Lost Forever.
Our house receives many a farm publication. We have not looked for magazines that actually pertain to what we do. Instead we get crap like FarmJournal, which runs with the byline “production policy technology.”
In boredom, I sometimes flip through. The other day I ran across an article about long-term weather forecasting. The opening paragraph:
Technology will save us all. <---sarcasm
What I wouldn’t give to have the pre-industrial knowledge of generational farming communities when it comes to things like the weather. The author compares this knowledge with that found in the estimable Farmer’s Almanac, that treasure trove of unadulterated made-up rube-colored bull shit. No no no no. People, when they live a certain way for a long time, learn things. Wisdom is gained. Not bits that can be fed into a database, not information, but wisdom. They could see things we don’t know to even look for. There was at one time known more about farming than there is now.
We only have the tiniest glimmers of what was known, mostly in the form of questionable at best wive’s tales and rural lore. The thickness of the band on a wolly-worm to predict the severity of the winter to come. Red sky at night. Knee high.
Steve Talbott was once my hero. He’s on my sidebar under goodness. He used to edit a (now defunct) newsletter. He opened my eyes to many a thing I had previously blissfully left unthunk. He started with contextual science and expanded from there. Here is one article that deals with the Bushmen and what and why they know it. Here is a second article from the same publication. Lowell Monk is the author. It’s less directly related to this issue, but is more generally a critical view of our unadulterated love of improving efficiencies through tweaking technology to serve our needs.
I want the Bushman’s understanding. I want a blind man’s sense of perception. I want to know what other before me took thousands of years to know. But those things are lost. We didn’t want them. Traded them in for shiny trinkets. Beads for Manhattan and all that. We’re the world-uninformed Indians in this trade.
In boredom, I sometimes flip through. The other day I ran across an article about long-term weather forecasting. The opening paragraph:
Farmers 100 years ago watched animal behavior as a sign of what was to come weatherwise, and for years, agriculturalists have trusted the Farmer’s Almanac which uses mathematical and astronomical formulas to make forecasts as far as two years in advance. Now, the science of predicting weather has undergone revolutionary changes, with advances in computer technology helping meteorologists fine-tune the probabilities of longer range forecasts.
Technology will save us all. <---sarcasm
What I wouldn’t give to have the pre-industrial knowledge of generational farming communities when it comes to things like the weather. The author compares this knowledge with that found in the estimable Farmer’s Almanac, that treasure trove of unadulterated made-up rube-colored bull shit. No no no no. People, when they live a certain way for a long time, learn things. Wisdom is gained. Not bits that can be fed into a database, not information, but wisdom. They could see things we don’t know to even look for. There was at one time known more about farming than there is now.
We only have the tiniest glimmers of what was known, mostly in the form of questionable at best wive’s tales and rural lore. The thickness of the band on a wolly-worm to predict the severity of the winter to come. Red sky at night. Knee high.
Steve Talbott was once my hero. He’s on my sidebar under goodness. He used to edit a (now defunct) newsletter. He opened my eyes to many a thing I had previously blissfully left unthunk. He started with contextual science and expanded from there. Here is one article that deals with the Bushmen and what and why they know it. Here is a second article from the same publication. Lowell Monk is the author. It’s less directly related to this issue, but is more generally a critical view of our unadulterated love of improving efficiencies through tweaking technology to serve our needs.
I want the Bushman’s understanding. I want a blind man’s sense of perception. I want to know what other before me took thousands of years to know. But those things are lost. We didn’t want them. Traded them in for shiny trinkets. Beads for Manhattan and all that. We’re the world-uninformed Indians in this trade.
posted by Lord of the Barnyard at 11:17 AM
8 Comments:
Is what you're talking about "tribal memory?" We depend too much on technology. That's why I love camping so much. It reminds me of how things were done way back, and we even have nifty stuff from REI, so it's not even TRULY what things were like. Good post.
Great post. I'm a liitle more optimistic than you, though, about lost knowledge. Perhaps it isn't lost forever.
The fact that some of us (farmers) have noticed it's gone is a good first step toward rediscovering it.
You don't talk to enough old people. The right kind of old person, one who isn't crazy, diseased, has selective memory loss, or bitter. There is a subculture of people who gather this old person knowledge though they wouldn't ever have to farm or cook or live using what they've learned. Find an old person and stop whining.
i think i agree with both joe and midget pirate. not that she knows as much as you long to know, but, you should have a talk with my mother, for starters...
if it's in the 50's or above -
(because below that temp crickets don't chirp)
count the number of chirps of a cricket for 15 seconds - then add 40. equals the temperature. or damn close.
thanks for comments. i liked this post. i am a cynical man, but i will admit that maybe not all is lost. and then i'll add another: but.
i think that of what little is left, most of what we knew has been distilled down into these quotable little nuggets. i have a low opinion of these quotable little nuggets.
it's the knowledge that sprang them that i want to tap. maybe there are still people who knew some of it around but i'm mostly mourning what has been lost for more than 200 years.
Often times, building such a lexicon of knowledge, and being able to draw upon it, requires one to dissociate from other bodies of knowledge, other communities, other perspectives of seeing the world.
I'm thinking of the tribal communities in the Andaman Isles off the coast of India. When the 2004 Tsunami hit, relatively few were killed b/c their tribe knew how to 'read the wind' and knew what was a'coming. But their community also physically lives on an isolated island, protected from being contacted by the modern world by the Indian Government. They were throwing stones at helicopters trying to drop off relief supplies. Sad that the modern world thought these people would know what to do with some first-aid kits. Sad that these people thought stones and arrows would protect them again a helicopter.
I think preserving such knowledge is near impossible. Those islanders' way of life is only around b/c of the good graces of the modern world. And those people will never benefit from seeing the beauty of a canvas painting, the thrill of racing a bicycle at high speeds down a steep hill, or even appreciating the work that goes into running a farm in Ohio.
How does one find congruency in desiring a more natural way of life that is in sync with the earth once we've been 'privy' to the miracles of a civilized society?
thanks, jason.
we know how to post to our livejournal from our mobile phones in exchange for not knowing what that frog croak could tell us?
we are not nesc winners in this trade-off. nor am i sure that a trade-off is nescessary. why cannot we know the old truths in this new world?
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