Mysticisme de la terre, l'ironie et l'absurde chez Camus

Réflexions après lecture de l'essai, Le minotaure ou la halte d'Oran par Albert Camus in Noces / L'été (Gallimard, 1959).

        Toujours le style "viril", dépouillé, mais il y a des eaux profondes qui dorment..

        Comme d'autres essais de ce beau recueil, Le minotaure dégage un certain "mysticisme de la terre" - nonobstant le farouche et idéologique athéisme de l'auteur.

         Se laisser envahir par la beauté de la terre, ses espaces vides, ses grandes solitudes, ses déserts, le ciel aveuglant du Midi, le plateau montagneux qui surplombe le port d'Oran (Algérie).  Soit dans la nature magnifique et superbement indifférente, soit dans les ruines d'anciennes villes, Camus a trouvé la transcendance dans l'isolement, le dépouillement. Ensemble, l'immensité et la déchéance informent l'homme sur sa petitesse, sa fragilité, sa finitude éphémère..

         Les mystiques appellent ce dépouillement de l'âme la via negativa, la voie de la négation. On se dérobe devant Dieu, soit pour s'unifier à Lui, soit pour s'identifier à Lui (ou a Elle..) Inconsciemment - je présume - Camus suit la via negativa en esthète.

         Il y a à quoi troubler dans cet essai. Le minotaure était publié en 1939, il y a trois quarts de siècle. Or, on voit le "Siècle Américain" en plein essor à Oran, Algérie, ville portuaire d'une colonie française tout à l'autre bout du monde!

         Les soirs, les jeunes, de quinze à vingt-cinq ans, sortent avec leurs souliers cirés à l'éblouissement, jouant les belles et les beaux mecs d'Hollywood. (On ironise en appelant les mecs des "Clarques" après leur héros, l'acteur Clark Gable.)

         C'est difficile pour nous à comprendre ce que l'Amérique pouvait représenter pour les masses du tiers monde. Elle était phare. Elle chuchotait que tout est possible si l'on y croie assez. Mais l'Amérique offrait de mauvais choix et de mauvais moyens. On en paie le prix aujourd'hui: vide spirituel de sociétés dites "de consommation", climat en décomposition, 50% de la vie sauvage disparue en 40 ans, gouffre agrandissant entre riches et pauvres, épuisement de ressources non-renouvelables sur lesquelles nous avons bâti notre "civilisation" moderne..

         En lisant le portrait de la jeunesse d'Oran il ya a 75 ans, j'étais frappé par l'immense force de ce rêve collectif, le Rêve Américain, le rêve de l'abondance (pour tous!) Le premier Rêve Mondial?

        On voit aussi le dessous du culte du Progrès à travers les yeux de philosophe. Même la lointaine Oran est prise par le goût pour les "grands projets". Les Algériens ne questionnent pas cette idée étrangère, venue de l'Europe chrétienne: il s'y adonnent aveuglement..

        Camus compare les ouvriers démolissant une falaise, vus du loin, aux fourmis. Pas aveuglé, il voit que leur oeuvre "magnifique", "généreuse" - par sa taille - est fondée sur l'esclavage (genre industriel).

   
       J'ai l'impression que Camus voyait la vie des "masses" d'en haut. Leur vie peut selon temps et lieux, être belle mais reste "inférieure" (sous entendu) à celle du philosophe.

       Et qui sait? Possiblement (? probablement ?), il avait raison: regarder la télévision!

       Ainsi, Camus suggère que les villes commerçantes comme Oran sont des lieux d'élection pour l'homme moderne à chercher la transcendance. Mais pourquoi? Comment? (Est-il fou?)

       Mais c'est exactement à cause de leur vide spirituel et culturel que l'âme quêtant se dépouille plus facilement du non essentiel dans ces villes où commerce et spectacle règnent. Il faut bien sûr une Nature environnante "transcendante" (qui provoque transcendance dans l'âme prête). Selon Camus, Oran offre à la fois le vide et des paysages de transcendance..
       

