We all live within a society and are intimately affected by our cultural surroundings. It is therefore appropriate when thinking about peoplecare to look beyond our own direct interactions and explore the wider context of society and the bigger systems we are part of.
This part follows the three basic steps of design. This chapter takes a wide perspective on where we are, to gain an understanding of some of the cultural forces at play.
The next chapter focuses on where we want to be with more peoplecare integrated into the infrastructure of our education, healthcare systems and intergenerational activities.
The following chapter asks how we get there. We again take a broad view of the mechanisms that can be utilised to create change, and the steps we could take individually and collectively.
How can we get an accurate picture of what is happening regionally and nationally around us? Can we obtain reliable information that we can use to assess the health and happiness of the systems we are part of and read the signs of what is to come?
Our regular sources of information are the media, internet, scientists, anthropologists and sociologists. Gossip and discussions with people also provide us with informal material. Almost all of this information is second hand; it has come from someone else and has already been edited and interpreted. It may be translated with filters of stereotypes, generalisations and other biases. We can observe what is going on in ourselves and what we feel and sense about the world as a mirror for what is happening in the wider picture. This gives us one avenue into the bigger picture but it is still only part of it, and we are likely to be looking at this through the filters of our own circumstances.
Reality is multifaceted and each of these sources of information tends to be looking in one direction predominately. Let’s think of the information we get in terms of which of the Six Thinking Hats are used.
The statistics that we are presented with come from a white thinking hat. We have measurements that can be used as indicators. While they are presented as facts and truths, they are still only a part of the picture; statistics can be manipulated depending on the standpoint and what you want to show. Sometimes statistics are hidden behind, or used to avoid the real issues; time is spent debating when the ‘peak’ of peak oil actually is. This is akin to finding a leaking tap and spending time discussing how much water is being lost before working out how to fix it. We will see in the next part how statistics have been used to give us a representation of the global picture and provide motivations for change.
As the saying goes, ‘bad news sells newspapers’. The daily news focuses almost solely on the black hat. It reports what has gone wrong in the world today. What the traumas are, the disasters waiting to happen, how bad things are and how bad they could get.
To get a sense of the red hat and how people feel and what emotions are present in our communities, we can observe the people directly around us: our friends and strangers in shops or on the streets. What emotions are being expressed, what is their body language saying to us? The news is often watched from an intellectual perspective focusing on policies and strategies rather than the feelings and the people. There is a disconnection with the red hat. The Great Turning will involve reawakening the feelings of pain and anguish about the pains of the world, as well as the pleasure and enjoyment for the delights the Earth offers us.
Positive News1 is a newspaper that intentionally gives a voice to the yellow hat, to show how much good there is happening, and be evidence for the constructive actions that are taking place across the globe. It now includes pages dedicated to permaculture and the Transition movement. It is easy to get caught up with what we haven’t done and where the problems are, both personally and as a society. Using the yellow hat we can celebrate our achievements and restore our faith in humanity. There are inspirational magazines, books and websites that provide the seeds of hope and optimism for the future. Permaculture magazine2 gives practical solutions for earthcare, peoplecare and fair shares, and it unites people working together for positive change. Through sharing of our real-life experiences we are able to focus our attention on bringing the changes we would like to see in the world.
Spending time with like-minded people can kindle our confidence in a bright future, and help us to see the benefits of the present. Using the yellow hat we can be appreciative of the small, personal things around us in our communities, the kindness and smiles of strangers and local shops. We can start to see the resources and capacity we have to change. Even observing that many people are becoming angry and disillusioned is a positive and necessary step towards change.
If we think about how the voice of women has grown around the world over the last couple of centuries, and the many choices we have today with more women coming into leadership, then there is hope for the gender gap to diminish further.
The green hat encourages us to use our creativity to see where the alternatives to the mainstream are, to look at edges and other cultures. Humans are incredibly innovative and resourceful and this hat encourages us to open up to creative solutions.
