As I continued reading the introduction to the Toolbox, I jotted down these quick responses to some of the sub-sections within the chapter. They’re presented a little informally – just how I wrote them at the time.
.one.
response to “autonomous communities” section: yes, it’s great and all to idealize little communities that share everything… but hasn’t the history of the world shown that the “public good” always ends up getting over-used and not taken care of? i mean, i believe that small communities could be the answer… it seems that when communities become too big, that’s when people stop caring. well, that’s when enough people stop caring that the actions of the ones that do care no longer make difference. so perhaps the emphasis should be on keeping it small. but still, the cynical part of me says that human nature will continue to be this way – exploiting the public goods and making all these efforts, in the end, unsuccessful.
however, perhaps that is the point of it all? just keep trying, and trying again. i mean, even jesus didn’t fix it all the first time around; nor muhammed, buddha, etc… he was just a small movement, creating a small community that was beautiful and good. so perhaps all success in the world is going to be small, and limited.
.two.
response to “sustainable city living” section: here they talk about a radically sustainable response, by empowering urban residents to be more self-sufficient communities… just interesting to me, the emphasis on self-sufficiency and on community. almost seems paradoxical.
also, it seems to go against the mainstream definitions of political and social orientations in this country. ie, liberals (aka democrats) are all about incorporating other countries into our own game, getting them on our side; there’s that whole poli-econ theory that countries that trade together won’t fight each other. so, it seems that the liberal, hippy democrats would want more people to be involved together – the opposite of self-sufficiency, right?
but then, the conservatives (aka republicans) think that we should be able to manage and protect ourselves, and that reliance on other countries for products is a bad thing (eg, let’s drill oil here!). so, they are more self-sufficiency oriented… but it doesn’t seem like the guys writing this book, promoting radical sustainability, would normally be grouped in this same category as the conservatives.
anyway, that’s why it’s all great – because so many aspects of this book/idea challenge the norms, challenge what people accept as true. and that’s just one other reason it’s radical.
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