  
         À cet égard, on ne peut mieux que de citer la préface sarcastique de Camus:

 (note de 1953)

         "Cet essai date de 1939. Le lecteur devra s'en souvenir pour juger de ce que pourrait être l'Oran d'aujourd'hui. Des protestations passionnées venues de cette belle ville m'assurent en effet qu'il a été (ou sera) porté remède à toutes les imperfections. Les beautés que cet essai exalte, au contraire, ont été jalousement protégées. Cité heureuse et réaliste, Oran désormais n'a plus besoin d'écrivains: elle attend des TOURISTES" (emphase ajoutée)

         Il se peut que la force de la plume Camus se trouve dans le couple dialectique: soif de transcendance / idéologie athée. Dans les cours de physique on apprends que la tension s'égale à la capacité de se mouvoir, de travailler, de faire bouger des choses.. Du moins, il n'a pas peur de se perdre dans les dédales de la théologie!

Philosophe de l'absurde? Dans un des essais du recueil Noces / L'été, Camus nie l'opinion reçue - diffusée, selon lui, par la presse - que la vie humaine est "absurde". Il y en a pas mal dans la vie, oui. Mais Camus ajoute que la vie sera impossible si, effectivement, le monde n'était qu'absurde, qu'il n'y avait pas de sens de trouver ou de créer. Selon lui, la vie recèle l'absurde, le nourrit souvent, mais ne se réduit pas à l'absurde. La vie n'est pas fondée dans ou par l'absurde non plus. La vie a du sens exactement à cause de l'anti-absurde (l'ordre, signifiance, but..) que les hommes y trouvent ou qu'Il créent, tout court, eux-mêmes.

Book Review: Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities

Tony Hallam, Catastrophes and Lesser Calamities: the causes of mass extinctions, Oxford University Press, 2004. 202 pages plus chapter notes and suggestions for further reading, bibliography, glossary and index. 

The Siberian traps erupt - did greenhouse gases cause the greatest extinction, 250 million years ago?

               Definition: Catastrophe - a perturbation of the biosphere that appears to be instantaneous when viewed at the level of detail that can be resolved in the geological record (page 20). In practice, this "minimal detectable duration" is of the order of 20,000 years though it varies according to the nature of the event and the geological strata which record it occurrence. An extinction event could conceivably pass unrecorded except  for its subsequent long term impact on earth's biota - one thinks immediately of "bollide impacts", collisions with asteroids, large meteors and comets. Changes in the number, distribution and type of species recorded in the fossil record alone would bear mute witness to such an extinction event (unless, as is the case for bollide impacts, one can find a huge smoking crater at the right "temporal horizon" in the geological record). This places extinction researchers like Prof Hallam in the position of a sleuth like Sherlock Holmes: one has a body, a crime scene and one has to find the culprit on the basis of evidence left at the crime scene.  Thus oxygen isotope ratios determine ancient ambient temperatures. Fossil magnetic field variations are used to correlate geological strata of unknown age with geological strata whose age has been determined, thus providing dates for ancient events recorded in mute rock. Radio-isotopes help in the dating of strata as do the presence of certain typical fossil species which serve as chronological markers.

 A (very!) distant cousin (note mammalian canines), dinogorgon - an early victim of climate change?

                  Hallam's discussion of the complex and variagated history of extinction event research reveals the degree to which "pure" science and economic activity are intertwined. The industrial revolution increased mining activity on a global scale, revealing a rich and fantastic fossil record which begged an explanation form the burgeoning materialistic scientific ideology of the time. At times, religionists fought a pitched rearguard action. One argument for the extinction of dinosaurs: they were too big to fit on Noah's ark!

                 Partly in reaction to religionist opponents, the doctrine of "Gradualism" rejected rapid, catastrophic changes in earth's history - as this might indicate God's miraculous workings - in favor of the belief that all changes were regular, gradual and slow (Sir Charles Lyell). Large variations in land elevation, form, etc resulted from natural forces that had acted for a long time. Lyell and Darwin found natural allies in each other as Darwin held that life "evolved" slowly over time from primitive beginnings and was not the work of any sudden divine act of creation.

                In the 20th century, as the assembled fossil / geological history of the earth neared completion, it became evident that some shifts in the biota were, in fact, rapid, "catastrophic". This new understanding has been dubbed "Neocatastrophism" and is now the dominant school among earth scientists. There are now 5 recognized mass extinction events during which between 16 - 51% of marine families of organisms became extinct (marine fossils are the most abundant and usable by the extinction event researcher). There are also a number of minor extinction events, often on a regional - as opposed to planetary - scale. All of these events are characterized by a rapid loss of biodiversity, ecosystem simplification and rapid species turnover (particularly during the recovery phase where active competition for vacant ecological niches is occurring). The "much-publicized" Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event - 65 million years ago - which wiped out the dinos and raised the mammals to dominant terrestrial lifeform is, in reality, the samllest of the 5 major extinction events (at least in terms of marine family loss). The worst was the Late Permian extinction  - 250 million years ago - both on land and sea. Some researchers claim that marine evolution was turned back hundereds of millions of years; biodiversity recovery was also particularly slow for that greatest of all extinctions.

