[permaculture-oceania] Re: Care of spirit - a question of ethics (jedd)

[Matthew Bond]

G'day Jedd,

Even though I penned the addition to the wikipedia myself, I am now of the
opinion that adding to the ethics would do more harm than good (if it ain't
broke, don't fix it!).  In fact, after reflecting on the issue, I now think
that since care of spirit is a personal choice, that really makes it a
sub-category of care of people.  But perhaps the biggest reason is that I
think permaculture is about agreement and inclusion and not about division,
and as such, we should promote those things which bind us.  Division in any
movement can be very destructive.

Although there was no clear/strong objection to the addition of care of
spirit as an ethic at APC8, I would say that that was more due to the nature
of permaculturists not to make anyone feel on the outer and to be inclusive
to people whose underlying intentions go to the core of what permaculture is
all about than because people wanted to accept the notion of care of spirit
as an ethic.  An underlying principle of arguing is that it's invasive to
someone's reality/comfort zone & in a way you are forcing your reality onto
them and they may not be that receptive to it.  Disagreement is all too
frequently taken personally instead of objectively.  Although silence in the
business world is taken as acceptance, in social life it might just be 'I
accept this person for who they are even though I disagree with what they're
saying & I would prefer not to alienate them in case they are unable to
separate themselves from their ideas (i.e. can I gamble on how objective
this person really is!) and take my disagreement as a personal attack on
their character etc' i.e. an acceptance of the value of the person as a
whole as opposed to one minor issue that is not worth arguing about.

Anyway, the main things I want to say are that the ethics should only
include things that we ALL agree upon & that the important thing is that
we're ALL pemaculturists.

Matthew.

From: jedd <jedd at progsoc.org>
> Subject: [permaculture-oceania] Care of spirit - a question of ethics
>
> Howdi,
>
> Wikipedia had a reference, briefly, recently, recorded a new ethic
> of Permaculture -- care of spirit.
>
> The details of this ethic (as posted) are viewable at:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Permaculture&diff=64956111&oldid=64943421
>
> Actually, that'll show you the differentiation, but the text is there.
>
> There's some discussion wrapped around the addition and subsequent
> removal of this particular entry from WP.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Permaculture#Spiritcare.3F.3F.3F
>
> In there is a late comment by 'sinergyinaction' -- who is either
> a regrettably bad speller, or the punniest person I've not met today,
> to the effect that at the convergence last year it was agreed that
> this fourth ethic was now agreed upon.   I know this list isn't the
> authoritative word on all things PC, but I'm curious why it didn't
> pop up here following the convergence.
>
> So my question is simply whether this was in fact agreed upon, and
> if so, a secondary question of what constitutes a quorom of PCers,
> with a tertiary question of what happens if half the PC community
> want to defer to the spiritual and the other half do not?
>
> Jedd.
>
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