-till” practices in the early 1980s and was committed to the farmer’s co-operative movement. It was hard then to get farmers to see how working together and changing their treatment of the land would improve their own lives. I have signed the petition and pray that we can make a change now.
I've been listening to Kingsnorth talk about his book and about The Machine and the stances that we might take in revolt against it. I also recommend E.M. Forster's prescient novella from 1909, if you can imagine! He presages Zoom calls, the isolation of COVID and the instant-gratification technology of Amazon. https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Machine_stops.pdf
“I have called you before, mother, but you were always busy or isolated. I have something particular to say.”
“What is it, dearest boy? Be quick. Why could you not text it to me?”
“Because I prefer direct speech in this case. I want—”
“Well?”
“I want you to come and see me.”
Vashti watched his Facebook image fade and re-align.
“But I can see you!” she exclaimed. “What more do you want?”
“I want to see you not through the Machine,” said Kuno. “I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine.”
“Oh, hush!” said his mother, vaguely shocked. “You mustn’t say anything against the Machine.”
Wow, what a story. Thanks for sharing, so prescient.
Some people say that it's very unspiritual to utter, one is tired of hearing the same old lies again. I disagree, and I'm tired to the bone of the victim society in which we all victimize ourselves by pointing fingers at 'systems', 'complexes', 'processes', and 'mechanisms'. None of these factors are causes of misery, for none of these would exist without people who enforce somebody else's demands.
If some person lets himself get pulled into the machine as much that he receives orders to rob another of his life's work he got a problem. What is a problem? A problem is a question. The question put before the enforcer is the very same every time: Do I want to live harmoniously as a decent human being, or am I initiating harm against another just so I stay out of harm's way? - And the answer, almost always? I had to do it; I'm not to blame; it's just this evil system we're living in. As if this evil system were not made up of people most of whom are willing to throw their neighbour under the bus for the sake of their own wellbeing. And that is exactly the evil Hannah Arendt was talking about. This is the real dynamics at play here: people caring first and foremost about themselves and theirs, and therefore not being willing to stand for truth, virtue, and human decency. 'Systems' are a cheap excuse. They work only as long as we willingly partake in them.
It was not the officer who shot the kid - it was ME, the soldier.
It was not the president who sterilized indigenous women, it was ME, the physician or nurse, who did it.
It was not the bank owner who ruined the farmer - it was ME, the court officer.
So, as described by Steinbeck, the gun originally pointed into the right direction, the tractor driver, the one who actually attempted to cause harm to the farmer. The farmer would have been right to remove the man by whatever means it took. Not a beautiful outlook, and surely lethal to the farmer himself, but one which is way more just than the continued 'systemic' destruction of life we all initiate when we are giving in to threats of violence against ourselves in case of disobedience.
When you go to the bottom, what you find is that humans have freedom of choice in every single moment, that our choice counts, and that the entirety of all individual choices results in the well-being of society. A society of immorally-acting beings can never be free. It will receive the inhumane result of the inhumane behavior of its members. From my perspective, politics is not a lagging indicator of consciousness, it is the precise indication of our collective lack of consciousness: how far we as humankind are willing to let ourselves get corrupted.
Charles, I don't utter these words cold-heartedly. I went through the 'problem' often enough without noticing what I was supposed to learn from it, so I get what's going on in people when they fail. Being grateful for the patience others had with me, because they gave me time to develop, I especially appreciate, today, the angry responses of some people who were not accepting cheap excuses such as 'following rules', 'feeding my family', 'everybody does it', or 'keeping my butt safe'. I needed to learn how to discern objectively between right behaviour and wrong behaviour. This is the first life lesson we MUST get, because it is true & important at that level, and we can't proceed without it. It is only by living through duality that we gain a higher worldview and arrive at unity consciousness. Basic morality skills need to be taught before any attempt of inviting someone into holistic viewpoints can succeed. A mental baby is not ready for spiritual procreation.
So, I agree. We can't successfully control any part of the system, because we never control all the people in the world; not even the overlords do. I can control what I, myself, look at, how I think and feel about it, what I learn from it, and how I turn it into action, even after I was traumatized and enslaved. If I don't - it'd be just a waste of my lifetime.
I wrote a very similar essay (down to the quotations used) a couple years ago, and I certainly did not have in mind using Steinbeck to turn everyone into a victim, nor do I think Charles had in mind either. The point is the recognition that our individual actions, collectively, create entities that become something more than us. Our creative drives actually give birth to a twisted, sick form of life. That's all a system is, it's a lifeform exhibiting collective intelligence, much like an anthill or a bee colony.