              What then are causes of mass extinctions? This is a relevant question today because ecologists assert that species are going extinct today  - due to human activities and population growth - at a rate comparable or superior to those seen at times of past mass extinctions. Hallam lists as major drivers of extinction events: bollide impacts (asteroid, comet, large meteor), climate change and sea level change.

             Contrary to the impression one would get from all those asteroid / comet impact films, bollide impacts are actually the least important cause of mass extinctions. Current understanding of extinction event mechanics leads to the conclusion that the bollide that killed the dinos was merely the coup-de-grâce that finished off an already sick planetary ecosystem. Bollide impacts had occurred before - wreaking continental / regional extinction and provoking high species turnover rates - but these had not triggered mass extinction on a planetary scale.

            Climate change, like sea level change, is a complex phenomenon. It includes global cooling and warming and is itself multi-causal in origin. Large scale volcanism spews climate changing gases into the atmosphere. These change the ratio of solar energy entering /leaving the atmosphere resulting in global heating or cooling. Sulfur oxides may cool the atmosphere by creating high level acid mists which reflect incoming sunlight. Carbon dioxide - CO2 - warms the earth by trapping outgoing heat radiated by the earth's surface and oceans. Many scientists consider that CO2 and other Green House Gases - GHGs - released since the industrial revolution are raising global temperature with unpredictable and potentially dangerous consequences.

            Climate is also strongly affected by variation in the arrangement of the continents over time (due to the movement of the tectonic plate system). Continental arrangement affects deep ocean currents which, in turn, regulate the earth's global energy balance as well as regional energy flows. Before the current arrangement of continents - which restricts south to north oceanic heat transfers from equatorial waters - crocodiles were found as far north as Ellesmere Island in Canada's north! Rapid climate change is correlated with large scale extinction events. Logical! - once you stop to consider the dependance of living beings on the stability / regularity of their environment.

               Sea level changes are another strong correlate with large scale extinction. Sea level changes modify habitats and may cause anoxic - oxygen depleted - zones to spread, resulting in mass die offs, species turnover and / or replacement. Like climate change, sea level change is both complex in action and multiple in origin. It is further complicated by the fact that sea levels may change regionally or globally. Regional changes are caused by land / seabed level changes due to deep volcanism / tectonic movements. Global changes may result from massive volcanic seabed uplift or from changes in global temperature. In the latter case, temperature change causes sea water volume to expand / contract, resulting sea level transgressions / regressions in shallow coastal waters. Sea level changes may affect the distribution of anoxic - oxygen depleted - zones ("dead zones"). Volcanism may also affect dead zone distribution by injecting large volumes of acidifying CO2 with varied effect on local biota. Global warming tends to spread anoxic dead zones, a warning for us living today in our globally warming world. We also note that extinction event causes may interact, reinforcing or canceling one another, regionally or globally.

              Global warming (one mode of climate change) is, from the fossil record, a potentially dangerous phenomenon. Mankind may be tweaking the tail of a sleeping dragon by emitting GHGs into the atomosphere. For example, Global Warming - GW - may trigger sudden massive releases of methane from tundra / seabed reservoirs of "methane ice" (methane clathrate). Once the ice begins to melt massive amouts of methane are released; this happened in the earth's past with disastrous results for affected biota. In the fossil record we read another warning for our hubris-inflated industrial societies. Massive mathane releases from tundra or seabed have several, mutually reinforcing destructive effects. Seabed releases poison the water column: oxydizing methane depletes the oxygen store creating acidic dead zones (anoxia). Methane - or the CO2 resulting  from its oxydization - is a potent GHG which amplifies the original rise in temperature which caused the methane release in the first place (positive feedback). The temperature rise itself lowers the capacity of oceans to store oxygen, causing dead zones to spread. This is important today if we intend to use the oceans to feed our burgeoning populations - the oceans are being overfished already without any need of anoxic poisoning! In addition, temperature rises reduce the capacity of sea water to hold CO2, causing the oceans themselves to become sources - not sinks - of CO2, further amplifying the original temperature rise. We are entering into a dangerous minefield of multiple, interlocked, mutually re-inforcing feedback loops acting to further destabilize our planet's already damanged "life support systems".

