Transition Culture

[…] Final Film from Transition Network Conference 2010 – Reflections … […]

Thanks for this guys 🙂

I observe the changes we are already experiencing, and wonder how I and others will react to a significantly greater loss of the familiar. Stoneleigh’s talk awakened my fear – sensing there is so little of the unfolding future I can control.

My experience and observation is that we create much of our reality with the words we use, and the stories we tell, so thank you for holding to the vision of cooperation and mutual support.

What am i doing to trust people more and have them trust me? What a brilliant question for us all to consider……thanks Peter

Powerful realisation that it’s not about what I do with my money but more about developing the ability to trust people in my community and to earn their trust. It is a personal process for me, and I suppose for most of us, to wean off this insidious sick mindset of capitalism. It’s a way of thinking that is so addictive and pervasive. Thanks for the clarity and inspiration.

This is definitely my favourite of the short films we made of the conference. It seems to have triggered a really powerful response – of the deep, questioning, inspired kind – and one that’s reached so much further into people precisely because it came in the midst of such fear-of-impending-collapse. Thanks Rob & Peter for helping to redirect that surge of urgency…

I found several positive messages in Stoneleigh’s economic forcast:
1. In a deflationary scenario, cash will remain useful, and even become more valuable, rather than being made worthless through hyperinflation. This feels somewhat empowering, as most people or groups can stash at least some cash. Also any investments in assets productive of essentials, such as water harvesting, a garden, solar power, or chickens, will only increase in value.
2. The advice on gold being a good move only if you can hold it 20 or 30 years, seems to anticipate an end point to the crisis, when things will return to some normalcy. –a nice thought.
2. It is assumed governments will remain intact and powerful: short-term government securities are recommended rather than banks, higher taxation is warned of, and the shutting-down of local currencies is anticipated –as happened in Austria during WWII. A comforting thought to expect some functioning government to remain.
3. Investments in “social capital,” such as volunteering or civic engagement, seems like the most worthwhile of all.

The reflections are far more edifying than the talk itself was. Yes, Stoneleigh put a very well-reasoned and clear argument, but the conclusion – that the most important thing is to look out for each other – was not as convincingly argued as the case for getting one’s own financial house in order.

Thank goodness for Rob and Peter’s analysis, which is uplifting and optimistic for the future.

there needs to be a place for emergency planning – we debated this in response to Richard Heindberg’s presentation/emails last year – stashing cash and functioning governments etc but i’m a bit worried that being defied by the notion of collapse is now entering into the core of Transition “front and centre” as Alex Staffani accused earler – and many of us defended against. I know i signed up to the positive visiony stuff and i’m fully aware of the problems/potential social economic and ecological collapses on the horizon. but i’m aware of not defined by these problems. i think there needs to be a bit more debate about how we intend to go forward. becuase we seem to be being dragged along by fear….

Some very insightful comments from Rob and Pete. You certainly put all the “gold, gilts and bonds” boll**** in it’s proper place.

That said, money remains a tremendously multi faceted, and fascinating subject. In our personal and business (definition of business: other peoples money) relationships, money and the commonly associated derivatives such as self esteem and self expression, often bring out deep and bad tasting conflict.

Yet we have as Peter pointed out huge riches in this society, virtually all of which have come from plundering in the past and, through debt and fossil fuel dependency, from plundering the future. And we are still fixated on this fear of scarcity. I dare say it isn’t a new thing for humanity but it gets ever clearer to me that nowadays in so-called developed economies we have reached the point of almost ubiquitous insanity in the greed for more.

Worse perhaps we delude ourselves that bits of paper with “Food” and “Oil” written on it will satisfy future generations fear of scarcity in the way we are currently able to use them to satisfy ours.

Shane says we seem to be being dragged along by fear, maybe it’s more like being pushed, pulled and booted around by it!

I had a great email from someone about this, which said they were confused as to what ‘gilts’ were, as they had looked them up in the dicitionary, and the only definition they could find was “a young female pig”…..

The infinite debt based growth paradigm is dying;
The question remains what will follow? Fascism,feudalism or co-operative common sense?
What we are facing is the collapse of a global weimar republic and we would all be advised to think about collective strategies to ward off the worst outcomes from what will follow from the unwinding of industrial “civilisation”

Regarding gold versus community: I think the answer is a little bit of both, and both of them together. Preparedness solely on the individual level is practically useless if everyone around you is going crazy. On the other hand, a large number of individuals who are themselves self-reliant can more easily come together to form a resilient community. Money as a universal means of exchange is still important; it is critical to the functioning of most societies historically. It doesn’t necessarily have to be gold and silver but tends to be. Same is true of food storage and personal defense capability — the benefits accrue mostly when you go from the individual level to the neighborhood or community level.

Regarding fear: Fear is only a temporary motivator. You end up either panicked, paralyzed, or accepting a new vision of the future. But we might find that a new vision of the future is more desirable than the old one anyway. Really: are there any true fans of suburbia out there? Nope, didn’t think so, not many.

Suburbia, with its far-flung dependency, debt, and human detachment, created a subliminal fear of change which induced a kind of sleepwalking through daily life. It wasn’t particularly joyful. It was only tolerable and, for a period of time, safe and reliable — like a pig in a pen. What happens when the bank forecloses? Bewilderment — nobody, including the bank that can’t find the mortgage note, really knows what happened.

Hopefully the future will offer a chance to reorganize on a decentralized, voluntary basis, if we can arrive intact through the mess from now until then.