The path forward is not feeling powerlessness in the face of what we have wrought, but recognizing that the sickness in the system extends from our own sickness. But if all we have is individual moralizing and finger wagging, the old “people know right from wrong, and it is choosing wrong that is making things the way they are, people need to choose right instead” then I believe we completely miss what is needed to help individuals transform and heal.
It's not that there is nothing of value in that, but Abrahamic religions have been taking that approach for more than a millennia, and where has it gotten us? No, we need to come to terms with the truth that, when we act from an open heart, feeling love and belonging, we naturally do the “right” thing. But feeling open-hearted, safety, belonging, love… it's difficult for many people. And from a place of fear and pain, we do the “bad” or selfish thing.
Those alive today are not responsible for the mistakes of the dead. But we have inherited the pain and the trauma they have left behind. We have to turn towards it, towards the patterns of separation we have inherited, not from a place of shaming and moral exhortation, but by recognizing competition, war, and predation has not served us. Yes, they may be sins, but more importantly, they do not make us happy, and they disconnect is from the most important things in life.
We have to call people towards good behavior by reminding them of the beauty they're missing and the pain they will continue to experience if they continue to look away from the disasters unfolding in front of them. Yes, by their own hands, but not their own hands in a vacuum, but having inherited engrained behavioral patterns, through biology and culture, that go back thousands of years. And amidst systems, yes, systems, with immense power to influence and control people. Is the ultimate power with humans able to make free choices? Of course. But we need to acknowledge the reality of systems in order to access understand and forgiveness for how we got here. That's the force that unlocks our hearts and gives us the energy to shift these seemingly entrenched patterns.
I can go along with most of it; just don't get hung on the word, morality. The morality of Abrahamic religions is normative; not the morality I'm talking about which is measured by the initiation of objective harm. It has nothing to do with subjective interpretation or finger-wagging, but with observing that-which-is: "I understand the harm I've done, so I'll stop it", as opposed to, "I follow the commandments just because so-and-so told me to." The latter, of course, has driven society into exactly the mess we are facing today; as you said, it's based in blame and fear - and in ignorance.
I also agree that open-heartedness plays a crucial role in understanding which kinds of behaviour lead to constructive resp. destructive results, but not alone. Without gut feelings and reason, the heart can mislead us just as badly as each of the other two major ways of knowing. Good intentions alone do not result in good action; often enough they pave the road to you-know-where. Objektive knowledge is absolutely required, as is love, as is willpower.
Systems have none of these; they're akin to mathematical functions, programs, or mechanical machines. They are the sum total of individual behaviours. Systems are mock-alive, incapable of free development, creativity or any of the other properties of a living loving being. To see them for what they are can kickstart a heart quite powerfully, I've seen, but it seems to work differently for everyone. Which is fine. All I'm saying is, systems are not *making* us behave in certain ways, we often *choose* to go along with what they seem to be asking of us - which implies the good message that, as an individual, I can decide for my own path in any given moment.
As an individual whose thoughts, feelings and emotions resonate in harmony with Truth, I will take the moral decision to not initiate harm against another sentient being. If, by contrast, I believed I were an integral part of a social machine I would not have that choice; I'd be just a victim of invincible forces. In that case all the talk about soul, heart, will, morality, humanity etc would become pointless. Which is why I find the whole debate about how the system works on us a bit misleading. It has no existence of its own. The place where it all starts is within each of our selves - the one place in the world a human being absolutely does have the power to form by its own free will.
Appreciate the thoughtful response. I understand you better now. I wonder if you can see a middle ground? Rather than either systems or free will being absolute forces, they are simply forces of varying strength, depending on the system and individuals in question.
In other words, individuals can swim against the current of systems/ancestral transmission of trauma patterns, but it takes great effort and presence of mind, especially depending on the strength, health, and education said individual has. We shouldn't imagine that current to be overwhelming and impossible, but neither should we imagine an individual's capacity to swim against it unshakable and absolute. If we continue the analogy, less sturdy swimmers may need someone to lend them an oar to grab onto.
I don't disbelieve in free will, but I believe it is a capacity that can be present rather than something that is always present. There are people who are simply reacting, going along with the flow, without any real consciousness. We can and should make them aware of their agency, but we shouldn't assume it is always there and overwhelmingly powerful against whatever forces they're facing, or we might neglect to offer the aid, resources, training, or education they would need to be able to strengthen that capacity sufficiently.