              What does contemporary research into extinctions say about the relation between these events and biological evolution. Darwin held a Gradualist position: life evolved sowly under the selective pressure of the "struggle for survival" acting upon random, spontaneously occurring, genetically determined "variations" (in form or function of an organ, for example). The "most fit" forms would outsurvive the lesser and so life would slowly evolve towards "more perfect" forms. Modern biophysical research on dinosaurs does not support the claim they were "inferior" in performance to mammals - rather the contrary, if anything. However, in the shattered world following a bollide impact at the K-T boundary, mamals did have traits which favored them: samll size, high reproductive rate, insectivorous diet.. all desirable traits when the SHTF. Biologists call it the Lilliputian Effect: small organisms survive catastrophes, big ones don't. Also known as the Humpty-Dumpty Effect: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

               The contemporary reading of the fossil record does not support Darwin in other ways. Evolution moves by fits and starts, it is not gradually and regular when view over long time spans. The fossil record is compared to an improvisational theater play divided into Acts (biological eras) - indicating massive ecosystemic turnovers - and Scenes (lower order reconfigurations: disappearances, role changes, appearances of new characters..). The image is a bit forced and artificial but gives a good representation of modern evolutionary chronology. The act and scene changes are extinction events, major and minor. Thus modern paleontology and evolutionary theory may be described as "Neo-catastrophic". Darwin's original theory - of regular, gradual change - is still fit for the day to day "fine tuning" or micro-adaptation. For Hallam, it explains, for example, minor adaptations to small climate changes or to an adaptive mutation in an interacting organism (antelopes become longer legged, more able to outrun the cats that hunt them - the cats, in turn, adapt by becoming quicker or better camouflaged or smarter or begin to hunt in packs..) Hallam argues that the major drivers of evolution are perturbations of the physical environment: climate change (volcanism, tectonics), sea level change and a single more or less confirmed bollide impact (which finished off the dinos and opened the Age of Mammals, 65 million years ago at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary).

          geological transition between Permian and Triassic, 250 million years ago

                 Extinction events tend to be complex, multiply caused events: "perfect storms". Thus, "the end-Ordovician event is linked to both climate cooling and warming, and with both marine regression and transgression or anoxia, or both. This is because it is a double event: the earlier one is thought to be related to glacially induced cooling and regression, the later to warming as polar ice disappeared, and to the rise of sea level associated with the spread of anoxic waters" (page 161). One smoking gun does not fit all extinctions! Hallam provides a most informative chart, "summary of the proposed causes of the main phanerozoic mass-extinction events" (page 162) including 14 extinctions. He lists six proposed causes, with the number of times each one is indicated as a "probable" extinction cause or as a "possible" cause. In the following discussion, probables are the first number, possibles, the second. Bollide impact is indicated in 1 / 0 of the 14 extinction events, volcanism 5 / 0, climate cooling 3 / 4, climate warming 3 / 2, oceanic regression 5 / 2 and anoxia / oceanic transgression 10 / 2. Sea level rise is the clear winner, a probable cause in 10 mass extinctions followed by sea level regression and volcanism - 5 apiece, climate cooling and warming - 3 each - and with the Hollywood film favorite, bollide impact, trailing with only 1 probable extinction event to its tally. Only three of the 14 tabulated extinctions are linked to a single probable cause. The remaining 11 extinctions are multicausal with 2 - 5 listed possible or probable causes. They present a varied mix of causes. Aside from the predominance of anoxic seas / sea level rise, no particular pattern emerges. Life is a crap shoot on both the micro and macro levels it seems..

 Cretaceous / Tertiary boundary, marking death of the dinos, 65 milllion years ago: mass extinctions leave their marks in rock strata due to shifts in biochemical activity, climate change (effects rock weathering), changes in rate of sediment deposition, etc.