The blue hat wants to gain an overview and be able to look in all directions and see the picture as a whole. The blue hat would ask who is part of the discussion and who is under-represented, ensuring that information is gathered from all directions and that there is a flow of the observations into decisions and action. Blue hat thinking would verify our conclusions and check they are not based on assumptions.
The view we have of the world depends on where we are standing and in which direction we are looking. For example, we might think that most people get their food from supermarkets these days, but in fact the supermarket ‘food chain’ feeds only 30% of the world. Seventy per cent of the humans on the planet are still fed by the peasant food web.3
When we move to the edge we can turn our attention to a new reality and see there is another culture that can exist, other ways of being in the world.
There are many problems around us today. Each ethic has been compromised in a myriad of ways by the actions of humans. Debt, crime, violence and unemployment are rising. The feelings of isolation from ourselves, others and nature lead to further health and social problems. Prejudices and drink and drug abuse are prevalent, and there are massive inequalities of wealth, opportunity and health. These are to name but a few.
The problems at large in society are a mirror of personal problems. In addition to this scaling up of personal problems we have emergent properties and the problems themselves lead to larger-scale side effects. With a global system the reactions and effects of our actions are often out of sight.
We could see these as symptoms, showing us that there is an illness in society. These problems can be so deeply woven into the fabric of society with such a cyclical, complex web of interconnections, that it can be difficult to trace the causes. These might be actions of individuals but they are showing the voice of the collective. Somehow our cultures are failing to meet our needs. There are deep needs in society for belonging and trust amongst others that are widely unmet.
Instead of spending too much time describing where we are, we can ask the questions of how and why are we here, what the symptoms and causes are. The question could evolve into ‘what one thing could we change that would have the most positive ripple effect on the problems of society?’ In effect we are looking for points of intervention4 and transformation, the place of minimum effort and maximum effect. The following are suggestions of possible transformation activities.
What I like about these is that we are all able to start them immediately, as individuals. We don’t need to wait for others or for the right time, and as more and more people become involved there will be faster transformation and wider impacts.
Focusing on the limits anchor point enables us to find ways to release their hold and move forward. What are the limiting factors for achieving a socially just and sustainable future? What’s taking us off in the wrong direction? Is it lack of information, imagination, education or resources?
Perhaps we do not have a clear vision of what we would actually like as a society, and share the ambition of wanting to get there. If we knew where we wanted to get to, and were all aligned to the values of co-operation and sustainability we would be able to prioritise actions that took us in this direction. The overemphasis on creating material and financial capital is pulling us away from creating living, social and cultural capital.
People need access to attractive alternative ways of living. It is not encouraging people to live sustainably when we are given beliefs like ‘It’s not easy being green’. This was the title of an otherwise excellent British television series. Again the television and media are feeding on the drama and the challenges rather than the joys, benefits and the ease. Another television programme focused on the negative responses when a family is faced with an abrupt, shocking change to a low impact lifestyle for two weeks. On return to their home lives they did however go on to make several significant changes. Successful small steps lead us to bigger changes.
With more people stepping forth into their own power and brilliance we can create a groundswell of movement into a positive future. We need to change the current trajectory as well as create forward motion.
We currently have on the planet enough skills and resources to feed, clothe and provide shelter for every single person, as well as begin to address the issues of climate change, deforestation and loss of habitat. Paradigms of fear and greed are controlling the distribution systems. There are grossly unfair skews of poverty and wealth on the planet and the gap is growing. We need co-operation, vision, joined up long-term thinking and a shift of paradigm to one of connection, peace and abundance.
For the vast majority of people there is a gap between how we would like our lives to be and how they are. While we can certainly take action for ourselves to improve our own lives, and expand into our own radiance, there are times when the culture we live in does not support us in this. It is appropriate to ask the question of how can we facilitate cultural shifts to sustainable behaviours that will lead us towards an Earth culture?