I would consider myself a cycle breaker, so I certainly have a lot of respect for the capacity of individuals to transform systemic, cultural, and ancestral patterns. But ultimately I still don't believe we should put free will on too high of a pedestal, it is still organic and of the earth and soil. As such, it is prone to disease or simply not receiving the right nutrients and conditions to blossom. In such cases, we can have compassion for those who seem to be neglecting a higher calling.
I suspect this may seem wishy washy or unsatisfying to you, but my argument would be that however satisfying an absolutist position on free will is, and the seeming moral clarity it confers, not to mention motivation, meaning, and resolve for many, it also paves the way for judgment and a struggle to forgive others who are operating at a lower level of consciousness. And it defies common sense to say that one's conditioning and environment does not greatly influence the path they take.
Again, free will, such that it exists, seems to me to be an evolved capacity of an earthly organism. I laud attempts to increase the awareness of it and help more people access genuine choice and agency, but I worry about the implications (and truth) of the claim that everyone already possesses it and that it is more powerful than all the other forces in this world, in every circumstance. I believe a more hopeful and accurate message would be that we can continue to help life evolve towards more creative choice and agency, and bring more light to those whose consciousness is currently, for most intents and purposes, shrouded in the darkness of intense cultural, systemic, and ancestral forces.
Let me put it this way: Things are subject to forces; they have no choice. Programs have no choice; demons have no choice; egregors have no choice; machines have no choice; systems have no choice. Form follows function: cause and effect.
As living beings, we all do have willpower, care and mind. That's what makes us more than things, by definition. Without freedom, indeed, there can be no life. The point of freedom is choice, and the taker of choice is will. Will can only be applied where a situation is not determined.
No extra middle ground needed as I don't say that an individual's willpower were always present at full strength. The capacity is there all the time nonetheless. Consider the Hermetic Principle of Polarity. I don't think we're very far apart in our views. In any way, each of us has his wisdom as a crutch mainly to master his own path, but it's a joy sharing rations with others :)
I love your metaphor of the will being fed: sometimes we feed ourselves junk, sometimes good fuel; sometimes we eat too much, sometimes too little. And so our willpower rises or falls, but it's always there, just like the gut it resides in. Will also resembles a muscle: To train it properly, it needs awareness (the mind) and care (the heart). Between the three of them, they drive our consciousness, morality and agency.
To me, compassion or judgment are not hinged on the distinction between right and wrong behaviour. They are a different set of choices which arise as another step, and in the early stages of our paths they can hardly be avoided. It's like the ex-smoker who curses other smokers for doing what he once did - until he overcomes his inner opposition. We learn compassion by going through judgment, just like we learn to experience unity by going through separation.
I clearly see things I, or others, objectively did wrong, and I feel no need to judge (condemn). In fact, I understand that I shouldn't; not because I'm just another human being but because it's utterly pointless - detrimental even. Trial and error make up much of the path by which we learn; judgment and punishment do exactly nothing to improve a journey. The time it takes to learn from a mistake needs to be given as a grace period, for someone to get the lesson. A hit in self-defense or a little scolding now and then might give them further incentive. After all, behaving immorally should not feel comfortable. It is essential for their progress, though, that everyone leaves the door to reconciliation open.
Please don't mind me stating my views as bluntly as I do. It doesn't mean I implied you're wrong, or that I expected you to adopt them. It's just the way I tell the story of the Universe. What we're attempting here is the harmonization of our stories. Thanks for sharing yours. Yet stories are never Truth as such; they merely point to some part of it. What we find at the end of the pointer can be known, though, and we better not doubt it when we found it.
This is such an interesting exchange. I would like to add that the simple act of choosing to exercise free will a huge force, and it's not measured in the same way that you would think of as other types of energy. It becomes exponential actually every time an end of visual chooses with conscious awareness. The value is inherent in that. At least that is my understanding of it.
Sorry, I get my wires crossed regarding the term 'end of visual'. A living being as point of consciousness? Apart from that, yeah, it can seem as if there is hardly any middle ground like, one applies will casually or it becomes very strong very quickly when applied with a little more intent. See it, perhaps, as a qualitative force rather than a quantitative function.
I have a question about this line in the petition: " Restore the $1 billion cut from local food infrastructure programs that children and families rely on for a healthy diet." Is this the SNAP program? Because if so, this is not at all in keeping with the reconnection to regenerative farming and taking responsibility for learning to cook and feed a family. I cannot in good faith sign the petition if this is not clarified and/or made clearer what it is referring to. Thanks Charles. Much food for thought.
Good question, Cat.
