Community Ethics

We talk of intentional communities but it is not enough to be intentional. One must have ethics. It is said that permaculture Ethics include:

Care for the Earth

Care for People

Return the Surplus

Ethics are "rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad."

Since permaculture is dealing with Nature the ethics must be natural. From the begining God commanded man to tend to the weightier matters of Nature.

"And the LORD God took the man,
and put him into the garden of Eden
to dress it and to keep it." Genesis 2:15

Communities must have ethics as well and many ancient cultures have summarized those rules. The ancient Egyptians had a list of rules which expressed their ethics or law call Maat. The Ten Commandments of Israel were just an abbreviated form of these rules and are still seen over the supreme court of nations as basic and fundamental yet not always applied equally in all things.

While the Law of the Maat was exemplified in 42 Negative Confessions Maat was the spirit in which justice was applied rather than the detailed legalistic exposition of rules. The same is true of the Mosaic Law.

If the law is Spirit and there is a Law of Nature then nature conforms to the law. Nature is the manifestation of the God of Nature and exemplifies the righteousness of nature and of God, defining God as the Creator of Nature.

So to establish the ethics of a PermaComunity we may say in the Spirit of the law of Nature say:

Seek Righteousness

Cultivate a love for the People

Share the Surplus

Nature is a system of systems. While the earth is composed of elements like atoms particles and molecules their arrangements in ecosystems forms units within Nature. Every creature is a unite composed of systems but even units may gather and form systems we call communities. see Permaculture

Intentional Communities should consider Permaculture if they are to form PermaCommunities.

While individuals are the primary unit of a community the community itself is an entity.

The individual does not reproduce without an organic union for the purpose of reproduction. Nature draws individuals together but with that purpose. No purpose is truly isolated in nature so the draw without reproduction frustrates the whole of nature.

The individual has a body with different organs that have a purpose or purposes. The primary organ of society is the family which has multiple purposes and functions.

The elements of a community are the people and their natural needs which includes "relationship" within each organic unit (family) and the other elements of community and their natural needs of those units.

Mankind is gregarious.

Natural systems share their byproducts with other systems that coexist with them. The elements of the herd need the herd and while they move with a self interest they cling to the whole herd and product all elements of the heard as if protecting themselves.

This is because of "relationship" and mutual identity and natural empathy. Isolating elements of society while important to personal identity can be counter effective to mutual identity.

Gathering together and sharing common difficulties and trial creates relationships that allow life to be shared naturally. Without proper sharing in good or bad times their is no balance in the natural cohesion of a community.

Principles and Function of Permaculture can give us a spiritual overview of a PermaCommunity for all communities are a apart of nature.

• Observation of the rhythms and reason for the driving forces of each unit of the community is essential. To observe you must gather and communicate, share and record within the community as sentient beings with a long term mission.

work in progress

• Connect the related cycles and layers so that they share their surplus creating useful relationships overlapping elements establishing balanced diverse ecosystem.
• Allow the natural storing of energy and materials within the structural elements and cycles. Every store of energy within elements whether living or inert contains potential energy. If energy does not flow, is not used in designed cycles, it will attempt to change. The "flow of resources" is essential to build a capacity for life.
• Each element has function but in its relationships it may provide secondary functions to enhance other elements of the whole system. Location, location, location in a system establishes symbiotic relations and functions stabilizing and storing elements.
• Separate elements function become multiple parts of a whole system to create synergies. Some redundancy not only protects against failure but may add bot competition and variety. Without variety toxins may become imbalanced.
• Work is shared by complimentary systems which require less external management. Nature is always looking for the easiest way to accomplishes the most change.
• Manageable systems have beginnings and ends at first and are eventually strong together into larger systems. All systems are within larger systems but size is an illusion, The smallest cell is a complex system.

Principles for Living and Energy Systems

• Optimize the intersection of environmental elements because systems will compete. Competition is good without altering the elementary needs of an eco-unit to the point of extinction or non-sustainability.
• Collaborate systems so that as they evolve to a climax state new systems can be mapped into a larger or more diverse system cycling with new productivity.
• Renewable resources within our reach. All resources are renewable over time but as finite managers we must reproduce and build within our time or within a few generations.

Be Attitudes

• There are no problems only challenges and opportunities.
• Yield production passing it on to other elements. Share with others within your systems of systems.
• You are the giver of life and the hand of the creator.
• There are no mistakes if we learn their lessons. He who does nothing makes only one mistake.

==Footnotes==