Cultures are composed of more than just external behaviours. In order to shift cultures we have to work on the underlying beliefs as well.
The Integral Model from Ken Wilbur5 provides us with a useful framework for understanding the connections between the individual and collective and the inner and outer. These are the two axes that cross to provide us with four quadrants.
We are looking here at the wider collective in society but it could be as small as two people. This model applies equally well to our groups and one to one relationships.
The left quadrants are the internal landscapes, the hidden processes, individually and collectively. The right quadrants are the physical aspects that are visible, the behaviours and social structures we have in place.
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Individual |
Outer |
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Inner |
WHY I DO Intentions and beliefs Assumptions Emotions |
WHAT I DO Behaviours Biological functions Physical states |
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WHY WE DO Cultural beliefs Norms, worldviews Organisational culture Collective wisdom Visions and dreams |
WHAT WE DO Social, political, economic, organisational structures, processes and systems, including health, food and education systems |
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Collective |
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Every problem has corresponding issues in each of the four quadrants. There are resistances and limiting factors in every one, and each quadrant influences every other. For instance we may want to change our eating habits, but the social networks for buying seasonal, local food are not present.
There is often a focus on the outer changes and trying to establish new systems and behaviours. But if people have no internal awareness about peak oil then a new public transport system won’t necessarily be used.
Another example of outer actions being carried out without the necessary shifts in the inner quadrant, was a carbon neutral fund cutting down an ancient woodland to make way for planting new trees to offset the carbon footprint of big companies. This emphasises how the inner thinking needs to be in line with the outer actions or you can get nonsensical actions.
Solutions can also arise in the four quadrants. The lower right quadrant contains our collective wisdom as well as our cultural theories, dreams and visions. Our cultural capital is held here, and we can tap into this to create a sense of ‘we’. Through the stories we tell about ourselves and our culture we can strengthen our sense of unity, diversity and resilience.
We will look at the cultural conditioning, beliefs and identities within the internal collective quadrant before moving on to some of the systems in place in the outer collective quadrant.
Conditioning is a way of patterning our brains to certain ways of thinking and behaving. Conditioning has its uses; we are able to communicate quicker with each other when we have mutual understandings of the parameters in which we operate.
Our cultural conditioning predominantly comes from the media, religious structures, parenting and schooling. We are subtly given messages about how we should be and what to believe. Music is also a way in which we receive messages about the world. All of these messages are drip-fed into our consciousness and we are often not even aware of their effect. Often the images we are shown give us a false sense of family, life and how we can be as humans. Advertising is constantly telling us that what we have is not enough and that we need more to be happy and successful.
The consequences of these messages are far-reaching. People are unaware of their own capabilities when they buy into the messages about what they should be doing. Conditioning inhibits systems to demonstrate their own evolution, to find their own path in life, whether as an individual or collectively. Towns are losing their local identity as they are swallowed up by chain stores. Conditioning leads us away from a diversity of thinking and behaving into a monoculture of being, where we have less creativity and choices.
Many of the messages encourage a competitive outlook on life. The overriding behavioural pattern is a hierarchical branching pattern. Patterns of co-operation and the lobe pattern are given much less attention.
The types of abundance we focus on depend on the values that our society gives to them. Is it our education, community, family ties or is it material possessions and money that are valued and invested in?
Our family upbringing and peer groups also provide us with a set of rules, habits and ways of being. We have cultural norms, which we want to follow even though they are not rules. When asked ‘how are you?’ it is a cultural norm to reply ‘I’m fine’. This isn’t a rule of language, but it is accepted as a reply. We have cultural norms about whether we can talk about the problems of the world and how they affect us. Are we heard or does it make people feel uncomfortable? One of the benefits of the Transition movement is that it has opened up a forum for people to talk about these issues. By engaging in dialogue we open up to solutions emerging.
We have cultural norms about how we look, sound and even smell. Can we smell of wood smoke? There are cultural levels of complaining, judging, criticising, complimenting, self-appreciation and happiness.
