We are starting to talk to potential investors about the Farmastery / Lifeboat Academy. I’ve been trying to come up with a way of describing the essence of what we are trying to do, so I’m looking for feedback. The following is a rough draft of something I might develop as a Medium post that could be a sort of brochure blurb about why people might want to invest in this project that we could give to people we meet who are curious. We aren’t thinking this would be everything people need to know - just enough to get them curious enough to continue a conversation. I would love your feedback. What, if anything, resonates with you? Does this sound like something that would appeal to you or people you know? What ideas does it spark in you? Knowing what you know, what aspect would you emphasize or add? Does any part of it turn you off? Let me know in comments.
Investing in what comes next
Investing in the Farmastery is investing in what comes next. It’s a concept that has emerged thru more than a decade of refinement and reality testing, involving hundreds of people and thousands of hours of conversation and experimentation, engaging people who are climate alarmed and collapse aware. More and more people are talking about the possibility of societal collapse lately, but as Rupert Reed points out, addressing the polycrisis successfully will so fundamentally change our systems and institutions that even without "collapse," what comes next will be an entirely new thing. The Farmastery is an attempt to get ahead of the curve to discover the outlines of that new thing while we still having the resources left to try.
It might help to talk about what we aren’t first.
MAGA is one approach to the the climate crisis and risk of collapse. Their formula is aggressive denial and doubling down on the "business as usual" that got us into this mess in the first place. It's people bending over backwards to defend their privilege.
Of course, the only way to do that is to numb yourself to the suffering your privilege causes, either by anesthetizing or by killing any feelings of empathy. But without empathy, there can be no real connection and a human without connection, well, isn't fully human.
The Farmastery is the opposite approach. The formula is a commitment to reality and a rejection of denial and delusion - especially the delusion of separation (the definition of privilege). Our job is to convert privilege into connection.
This is not easy work, but it's incredibly rewarding. It's hard not in itself, but because we have to go thru a sort of detox period to get there. We are always blind to our own privileges - that is the nature of the addiction. The "substance" that we are abusing is thinking - more specifically, getting lost in the stories we tell ourselves about the world and failing to encounter the world as it really is right in front of our eyes.
The detox ride is bumpy and uncomfortable, to say the least. As the anesthesia starts to wear off, the warm, fuzzy blanket of denial gets pulled away and the shock can be bracing.
So, another way to think about the Farmastery is as a sanitarium - it's a place to get sane. It’s like a half-way house for people in recovery from late-stage capitalism. Therefore, it's also a place that's kept "clean" - as free as possible from the habits of privilege and business-as-usual practices that reinforce the illusions of separation. It's a rare and wonderful place where there's space and time to reconnect with yourself and the whole of creation, and to process all the feels that come with reconnecting.
Converting privilege into connection can be understood in several different ways that are all equally true and important - all aspects of the same complex. One way is thinking of our material privileges. To make the Farmastery work, we need to bring together a community of diverse skills and assets - a community of folks who don't typically hang out together in our current society. What unites us is a passion to create a refuge where there is space and support to let what we are hoping comes next emerge; where we can experiment to discover the rules of Game B.
So the Farmastery is many things all at once. It's an enterprise and an experiment. It's a physical refuge for Lifeboat Builders. It's an oikos or commons. It's a ProtoB. It's an investment in what comes next.
We recognize that we need different kinds of investment, which are all equally valuable. We need people who can be boots on the ground. We need people who are knowledge keepers about best practices and useful tools. We need some folks who are willing and able to commit fully and some folks who can keep one foot on the Farmastery and one foot in the "business as usual" world. And we need some people who have the legal/financial assets to create a bubble in capitalism to give it all a chance to breathe.
So, here's the part that's hard to sell: everyone is welcome, but you have to be willing to leave your privilege at the gate. Part of the experiment is finding new ways of coming together that don’t depend on old patterns of deference and denial. That means stepping into unknown territory and learning to get comfortable with discomfort. For some, that's too high a price to pay. But for those of us willing to pay the price, the rewards are truly indescribable.
Thoughts? Add a comment.
Hi Ben, I am sending you a reply via email. Too long for here.