One of my favorite authors and been revisiting lately too. Along with Timothy Egan's "The Worst Hard Time"... one thing I strongly believe in is creating alternative structures. Building parallel capacity through community engagement that aligns with what works for us. The alternatives for far too long rely on existing outside the system. We can't tear down the master's house with the masters tools, but we can siphon resources and built collective action. For two decades people have told me to use my voice and get elected to office or serve on committees. No. I don't want flaccid reform, I want restructuring. It's not gonna happen in the banks, government, waiting on the powers that be... We have to roll up our sleeves and build on the margins. Like oppressed people have always done, and still found joy and meaning without waiting for "permission" or help. We absolutely need better governance and leadership, but I'm done holding my breath and agitating for change. Nor do I wish to see total collapse and witness my community fall into further disaster. Change starts with honest assessments, not fear or isolation from the world as I see it. And we are deep in misinformation and information silos, we gotta keep communicating and learn more effective ways of winning hearts and minds ✊🏼
INDEED!!
This taking is what happened in the thirties to my grandparents in Nebraska. Reduced them to migrants fleeing to Montana to survive. Wiped out what they had for over three decades to nothing. Charles Judson Phillips and Jessie Cleo Jackson Phillips had four children on their land. Then, the men in black government cars told them they could not plant. What good is a farm you cannot plant crops on?
My grandmother had to work as a seamstress in Montana and my grandfather took work as a laborer. Only one of many hard luck stories.
Charles, you know about confirmation bias as well as anyone. But you've been saying "there's no one to blame" for years, and each time you read something that confirms that you're eager to share it as a new insight.
Yes, it's an important insight. Often we jump to blaming, and often it's the system that's driving the problem. Many of the world's ills are traceable to capitalism. https://joshmitteldorf.substack.com/p/marx-had-it-right
But let's not short-change the opposite perspective. Maybe there are satanists who rape and dismember babies, and they want to wreak havoc. Maybe there are human beings who directed the creation of the COVID virus and who blocked the dissemination of effective treatments. Maybe there are underground bunkers with people who enjoy zp energy technologies they don't want to share with the rabble. Maybe it's true that Eisenhower signed a pact with gray aliens in 1953, and ever since it is not human beings but an ET agenda that is subverting human ecology.
There is a lot of reality that is being hidden from us, secrets, disinformation campaigns, censorship, shadow-banning. Let's work to open up those secrets, to peer inside the Deep State and the Breakaway Civilization and the vast military machine that is weaponizing weather. Once we are able to see how all this is perpetrated, we will be in a better position to know if there is blame to be assigned, and if so, where to assign it.
Yes and, Even if with some version of these realities are in existence, that does not mean that they have complete control or effectiveness. Fwiw. Our response to the fear of these things could be worse than the things themselves as well. It’s a lot of possibilities to be present to or not present to/too
This essay strikes a deep cord. I needed this today! Thanks Charles.
Thank you so much for the deeply moving article.
I feel that we can not change the system using the system, it is time to create a more appealing and regenerative one.
I’m not against farmers and truly value them and what they provide but I feel that large farms never were and are not realistic moving forward. The inputs needed to keep them functioning are immense. Perhaps breaking large farms into smaller regenerative ones.
The way forward are small scale growers, millions of them in backyards, open lots etc. With proper knowledge, much can be grown locally and seasonally. These can be done right now and with no permission needed. Helena Norberg Hodge has championed this for decades.
The way we eat will change as well, it will be more seasonal, mushrooms, fruit, not sure how meat will fit in but it will be different.
As Bill Mollison says solutions are simple but not easy.
We can start to do this right now!!
Thanks for this, Charles. Systems within systems.
Hal
Thank you, Charles, for reviving Steinbeck's words in terms of today's reality. We humans have created this systemic "idol" that we've made with our own hands and have worshiped it by submitting to its demands as if there were no other way to live. Congress and the government are part of it, along with every other institution. We need to think more deeply about where our salvation lies.
Thanks for this Steinbeck moment. We are now 8.25B and Steinbeck published his book in 1939 when the world held 2.3B. What could go wrong? Everything.
Just a few years ago we were at 7 B and wondering if we had surpassed the carrying capacity of Earth...perhaps we had...and the Universe is trying to restore its balance...
There is a book written by Paul Emberson, 'The Death of Nutrition and the Resurrection of Humanity', available from Dewcross Press, the Dewcross Centre for Moral Technology in Scotland. It illuminates what is needed, what is possible, expanding in important ways the understanding of the biodynamic approach to agriculture. I add this to the conversation in case this is what some of you are longing for. Godspeed to all, your contributions are priceless.