technopeasantry
Posted: 09 Apr 2009 19:37
I wanted to open this topic up for discussion as I have started to mention it in other threads.... your thoughts for a pent?
1981: The Plowboy Interview //
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mother Earth News: May/June 1981
The Plowboy Interview: Frank Herbert
By the Mother Earth News editors
SCIENCE FICTION'S "YELLOW JOURNALIST" IS A HOMESTEADING "TECHNOPEASANT"
PLOWBOY: What other factors do you think will influence this decentralization?
HERBERT: We've opened up the Pandora's box of violent technology. We're fast approaching a time when one person can make and employ instruments of violence equal to the ones formerly reserved only to massive governments.
Let's face it, our society has a tiger by the tail in technology. We can't let go. We can't all go back to the farm and be selfsufficient. There isn't enough land to do so, for one thing. Furthermore, people's expectations for their lifestyles have been raised . . . and you don't monkey around with human expectations. So what we need is a new way of relating to our society and its tools. And it was in an attempt to envision just such a change that, some 15 years ago, I coined the phrase "technopeasantry".
PLOWBOY: How would you define technopeasantry?
HERBERT: It involves drawing support from technology, but doing so imaginatively. We have to ask the question, "What elements of technology should I use and how should I use them?" A peasant knows, you see, when and why to grab a shovel or a hoe. In the same way, we have to think out our own relationship to the complete environment, our own values and technological options . . . and make decisions consciously.
Too often today people don't examine or question their basic assumptions. Let me give you an example. I once taught a course, at the University of Washington, that was called Utopia/Dystopia. It was billed as an examination of the current state of our country and our myths of the "better life" . . . only I had trouble getting my students to really investigate their own premises about technology and lifestyle.
So I hit on the idea of taking them out for along weekend hike in the Olympic mountains . . . in the early spring when I knew the weather was going to be cold and rainy. All I told my class was, "We'll be out in the Olympics for two nights. It's going to rain. Bring your gear, food, and paper and pencils for taking notes. I'll meet you at the trail's head."
Now, I'm a hedonist in the wilderness. I own a good down sleeping bag and a fine one-man tent with a fly, and carry a very light pack stocked with trail food and the like. Naturally, my gear is pretty much a product of high technology.
Once we all got up to our campsite—at a place called the Flats—I set up my tent, dug a drain trench, stashed some firewood under the canopy for the morning, and helped organize the evening meal. We ate and hit the sack . . . and then the rain came. Well, I was quite dry and comfortable in my tent, but a lot of my students weren't so well prepared: During the night, I heard voices crying, "My sleeping bag's all wet! " or "God, it's cold! " I simply rolled over and went back to sleep.
The next morning, I got up early and built a big fire. The shivering students soon gathered round, we scrounged together something to eat, and afterward I told them to get their note pads. Then I said, "OK, the bomb just dropped and we're all that's left. How much of our former technology do we try to reconstitute?" Well, let me tell you . . . those cold, wet people who had eaten an inadequate breakfast looked at society's technology a good bit more closely than they had when sitting in a comfortable university classroom. Students who'd been saying things like "Oh sure, I could do without all this stuff" began to ask some basic questions, and to comprehend that technology isn't bad in and of itself . . . everything depends on how we use it.
PLOWBOY: You're saying, then, that technopeasantry involves people's questioning their basic assumptions so they can make intelligent decisions about how to use technology?
HERBERT: Well, that's not all there is to it. There're other aspects to questioning how we use technology. For instance, most people today live in a "light switch" society where they have no actual connection to the tools they use. If the light goes off, they have to call the building superintendent to come repair it. Knowledge has become institutionalized into specialties, and individuals have continually less and less power over their lives.
We need to use technology differently so that people can understand their tools . . . and so they can be put back in touch with the natural world. In fact, one of the things our society needs desperately is a way for people to touch the earth personally and gain the restorative strength that comes with weeding or shoveling, from really getting their hands dirty. We need ways that men and women can see the direct results of their efforts.
PLOWBOY: Would it be correct to say that technopeasantry can help develop a sense of self-worth in the individual?
HERBERT: Yes, but there's more to it, yet. We have to learn to recognize that we're always going to make some mistakes, and—knowing that—we shouldn't tie our careers and self-esteem to decisions that could later prove to be the wrong ones. People must be able to say freely, "Hey, that turned out not to be such a good idea. I'd better not do that anymore."
PLOWBOY: The more you describe this concept, the more it encompasses! You're proposing that people learn to consciously judge what tools they use . . . to employ technologies that they control and not those that control there . . . and to evaluate and reevaluate all the ramifications of using each specific technology. Frankly, the thought that humans may someday be able to make so many carefully thought—out value decisions has the ring of an idealistic dream.
HERBERT: Well, it's not going to happen overnight . . . unless we have a cataclysmic disaster-like some very traumatic natural phenomenon or an enormously destructive atomic war—which requires that we take such new directions in order to survive.