              Hallam contends, oddly, that mass extinctions do not significantly alter the course of evolutionary history. His argument: if a type of coral, species A, becomes extinct then after millions of years another form of life, also coral-like, will emerge to fill the ecological niche. True! But this argument ignores, I believe, some major evolutionary emergences "provoked by" - or at least concomitant with - extinctions. Boosted cephalization - increased brain mass / body mass ratio - is a good example for mammals in general and primates in particular. Cephalization increased following mass extinction events. Given that Dr Hallam is a large brained primate, I find this lapsus on his part somewhat curious..

               The present geological period, the Quarternary is marked by low extinction rates despite highly variable climate cycles (Glaciation / Interglaciation cycling). Perhaps an innate adaptability of short lived, rapidly breeding, rapidly mutating mammals play a role in the low extinction rate. This picture changes with the arrival of modern man (Cro-magnon). Extinction rates globally are so high today that scientists warn of a "6th major extinction event" in progress. Sadly, it appears  that humans - once again! - are to blame: overkilling, habitat destruction, deliberated / unintentended introduction of invasive species.

                A philosophical question: is what we do to nature "unatural" or are we simply doing what a nervous system hard wired by 3.5 billion years of Darwinian evolution would be expected to do?

                And what about aboriginal peoples and the myth of the "noble savage"? Candidates vary: Hopi Indians, Inuit, Bushmen.. But were these peoples not forced by their environment to "respect nature" - or die? The argument is a Darwinian one: those cultures, like ours, which don't "live within natural bounds" will kill themselves off. The harsh environments of the cited "noble savages", on the other hand, honed their survival skills particularly well:  they were forced to live within natural bounds or die off fast. This might be a circular argument though..

                 Ignorance, of course, can be blissful or lethal (or both??) The seas - upon which future mankind will rely for protein to sustain its "burgeoning numbers" (United Nations report) - may be more vulnerable than the land to mass extinctions. Reason: marine biodiversity is only 1 / 25 that of land. This renders both species and ecosystems less resiliant to disruptive changes. Yet, stupidly, we pollute seas, overfish and modity the climate heedlessly..

                 The last chapter is a veritable indictment of humanity's "stewardship" of our earth. In tones reminiscent of an old testament prophet, Prof. Hallan declaims, "the current free-for-all in deep sea fishing must cease" (page 201). "There is an ominous warning from the geological past. Global Warming seems to be strongly implicated in the biggest mass-extinction event of all, somme 250 million years ago" (page 202)

                  Generally, good reading. A bit too jargon-loaded in places. Glossary of limited use.

Update:  http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Essays/wipeout/default.html

The science of the Permian - Triassic extinction, the greatest extinction event of all, 250 million years ago. Relevence to today's world? Scientists now believe that the P-T extinction was due to CLIMATE CHANGE caused by massive carbon dioxide outgassing from the Siberian Traps (extensive open lava fields). This initial pulse of planetary heating in turn triggered the release of methane sequestered in seabed methane clathrates ("methane ice"). Since methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, this release caused further global warming. The combination of the two heat pulses killed off most higher forms of life on earth. Scientists today warn that the methane trapped in permafrost and seabed clathrate deposits is being destabilized by global warming. We may be triggering the killer pulse of heat that will destroy our civilization. This time we won't be able to blame mother nature..

Book Review: Sepp Holzer's Permaculture

Sepp Holzer: Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: a practical guide to small scale integrative farming and gardening, Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont, 2004. 219 pages, numerous photos, tables, diagrams; index. Visually, quite impressive. A slight textual heaviness at times due to translation. A well structured, self-contained starter kit for do-it-yourself permaculturists. As a bonus, Holzer's text does double-time as an introduction to the philosophy of permaculture.

"Nevertheless the book's greatest value is not so much in the information it contains but in the attitudes it teaches. Its message is not so much "this is how you do it" but "this is the way go about thinking of how to do it". Sepp Holzer's way is the way of the future. In the fossil fuel age we've been able to impose our will on the land by throwing cheap energy at every problem. In the future that option won't be open to us any more. We'll have to tread the more subtle path, the path which patiently observes nature and seeks to imitate it. That future may not be as far off as we think." (from the foreword)

 Permaculture is the soul, the Krameterhof (Holzer's alpine Austrian farmstead) is the body of that soul. http://www.krameterhof.at/cms60/index.php?id=151

       In a deep - and non-sectarian - sense, Herr Holzer is a "Buddhist farmer": we need to eat but must respect the life of the creatures we eat. Holzer is deeply aware of the injustice and indignity the children of the earth, human and non-human, suffer under the current economic system.

