On the alternative modernity in permacultural ethos: Back to the land as a progress of a different kind

Abstract

This paper focuses on the permaculture movement and its ethos, as expressed in various permacultural books. It aims to reconstruct this ethos and assess its relation to the significatory dimension of modernity. We analyse the ethos vis-à-vis the works of Wagner, Castoriadis, Boltanski and Thévenot. Based on the empirical material we analysed through multi-stage thematic analysis, we argue that while permaculture certainly is a back-to-the-land movement, it advocates for a rationalising reorganisation rather than reversal of contemporary social organisation. As we show, permaculturists present the permanent sustainability they advocate for as necessary progress achieved through the rationalisation of the society-nature relationship with adherence to ideals of individual autonomy and rational mastery over the environmental impacts of human-made productive systems. In permaculture's self-portrait, the failures of contemporary agriculture do not stem from an excessive adherence to the core principles of modernity but from a lack of such adherence. We show that the permaculturists’ critique of industrial mass agriculture as wasteful and irrational and their call for a more holistic and permanently sustainable alternative does not present only a concrete utopia but also a call for modernising offensive made with adherence to these principles. Our paper thus contributes to the discussion of modernity and its alternatives, as well as to the more general question of the legitimacy of the latter: what makes alternative environmental movements legitimate, and what makes them appear modern or anti-modern? What are the mechanisms through which alternative environmental movements, such as permaculture, legitimise themselves?

Introduction

Does the turn back to the land always have to lead back? Revolts against industrial modern practices have accompanied modernity from its very beginnings. Environmental movements, in particular (e.g. McCormick, 1989), sought to find our lost connection to nature by returning to our roots. On the surface, permaculture would seem just like such a movement. Its strict stance against contemporary consumerism, mass agricultural practices and advocacy for a return to a more sustainable lifestyle in tune with ecosystems makes it a fitting representation of a back-to-the-land movement (Calváro and Otéro, 2014: 143–145; Centemeri, 2019a). Despite its growing popularity, permaculture has been researched relatively sparsely in the social and natural sciences (Brawner, 2015: 430; Ferguson and Lovell, 2014: 251; Veteto and Lockyear, 2008: 47), with occasional studies often adopting a more descriptive perspective (Morel et al., 2019: 565).

The two guiding design principles of permaculture – the imitation of ecosystems and their systemic optimalisation – position the movement against contemporary industrial agriculture (Morel et al., 2019: 565) and the globalised capitalist economy (Centemeri, 2019b: 105). After all, the founding texts of the permaculture movement see mankind and nature as innately interconnected. In this sense, permaculturists’ turn back to the land could also be seen as a turn to a place where we naturally belong. The bioregionalist vision of permaculture calls for a breakdown of a national-level government, while standing against systemic bigness and industrial economy (Pepper, 2007: 295). As such, we could easily be swayed to see it as a revolt against modernisation.

Yet the picture is not that simple. Pepper (2007: 286–303) further debates that bioregionalist visions contain a tension between postmodern skepticism and modern ideals of democracy, equality and rationality. Navigating these tensions, we argue that such a turn to the land does not signify a return to what once was but rather a version of modernising restructuralisation, signifying a particular manifestation of environmentalist rationalism (Pepper, 2007: 291). Drawing on Peter Wagner's (1994) theory of modernity, we argue that the permacultural ethos, in essence, presents a distinctly modern-coded utopia posited as an alternative to the contemporary (modern) society. In its rejection of present modes of organisation, it still embodies the key characteristics of modernity. In other words, it is highly critical of instrumental rationality as an organising principle of contemporary systems, yet it makes a case for the alternative built around environmental rationality that continues to adhere to the same modern ideals, but in their differing manifestation.

Our argument follows a close reading and thematic analysis of two of the founding texts of permaculture paired with a varied selection of more recent books, trying to account for the fact that there is no one true version of permaculture (Leahy, 2021: 2). We argue that what makes permaculture modern is that the general ethos of the movement reappropriates the core modern principles – autonomy and rational mastery (Castoriadis, 1997; Wagner, 1994) – for the social reconstellation it champions. While it stands against industrial, instrumental rational mastery over nature, it also advocates for a mastery of a different kind, that is, an environmentally conscious mastery over the impacts of civilisation. At their core, the permacultural texts present an expression of an alternative, which requires a change of tools but not a change of hearts, so to speak. With these insights, the paper contributes to the contemporary reflections of modernity (e.g. Blok, 2013; Świrek and Pospěch, 2020; Wagner, 2010) and to debates situating environmentally minded alternatives to the current social organisation, such as permaculture, within these reflections (e.g. Pepper, 2007).

What is permaculture?

While the term itself – ‘permaculture’ – likely originated in the early 20th century, it only emerged as a peri-academic alternative to modern agriculture with the work of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s (Centemeri, 2019a: 26). In a nutshell, permaculture is a set of agricultural design principles that holistically mimics ecosystems to create more sustainable, environmentally conscious modes of sustenance. However, from the get-go, permaculture was not intended to serve merely as a practical manual but also to ignite a broader social movement. Since then, the aspirations have broadened. The initial model for permanent agriculture has morphed into the model for permanent culture – an aspirational social project following particular environmental ethics aimed at general permanence and sustainability (Ferguson and Lovell, 2014).