PLOWBOY: Assuming that we won't be forced into new behavior patterns by a catastrophe, how do you envision the change taking place?
HERBERT: As a result of social evolution. When individuals start making technopeasant choices—such as converting an inner city attic into a greenhouse—and demonstrating that doing so can be both personally rewarding and quite effective, more and more people will be drawn to such actions.
PLOWBOY: So you see the individual drive to achieve self-sufficiency as a catalyst of the movement toward what you call technopeasantry?
HERBERT: Hold on there! Yes, individuals will lead the way to a technopeasant society, but I've never said that people should strive for absolute self-reliance. I think relative freedom from dependency ought to be our goal. We all, of course, must be wary of systems—such as the whole ripcord welfare state—that systematize increasing dependence, but we must also remember a basic truth about human beings: We are interdependent. I myself am not attempting to live on a completely selfsufficient farm. I never have . . . isolation is not part of my basic philosophy. The point is that we don't necessarily have to be dependent in some of the ways that we've chosen to be. I do, though, believe that a person's ties should be strongest to his or her local community, with looser bonds connecting him or her to larger communities.
In fact, there isn't a doubt in my mind that the average North American's life would improve if our society became more community based . . . if, say, cities like Seattle or little Port Townsend here developed symbiotic relationships with the surrounding farmland, so thatfor example—the effluent of an urban community could become a tool for keeping the land around the city fertile. Such an interlocked region would be able to establish a self-sustaining cycle and not have to waste energy trucking fertilizers and food over long distances.
PLOWBOY: And do you see increased local autonomy as an inevitable part of our future?
HERBERT: Small areas are definitely going to have to become more independent. Look at energy, for instance. There's a growing shift to alternative fuels, and there's no way in the world the OPEC nations can stop it. Now the most attractive of the new power sources that I see on the horizon is hydrogen. Hydrogen burns cleanly—the by—product of its combustion is water-and has about a six-to-one energy-to-weight advantage compared to the best conventional jet fuel. In addition, we already have the technology to make hydrogen, in a hydride form, safer to handle than gasoline.
PLOWBOY: Where would we get the energy to produce hydrogen fuel?
HERBERT: We have wind, the tides, the temperature differential in the ocean . . . there's an enormous amount of untapped energy. And the real importance of such diversified power resources will be the fact that communities will be able to make their own fuel.
Now you must recognize that any change which makes small areas more independent will have both good and bad aspects. After all, there is something to be said for the glue that holds us together as a society.
1981: The Plowboy Interview //
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mother Earth News: May/June 1981
The Plowboy Interview: Frank Herbert
By the Mother Earth News editors
SCIENCE FICTION'S "YELLOW JOURNALIST" IS A HOMESTEADING "TECHNOPEASANT"
PLOWBOY: What other factors do you think will influence this decentralization?
HERBERT: We've opened up the Pandora's box of violent technology. We're fast approaching a time when one person can make and employ instruments of violence equal to the ones formerly reserved only to massive governments.
Let's face it, our society has a tiger by the tail in technology. We can't let go. We can't all go back to the farm and be selfsufficient. There isn't enough land to do so, for one thing. Furthermore, people's expectations for their lifestyles have been raised . . . and you don't monkey around with human expectations. So what we need is a new way of relating to our society and its tools. And it was in an attempt to envision just such a change that, some 15 years ago, I coined the phrase "technopeasantry".
PLOWBOY: How would you define technopeasantry?
HERBERT: It involves drawing support from technology, but doing so imaginatively. We have to ask the question, "What elements of technology should I use and how should I use them?" A peasant knows, you see, when and why to grab a shovel or a hoe. In the same way, we have to think out our own relationship to the complete environment, our own values and technological options . . . and make decisions consciously.
Too often today people don't examine or question their basic assumptions. Let me give you an example. I once taught a course, at the University of Washington, that was called Utopia/Dystopia. It was billed as an examination of the current state of our country and our myths of the "better life" . . . only I had trouble getting my students to really investigate their own premises about technology and lifestyle.
So I hit on the idea of taking them out for along weekend hike in the Olympic mountains . . . in the early spring when I knew the weather was going to be cold and rainy. All I told my class was, "We'll be out in the Olympics for two nights. It's going to rain. Bring your gear, food, and paper and pencils for taking notes. I'll meet you at the trail's head."
Now, I'm a hedonist in the wilderness. I own a good down sleeping bag and a fine one-man tent with a fly, and carry a very light pack stocked with trail food and the like. Naturally, my gear is pretty much a product of high technology.
Once we all got up to our campsite—at a place called the Flats—I set up my tent, dug a drain trench, stashed some firewood under the canopy for the morning, and helped organize the evening meal. We ate and hit the sack . . . and then the rain came. Well, I was quite dry and comfortable in my tent, but a lot of my students weren't so well prepared: During the night, I heard voices crying, "My sleeping bag's all wet! " or "God, it's cold! " I simply rolled over and went back to sleep.