We can get swept up in the currents, like in rush hour coming off the train. Which rivers do you want to step into? The river of permaculture can take us to unexpected places. When enough of us look towards an Earth culture the impetus will create the Great Turning.
Here are just a few of the common cultural beliefs that can hold us back:
Let’s take the last one and look at the consequences of this belief. If people are looking for an easy way out then they won’t see challenges as exciting, inspiring and opportunities for growth, but something to avoid. If alongside this we are told that living sustainably is hard work, we are going to shy away from these changes.
In contrast permaculture has cultural beliefs of abundance; we can make a difference; there are solutions; interconnectedness; valuing every contribution.
Paying attention to our cultural patterns, beliefs and conditioning is key to designing a positive future.
For one day remove yourself from the messages of the media. For this day avoid newspapers and television. More of a challenge perhaps will be to avoid reading the adverts that surround us in towns and cities. You could choose to read only positive magazines and newspapers for the day.
Notice your reactions that day and also the following day when you re-engage.
We all have cultural groups we associate with, based on our gender, race or religion. We are connected to large numbers of people by having some commonality, without even knowing most of them. Other groups may form out of bioregions, skills and interests. For some of us these associations are strong and meaningful. We may flow in and out of some groups and others we stay with for life. Cultural groups have common beliefs, assumptions, goals and values comprising their own unique collective internal quadrant.
The groups we belong to form sub-cultures of their own. These may be very distinct from others. Cultural identities can be a blessing or a curse.
The advantages of group identity:
The disadvantages of group identities:
When a group of people come together there are many benefits to creating a strong identity, though it can seem like a closed clique from the outside. The identity can create an ‘us and them’ perception from both the inside and the outside of the group. With identity being an important need for the group and not something we want to do away with, the question becomes how to create an ‘us’ without creating a ‘them’? This question is relevant for many different scales, from small groups to whole countries. Identity and belonging are deep needs. However, identity can foster feelings of exclusion and alienation from those on the ‘outside’. By being aware, celebrating diversity and seeing edges as fuzzy, fluid boundaries we are more able to remain open and tolerant.
If we want to engage more people in working towards regeneration and social change we need to ensure that such work is not seen as impenetrable. New people need to be able to get involved and feel welcome.
Throughout history and all over the globe groups have tried to dominate over one another. People have used their group identity to divide and rule. They have tried to protect and maintain the boundaries of their group. They come from a place of ‘we are right, they are wrong’. One group acts from a perceived hierarchy and wants power over other groups. This perception of being better or above is also instrumental in our actions towards the planet.
The dualistic thinking that separates you from me continues to whole groups of people, and allows us to distance ourselves from feeling the effects of any harm that is caused. In fact, we are just hiding from the effects; they still enter our lives under our radar.
The oppression of people on the basis of their gender, race, age, even looks and size, is deep-rooted in our culture. Even while overt discrimination has been tackled to some degree in the law there are many residues left in our societal behaviour and cultural psyche. These have ripples into our own internal landscape and the external quadrants. We need to look deeper at the underlying messages that are being transferred, particularly in the media, looking out for the subtle messages of superiority, inferiority and oppression. The first step is to recognise and name them, not allowing them to go on unsaid.
Groups oppress others because they want to control things, protect themselves and acquire resources. They prevent the flow of information to the oppressed group to keep it in a place of disempowerment so it is subservient. The effects of oppression are frustration, helplessness, anger, fear and poverty of resources as well as financial poverty.
Cultures, like people and trees, have varying rates of growth and development. Oppression is working against the nature of the person or the group and not allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolution.
Often the oppressed become oppressor, as an outlet for their frustration, and because they see no alternative way of escaping. The bullied become the bully. This is seen in the caste system in India where castes are oppressed by the castes above them, and they in turn continue to oppress the ones below. Often people at the ‘bottom of the pile’, like disempowered children, abuse animals or vandalise property as a way of expressing their anger.