"One of my central ideas is: "Try putting yourself in the position of your fellow creatures, whether they are plants or animals, and you will quickly find  out whether the environment that you you intend for them is right or not. If you observe a plant or animal closely, you will quickly see if it is happy. However, if you would not want to live in that environment as a plant or animal, than change the living conditions there quickly! Only animals that live happy lives will work for you day and night and you will be the biggest winner as the owner of a healthy plant and animal kingdom"" (page 217, Concluding Thoughts).

 

          Holzer considers livestock as "workers". He attempts to have them live lives as natural as possible and, in so doing, they will "work" the land: removing cover crops and undesirable vegetation, turning the soil and fertilizing it. On the Krameterhof, animals live in small, dispersed, crude unheated shelters. This keeps them robust and saves energy. Their food is primarily foraged from the land they live on. Extreme winters may require imported supplementation but these are unusual circumstances, not the norm.

Permaculture design philosophy and "natural design". Generally, the parts (subsystems) of natural self-organized systems (cells, organisms, societies, ecosystems..) have more than one function. Conventional industrial design - based on a Cartesian analysis of wholes into parts - attempts to isolate and optimize functions. Example: how do you deliver a letter or parcel the fastest? If you've got enough cheap fossil energy available, energy expenditure (and resultant pollution) become irrelevant. In the limit, a billionaire could manage his own post using drones. It would be absurdly expensive and inefficient in use of resources of course..

           Nature, though, generally operates under fairly severe energy constraints and employs slower, less damaging processes to achieve its ends.

           Holzer eloquently sums up Permaculture Philosophy, based on "natural design" principles:

"The basic principles of permaculture are:

- All of the elements within a system interact with each other.
- Multifunctionality: every element fulfils multiple functions and every function is performed by multiple elements.
- Use energy practically and efficiently, work with renewable energy.
- Use natural resources.
- Intensive systems in a small area. (intensive organic agriculture, for example)
- Utilise and shape natural process and cycles. (ride the wave - don't fight it! saves energy, effort and money)
- Support and use edge effects (creating highly productive small-scale structures)
- Diversity instead of monoculture." (page xvii of the Introduction. My comments are in red)

             Because of the current dominance of Western Industrial Culture, our "bourgeois" Western aesthetics have become a major source of environmental destruction and loss. Our values have been exported to the rest of the world where they are now universally and slavishly imitated. We seem to fear wild looking spaces. We look down on people with weedy, "overgrown" lawns. We want "manicured" monocultural lawns which are ecological disasters: water consumption, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the energy and resources required to manufacture these inputs (and the resulting pollution!) It's not a pretty picture (ecologically speaking) and is not sustainable. Australia, California, Arizona and Mid-East oil producing states are flagrant examples. As Holzer correctly points out, our faulty aesthetic practices establish ecological vicious circles: we progressively deplete the soil of organic matter (humus) and thus require increasingly greater use of chemical fertilizers to compensate for nutrient loss, which - in turn - only accelerates the nutrient losses the fertilizer was attempting to compensate for in the first place!
 

                        Healthy soil: moist, dark, full of organic matter and life

               Healthy soil food web (en français) Kinda looks like a mandala don't it?

           Holzer argues that working within - as opposed to against - natural cycles and processes is more reasonable than our current sledge-hammer approach: monoculture agriculture with massive fertilizer, pesticide, machinery, energy and monetary inputs. "Working with nature" often requires less energy, cost and maintenance. If we understand  biodiversity (and its usefulness in nature), we will plant intensive polycultures with attention to plants - and animals (including tiny ones) - which improve the soil and attract desired pest predators. We will arrange things so that pest predators have access to pests on our land. We will establish bands of sheltering vegetation or shelter boxes for them to live. Rather than kill everything off with pesticides, we invite the predators of our pests to live on our land.. As virologists say: for every bacteria, there are at least 50 phages (viruses that predate on bacteria)!

             Sepp Holzer's Permaculture is not primarily a theoretical text. It is designed for the beginning permaculture farmer or gardener. There are many tables of plant species and their functions, for example, green manure crops for soil improvement, their uses and requirements. 
  