The next morning, I got up early and built a big fire. The shivering students soon gathered round, we scrounged together something to eat, and afterward I told them to get their note pads. Then I said, "OK, the bomb just dropped and we're all that's left. How much of our former technology do we try to reconstitute?" Well, let me tell you . . . those cold, wet people who had eaten an inadequate breakfast looked at society's technology a good bit more closely than they had when sitting in a comfortable university classroom. Students who'd been saying things like "Oh sure, I could do without all this stuff" began to ask some basic questions, and to comprehend that technology isn't bad in and of itself . . . everything depends on how we use it.
PLOWBOY: You're saying, then, that technopeasantry involves people's questioning their basic assumptions so they can make intelligent decisions about how to use technology?
HERBERT: Well, that's not all there is to it. There're other aspects to questioning how we use technology. For instance, most people today live in a "light switch" society where they have no actual connection to the tools they use. If the light goes off, they have to call the building superintendent to come repair it. Knowledge has become institutionalized into specialties, and individuals have continually less and less power over their lives.
We need to use technology differently so that people can understand their tools . . . and so they can be put back in touch with the natural world. In fact, one of the things our society needs desperately is a way for people to touch the earth personally and gain the restorative strength that comes with weeding or shoveling, from really getting their hands dirty. We need ways that men and women can see the direct results of their efforts.
PLOWBOY: Would it be correct to say that technopeasantry can help develop a sense of self-worth in the individual?
HERBERT: Yes, but there's more to it, yet. We have to learn to recognize that we're always going to make some mistakes, and—knowing that—we shouldn't tie our careers and self-esteem to decisions that could later prove to be the wrong ones. People must be able to say freely, "Hey, that turned out not to be such a good idea. I'd better not do that anymore."
PLOWBOY: The more you describe this concept, the more it encompasses! You're proposing that people learn to consciously judge what tools they use . . . to employ technologies that they control and not those that control there . . . and to evaluate and reevaluate all the ramifications of using each specific technology. Frankly, the thought that humans may someday be able to make so many carefully thought—out value decisions has the ring of an idealistic dream.
HERBERT: Well, it's not going to happen overnight . . . unless we have a cataclysmic disaster-like some very traumatic natural phenomenon or an enormously destructive atomic war—which requires that we take such new directions in order to survive.
PLOWBOY: Assuming that we won't be forced into new behavior patterns by a catastrophe, how do you envision the change taking place?
HERBERT: As a result of social evolution. When individuals start making technopeasant choices—such as converting an inner city attic into a greenhouse—and demonstrating that doing so can be both personally rewarding and quite effective, more and more people will be drawn to such actions.
PLOWBOY: So you see the individual drive to achieve self-sufficiency as a catalyst of the movement toward what you call technopeasantry?
HERBERT: Hold on there! Yes, individuals will lead the way to a technopeasant society, but I've never said that people should strive for absolute self-reliance. I think relative freedom from dependency ought to be our goal. We all, of course, must be wary of systems—such as the whole ripcord welfare state—that systematize increasing dependence, but we must also remember a basic truth about human beings: We are interdependent. I myself am not attempting to live on a completely selfsufficient farm. I never have . . . isolation is not part of my basic philosophy. The point is that we don't necessarily have to be dependent in some of the ways that we've chosen to be. I do, though, believe that a person's ties should be strongest to his or her local community, with looser bonds connecting him or her to larger communities.
In fact, there isn't a doubt in my mind that the average North American's life would improve if our society became more community based . . . if, say, cities like Seattle or little Port Townsend here developed symbiotic relationships with the surrounding farmland, so thatfor example—the effluent of an urban community could become a tool for keeping the land around the city fertile. Such an interlocked region would be able to establish a self-sustaining cycle and not have to waste energy trucking fertilizers and food over long distances.
PLOWBOY: And do you see increased local autonomy as an inevitable part of our future?
HERBERT: Small areas are definitely going to have to become more independent. Look at energy, for instance. There's a growing shift to alternative fuels, and there's no way in the world the OPEC nations can stop it. Now the most attractive of the new power sources that I see on the horizon is hydrogen. Hydrogen burns cleanly—the by—product of its combustion is water-and has about a six-to-one energy-to-weight advantage compared to the best conventional jet fuel. In addition, we already have the technology to make hydrogen, in a hydride form, safer to handle than gasoline.
PLOWBOY: Where would we get the energy to produce hydrogen fuel?
HERBERT: We have wind, the tides, the temperature differential in the ocean . . . there's an enormous amount of untapped energy. And the real importance of such diversified power resources will be the fact that communities will be able to make their own fuel.
Now you must recognize that any change which makes small areas more independent will have both good and bad aspects. After all, there is something to be said for the glue that holds us together as a society.