To deal with oppression, education of the oppressors is needed, otherwise conflict will ensue as the oppressed try and break free.
How much are we heard and listened to within our communities? We can have earned and unearned influence. Tribal elders have earned their influence by having a proven track record for making decisions and learning from their mistakes. In our groups and communities we can allow people to earn influence by giving them responsibilities and supporting them to carry them out.
Privilege is when we have unearned influence from our group identity rather than earned from things we have done ourselves. This could be from our gender, nationality, race, class or parents. A university degree will give you influence and in some respect you have earned this by studying, but there is also perhaps an element of being able to go to university because you or your parents had the money to send you, and better opportunities during your schooling.
Privilege can come from owning land, going to expensive schools, having money, being healthy, speaking English, being able to read and write, where we live, our looks or having access to information via books and the internet. People who are on low incomes, in debt, parents without childcare, homeless people, refugees and asylum seekers all have less privilege, with the latter even being oppressed by the law. We may be in the middle somewhere with more privilege than most in the world (you are able to read this book) and less than others. Privilege is sometimes confused with value; we misguidedly place value on ourselves or others according to how much privilege we have.
The privileges we have in society may well be invisible to us, our ability to read for example taken for granted. When we are working as change agents in society we need to be aware of the unconscious barriers that may be present for people with less privilege than ourselves. Rather than pushing our own agenda on to them we can spend time listening to find out what their needs are, approaching people with respect and integrity and making alliances by going to them rather than wanting them to come to us. If we are trying to work in subcultures other than our own, we can take time observing what the group norms are, rather than making assumptions that things will operate in the same way we are used to.
Acknowledgement of privilege is the first step to gaining a more level playing field and addressing some of the issues needed in order to achieve fair shares.
We move now to the outer quadrants of the Integral Model. The running of our society is based on bigger systems. Systems embedded into our societal framework are healthcare, education, social care, food distribution, transport, sewage and financial systems. All of these systems could benefit from a permaculture design to enhance overall peoplecare. The next chapter will focus on improvements that could be made to our education and healthcare systems, as these represent two major aspects of peoplecare.
These systems all have various elements in common. They are mostly based on top-down hierarchies of governance and management. The development of these systems is often based on input from select workers and users. There is so much these days that is being taken out of our control, centralisation leaving the people on the ground powerless for everyday decisions. Teachers in schools can no longer make decisions over what to teach and find unique pathways for their students. Paperwork is taking over hospitals. Meanwhile the people at the top are only able to deal in patterns and are mostly unaware of the details of the schools, hospitals and towns. While it is good to begin a design looking at the patterns, we need to work from these to the details, so that the design fits the unique situation. By trying to avoid looking at the details and assuming all towns are the same, we are getting ever pushed in the direction of a monocultural society.
A lot of the thoughts behind the running of these systems are short term. Ideas to invest in long-term solutions or equipment get swallowed up by the constraints of ‘this year’s budget’.
We are lucky to have free schooling and healthcare for all in the UK. The overall idea of everyone paying something to pay for bigger systems to meet everyone’s needs is a valid one. It has enabled the systems to advance and develop and be much more resourceful than could otherwise have happened. However, one of the consequences of collective systems is that they can allow us to become lazy and not take self-responsibility for our own needs. With our health there is a reliance on doctors to ‘make us better’. Having schools to teach our children means we don’t need to maintain and continue our own education. With mass food distribution systems there is less incentive to grow our own food.
Upgrading our social systems could include people becoming more responsible and self-reliant. The advances are not about dismantling the existing systems, which would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. They are about allowing the systems to be adaptive and improve with our changing times, and having the resources to be able to cope with a shifting world and needs.
Currently we see:
Resulting in degradation, dependency and disempowerment.
What we want is:
Resulting in regenerative, productive, self reliant and empowering systems