              Holzer pays much attention to landform variability, allowing him to produce "microclimate" cultures: ponds, terraces, raised beds, herb gardens.. which exploit, rather than suppress, the unique qualities - and potentialities - of a piece of land. Thus a properly oriented slope may support an artificial pond because the land at the bottom is wet from runoff. The pond may then be stocked with commercially valuable fish. Its surface reflects sunlight unto the nearby slope, terraces and raised beds, raising soil temperature and providing a habitat for sun loving plants that otherwise would not grow in the alpine climate of the Krameterhof. Attention to and exploitation of landform and soil variability allow Holzer to maximize the profitability of his operation. Such an approach is, of course, contrary to the "industrial" ideology of conventional monocultural agriculture which stresses uniformity of input, production and output for standardized markets. Holzer discovered that traditional but now forgotten fruit tree varieties grown at high altitude produce high quality fruit for niche markets, the production of schnapps, for example.. thus allowing him to locally (or regionally) "corner the market" and produce a profit from a specialized product.

            Holzer seems an interesting, likable character, a blend of ethical business man, "Buddhist" farmer, New Age guru and ecologically militant citizen scientist. His approach to food production provides what appears to be a practical alternative to current non-sustainable industrial "agriculture" or, more properly" "agribusiness" (note 1). His book is eminently readable and packed with information. (I only realized how packed while writing this review. Normally, fact filled books aren't good reads. This is one of the exceptions..) Permaculture is a rare achievement, combining practical information for those who want to get their hands dirty with deep philosophical insight into underlying ecological processes and their broader implications for humanity's moral and spiritual evolution. 

notes:

1-  Long term unsustainability of agribusiness in Norway. Since plants capture and store solar energy (photosynthesis) our farms should be energy sources NOT sinks!! This is not the case in Norway, for example. Their agricultural system absorbs more energy than it returns. And what happens to the 7.5 billion people of earth as cheap energy runs out?

http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/6/8/4170

"We conclude that the system is unsustainable because it is embedded in a highly fossil fuel dependent system based on a non-circular flow of nutrients. As energy and thus nutrient constraints may develop in the coming decades, the current system may need to adapt by reducing use of fossil energy at the farm and for transportation of food and feed. An operational strategy may be to relocalise the supply of energy, nutrients, feed and food"

Histoires pour faire peur

Pensées après lecture de Les meilleurs contes fantastiques québécoises du 19e siècle (Fides, Montréal, 2002)

 la chasse-galerie: faut faire un serment au diable pour voler en canot
 
       Ces jolies contes d'antan de loups-garous, de pactes avec le diable, de "bêtes à longu' queue" et, qui sait, le sombre étranger à la danse de village serait-il le Seigneur des Ténèbres lui-même..

       Sorti de notre folklore, l'âge d'or de la fiction fantastique québécoise s'étalait entre 1850 et la Première Guerre Mondiale. Ce qui rend à cette fiction sa vivacité, sa saveur croustillante - voire une profondeur insoupçonnée - est la "tension créatrice" entre sa forme et son fond.

       Le Québec de cette période était une société subie à la fois à une modernité envahissante et à ses propres réticences - voire réaction politique - envers cet avenir. Une société tiraillée. Aux niveaux "officiaux", nos élites - l'Église Catholique et la classe professionnelle éduquée par elle - refusaient les Lumières et, a fortiori, elles refusaient la Révolution Française et le Républicanisme. Mais par osmose, les idées nouvelles s'infiltraient de même. À cette époque, on commençait à ressentir les premiers soufflements de la Révolution Industrielle et tout ce qu'elle entraînerait. Même si les élites réactionnaires ne voyaient pas l'avenir, ils - comme tout réactionnaire - en avaient peur.

       Une bonne partie de la superstition et folklore québécois semble avoir eu pour "mission" de conjurer ces peurs de la modernité envahissante. Les valeurs dites "traditionnelles" s'y trouvaient renforcées, les ennemis de la "vie catholique" sont battus en brèche. Le Bien triomphe sur le Mal ou, du moins, le Mal sera puni...

       Dans les contes de ce recueil, on répète souvent des vieilles formules: si l'on manque à son "devoir de Pâques" (assistance  à des rites et sacrements) pendant sept ans, on deviendrait loup-garou. Les jours on vivait en homme; des soirs on subissait une transformation terrifiante en bête sauvage, assoiffé du sang. Pourtant, si l'on avait de la chance, on pourrait être racheté: il fallait qu'on soit blessé - "tire du sang" - par un chrétien et qu'ensuite on se confesse et commence à vivre en bon chrétien.

