Goodbye Part Deux

I know it's somewhat annoying to be so "mysterious," but what I have to say is important to me and I want to get it right. Getting things right take time (are you hearing this, corporate master?).

While working just now for that same corporate master, I came across this biased assertion in our world history textbook. The subject is imperialism:

"Nevertheless, colonial rule did bring some benefits to Southeast Asia. It led to the beginnings of a modern economic system."

Hmmm.

I am reading a book right now that is having the same impact on me at this stage in my life as The Dharma Bums had on me in my early twenties. The book is called The Contrary Farmer and is written by Gene Logsdon, a fellow Buckeye-stater who owns a 38-acre organic farm in the north-central region. He has written several how-to books about organic homesteading. I stumbled across it quite by accident at the local library. It's amazing how life sometimes throws you directions clearly labelled "Hey Dumbass--Go THIS way." This book is quickly becoming The Way. And I've only just finished chapter 2.

Chapter 2, by the way, deals with pastoral economics vs. industrial economics. Mr. Logsdon, ("Gene") is a fan of the former. In an eggshell, pastoral economics means not borrowing interest-laden money unless absolutely necessary, utilizing the barter system, keeping the economy as local as possible, and thus freeing yourself from the chains of the work, borrow, spend, pay interest model of the industrial economy that the Europeans so graciously brought to those primitive Southeast Asians. The industrial economy, on the other hand, is based on expanding the economy--growing, growing, growing, profit, profit, profit--without much thought of how much of both is really necessary. We've given it the right of way.

For the Southeast Asians, were "railroads, highways, and other structures" worth the end of their independence and a way of life that sustained them for thousands of years? Have you ever stopped to really think about how biased we are against "peasants" and other unmechanized farmers and their communities? How we seem to automatically assume that modernizing and mechanizing lead to a better quality of life, and then work all the time to stay ever more modern and ever more mechanized?

Further, we've divorced ourselves from nature so radically that we don't even think about doing things that not only work with nature, but also make sense in the industrial economy. I see all of these "mushroom houses" springing up all over the exurban area, yet the builders will put a wall of windows on the north side of the house and few on the south side. So the homeowners (who need to work all damn day just to pay for the monstrosity) have to pay to burn fossil fuels to heat the house, which is almost assuredly more house than they need. One of my stepsisters and her husband built a nice, modest-by-suburban-standards house in the country. They own dozens of acres of land, many of them wooded. There's no woodstove in that house. They heat it entirely with propane. Kevin and I use the wood from their land to heat our home, and the furnace has come on just a few times this winter.

I'm ranting now, and moving further and further away from the carefully crafted post abrewin' in my head. But this should give you an inkling of our plans.

More to come.