[Chapter_Fourteen] introductions

Thu Nov 11 11:08:50 PST 2010

Here's what i know about who i am and what brought me here... It's probably incomplete, so feel free to ask questions if anything peeks your interest. 

Last year, the culmination of years of soul searching and living with dissonance exploded and i went back to school to pursue a masters in philosophy (because they were still accepting applications when i decided on rattling up my life).  Several things came together, including my son's decision to pursue a college education a year earlier than expected.  Earlier this year on April 2nd, i quit my corporate job because the dissonance of working for a Big Four Bank and telling everybody to move their money (http://moveyourmoney.info/) became physically unbearable.  Plus, i had all this school work to do... Then over the summer, i read incessantly about stereotypes, system justification and other social psychology stuff.  I became antsy yet again because all the piled up research showed us that humans tend to support the status quo even if it hurts us - but nobody seems to do anything about it (well, except exploit it, like the tea partiers are).  Through a semi-random listen of podcasts, i stumbled on transition towns. And it made so much sense to me!  Finally someone seemed to connect the dots the way i had been.  Oh, one more ingredient to this mad mix:  I am interested in stereotypes of a particular kind: singlism and matrimania.  Singlism is the stereotyping of single people and matrimania (or its unmarried cousin couplemania) is the overvaluation of married people and/or coupling as the solution to everything.  So, when some transition town person suggested that the nuclear family isolated in the suburbs is a contribution to global warming, my thinking felt validated.  Going back to reading just didn't feel good anymore, so i changed up my fall semester and enrolled in an Urban PDC.  What a wonderful decision!  I am still taking classes at SF State - and doing some add-on reading to the PDC to get credit for my masters.  BUT I keep wondering if pursuing a masters in philosophy is the best strategy... I seem to have a knack for having midlife crises within midlife crises (a fractal pattern maybe?).

What brought me onto the list?  I think the only way to truly fight stereotypes is to live together differently.  If i want to fight couplemania, i need to figure out different ways of living together - ways that value people for who they are, not their coupling status.  Chapter 14 has some of the elements of that (notice how Mollison defines family, for example).  And, i am hoping to get out of theory-world into the practical applications of all of this. 

I grew up in Aachen, Germany.  Came to the US back in 1987. Got married. Had a kid & a divorce.  I am trained in economics and marketing research/data analysis, with some philosophy and social psych thrown in - as well as big doses of critical thinking and feminism.  I have virtually no gardening experience and am interested in the non-ag side of permaculture, though that might change. 

And if you think this wasn't verbose enough, you can check out my blog at www.rabe.org and/or follow my personal transition at mytransition.rabe.org (I write about my PDC experience there, too). 

Rachel

On Nov 11, 2010, at 9:55 AM, margaretha haughwout wrote:

> oh, and i am trained as a gardener, a new media artist, a feminist + pedagogue. i grew up in maine.
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 9:50 AM, margaretha haughwout <xmargarethax at gmail.com> wrote:
> shall we introduce ourselves and say what brings us to the conversation? i am wary of throwing weight around our labels as if some of us have more "authority" to speak, so i might suggest we limit that and rather state what our interests are in coming to this list, and the background work that informs that interest. 
> 
> name: margaretha - the h is silent.
> 
> my interest in founding this list is multifold. i started it to help facilitate the sharing of advice on community building within the permaculture movement, as well as for us to deepen our sense of the stakes and to articulate those stakes properly in doing the work that we are doing.  am interested in reaching out to elders in our communities who might be able to advise us younger ones.
> 
> in my PDC, when we got to chapter fourteen the whole class had a total meltdown. we were all very close and felt very positive about one another; then we got to chapter fourteen (the last day) and we imploded. we had very different ideas about what is possible; identity politics became difficult; some made broad sweeping statements that alienated whole swaths of the class. i do believe working out our ideas about what is possible, sharpening our critiques of what isn't working, and working to develop a more ethical worldview that can be articulated and defended can only help our cause/s. 
> 
> so anyway, feel free to work off this thread and introduce yourself!
> 
> /m
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> ♫ Spread the word, please help us support the farm on Kickstarter! http://bit.ly/hvf-kickstarter
> 
> Lead Researcher, Hayes Valley Farm
> http://www.hayesvalleyfarm.com/
> 
> Lecturer, Film and Digital Media
> University of California Santa Cruz
> Communications 151
> 
> chapter fourteen
> http://www.beforebefore.net/
> http://www.bitterpattern.net/
> 
> I am best contacted by email:
> xmargarethax at gmail.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> ♫ Spread the word, please help us support the farm on Kickstarter! http://bit.ly/hvf-kickstarter
> 
> Lead Researcher, Hayes Valley Farm
> http://www.hayesvalleyfarm.com/
> 
> Lecturer, Film and Digital Media
> University of California Santa Cruz
> Communications 151
> 
> chapter fourteen
> http://www.beforebefore.net/
> http://www.bitterpattern.net/
> 
> I am best contacted by email:
> xmargarethax at gmail.com
> 
> _______________________________________________
> chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net mailing list
> chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net at lists.beforebefore.net
> http://lists.beforebefore.net/listinfo.cgi/chapter_fourteen-beforebefore.net

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