      La vraie portée de ce folklore dans les vies des gens est difficile à estimer. J'ai un souvenir d'enfance (? faux souvenir ? - je n'en sais rien..) C'était le début des années 60. Nous habitions un village de la Nouvelle Angleterre, 300 km de la frontière américano-québécoise. Je faisais mes études chez les sœurs catholiques. L'une d'elle nous racontait cet histoire de transformation en loup-garou par manquement de son devoir pascal. Je rappelle aussi que, nous écoliers - pas mal laïcisés - se disputaient de ses paroles: "Elle dit n'importe quoi.. elle nous a dit ça pour nous faire peur.." Donc, on peut dire qu'une bonne cinquantaine d'années après l'âge d'or des contes fantastiques québécoises et à travers une frontière nationale et linguistique, ce folklore agissait encore! En effet, il y avait beaucoup d'émigration des Québécois vers les usines de textile de la Nouvelle Angleterre au début du 20e siècle (dont ma famille). L'économie agraire arriérée du Québec ne pouvait plus nourrir sa population, toujours grandissante - prohibition de contrôle des naissances par l'Église Catholique..

 ceux qui ne remplissent pas leur devoirs religieux vont aux chiens..

       Mon impression est que les auteurs dans Les meilleurs contes fantastiques québécoises du 19e siècle ont "recyclé" ce matériau mythique commun - au moins partiellement - à leurs propres fins (et cela, consciemment ou non).

       La fuite. Une société en réaction contre une menace (réelle ou non) encourage toute forme de fuite: fanatismes religieux ou nationalistes; la drogue, médicinale ou non; la recherche du risque, du geste généreux (sports extrêmes, tourisme exotique); aventures militaires à l'étranger (pour cacher les dissensions explosives chez soi), goût prononcé pour l'exotique dans les arts..

       L'art fantastique - livres, cinéma, opéra, scène, voire des rites collectifs populaires, spontanés - nous permet d'échapper nos problèmes réels et présents en échange pour des problèmes (imaginaires) plus faciles à résoudre (ceux des protagonistes), voire les "happy endings" si chéris de la culture américaine.

       Ce genre de fuite, par voie de l'imagination, n'est pas nécessairement mauvais en soi. Il peut permettre un temps de récupération, il peut mener à un véritable questionnement du monde actuel et ses systèmes de croyances et gouvernances, il peut nous assister à apprendre à résoudre, en imagination, des problèmes semblables à nos problèmes sociaux concrets.

       Ce que je trouve intéressant chez nos auteurs fantastiques québécois est la multiplicité des lectures possibles. Ces écrivains, par leur éducation et leur appartenance sociale, étaient des membres de l'Élite (dite "réactionnaire"). Plusieurs pourtant avaient des idées républicains, croyaient dans la modernité. Chez leurs lecteurs, eux aussi des éduqués, certains partageaient ces idées. Cette trempe d'homme ne croyaient plus (ou croyaient beaucoup moins) dans le "religieux" que ses aïeux. La "distance" entre les auteurs (et les lecteurs) et les croyance racontées prête un ton ironique à leurs contes. On emploie volontiers l'hyperbole, l'ironie; parfois on se permet un peu de critique sociale (valeurs républicains obligeant..)

       Intéressant aussi. Aujourd'hui, dans notre "Temps des Troubles" on constate une véritable renaissance du "conteur du village", des clubs de conteurs prolifèrent. Ce sont des amateurs, des citoyens ordinaires qui s'y adonnent. Leur talent, leur fouge, leur art de mime, leur sens du "timing", la maîtrise du ton racoleur, moquant peuvent surprendre parfois..

       Simple nostalgie, fuite en arrière pour oublier quelques moments nos temps turbulents? Ou bien: ces contes semblent représenter à la fois la peur réactionnaire du changement ET sa négation par la distance ironique et la dérision. La "tension créatrice" entre ces deux registres souffle une étrange vitalité à ces histoires autrement  banales, un peu sottes afin qu'elle deviennent des petits joyaux de l'art littéraire. C'est peut-être que nos deux époques se ressemblent plus que nous l'imaginions..
    

Too good to be true!

This dude (a disciple of Ayn Rand no doubt) liked to park in places reserved for handicapped drivers. So one day, the neighbors decided..

https://www.facebook.com/norny.cestaussica/videos/860027317425432/?pnref=story