While concrete manifestations of permaculture are quite varied, what connects them, besides calls for sustainability and eco-mimicry of productive systems, is a strong opposition to contemporary industrial modes of production and consumption (Centemeri, 2019a). The shared belief in an alternative, more agrarian organisation of life can be seen as a rejection of and reaction against contemporary social organisation. If we were to perceive consumerism and industrialisation to be the core tenets of modernity (Stiegler, 2013), we could ask whether permaculture's rejection of these tenets also constitutes a rejection of modernity. Indeed, for many permaculturists, permacultural techniques present a rediscovery of forgotten knowledge or resurrection of an idealised past more in line with nature (Brawner, 2015; Kolářová, 2021; Scheromm and Javelle, 2022). In such a view, permaculture presents a reactive rejection of modern industrialism (Leahy, 2021: 200) and an inclusion of indigenous ways of social organisation (Arnsperger, 2023).

That is, however, not an exact picture. First, rather than rejecting modernity, some see the movement as reaching beyond modern social organisation, creating a concretely realised utopia, a better society that transcends the ills of modern life (Chakroun, 2019: 223–224; Gustack Delambre, 2011: 2–3). Second, others emphasise the hybrid nature of the movement, fusing sustainable traditional agricultural practices with high yields of modern systems (Gashute and Hale, 2023; Suh, 2014) and combining traditional and indigenous knowledge with the knowledge of modern science (Veteto and Lockyear, 2008: 51). Such views see permaculture as transcending the boundaries between the modern and the pre-modern, hybridising the reservoirs of acceptable knowledge. Lastly, some authors approach the innovative elements of permaculture as in line with the practice of modern science (McLennon et al., 2021) or imply the connection between permacultural thinking and the emancipatory ideal of modernity (Centemeri, 2019a).

In the forthcoming, we follow the last strand of interpretations to show that permaculture is not modern only in the narrow sense of scientific knowledge and techniques. Rather, we want to show that its very ethos appropriates modernity's key imaginary signification for its self-portrait. It is these principles that we turn our attention to now.

The principles of modernity

While we tend to think of permaculture as, first and foremost, a set of productive practices, Wagner (1994, 2016) argues that the productive sphere of life is just one dimension through which the processes of modernisation take place. The other two dimensions are the sphere of politics and the sphere of knowledge. The former pairs emancipatory aspirations with rationalised regulations. The latter consists of unifying epistemic frameworks for the understanding of ourselves, our relation to the world, and the instance of modernity we inhabit. For Wagner, modernity consists of multiple versions, each carrying with it a particular institutional assemblage. He calls the attempts at reassembling institutional order modernising offensives. These offensives waged through the epistemic framework present themselves as a sensible progress from the folly of previous thinking towards a more reasonable social assemblage and application of the underlying principles. That is not to say these calls for progress present a linear process. Rather, they present a legitimising frame for going from one institutional assemblage to another.

This view is indebted to Weber's (1930) classical identification of the Occidental tendency for rationalisation of social and economic processes as the cradle of capitalism. Wagner (1994), however, elevates rationalisation into a general core principle of modernity. In other words, both the ascetic Protestant bourgeois culture and its hedonistic dissolution (Bell, 1976), while radically different, could be characterised as rationalising (and thus modernising) offensives against what came before them. Wagner's view of modernity is also indebted to Castoriadis’ exposition of inherent ontological plurality and contradictions among rationalising, modernising projects (Smith, 2009: 513–516). Under this perspective, both the instrumental rationality of industrial agriculture and the environmentalist rationalism of green initiatives could be seen as rationalising. The first type of rationality works along the lines of means-ends oriented instrumentalisation (Schecter, 2010: 78–113). The second type dissolves the nature/society boundary in its assessments of the reasonable actions (Pepper, 2007: 291) and also considers the needs of the biosphere. The significatory logic behind both rationalities remains unchanged. Both types make claims about the most effective use of resources, although what gets included, considered and excluded from each evaluation differs. Therefore, each type of rationality can call the other type of rationality irrational, as Castoriadis (1997: 240) himself does, when he claims about the first type that this ‘mastery is a pseudomastery, this rationality is a pseudorationality’.

Wagner's theory also owes to Castoriadis (1987) for the attention to the significatory dimension of modernity and its potential to ignite and fuel modernising offensives (Carleheden, 2010: 53; cf. Smith, 2009: 515). Thus, when interpreting the relationship between permaculture and modernity, we should not stay only in the realm of lifestyles and practices. We also need to pay attention to the ethos. We are using the term ethos to encompass both the epistemic and political or ideological dimension (Wagner, 2012: 23–24). Afterall, as Holmgren (2002: 1) suggests, the aspirational, ethical dimension is also a crucial part of what permaculture is. The practices and lifestyles are ultimately driven by ethics of sustainability, care and fairness (Leahy, 2021: 8–9), which carry a certain ethos. Thus, we build our empirical case around the following question:How does permacultural ethos relate to the ethos of modernity?

When answering such a question, we must presuppose that (a) different instances of modernity can be identified through more or less shared patterns – at least in an abstract theoretical model – and, similarly, (b) permaculture carries, despite its variability (e.g. Centemeri, 2019a: 58–62; Centemeri, 2019b: 107), a discernible patterns of ethos within the ways the movement presents itself. Following up on these assumptions, we turn to the ethos of modernity first. ‘After all, modernity is a rebellion against fate and ascription’ (Bauman, 1991 in Wagner, 1994: 45). Modernity encourages us to take matters into our own hands and overcome what Kant famously dubbed the self-imposed immaturity of the pre-modern man. This break from the past has been expressed in the ground values that modernity is inescapably committed to. Wagner (1994: 14) identifies individual autonomy and rational mastery as its two key principles. Both could be traced to the joint aspiration of building a rationally governed system, overcoming the insufficient rationality of the preceding one by mastering what escapes rational control and liberating what is controlled irrationally (Świrek and Pospěch, 2020; Wagner, 2001). Again, this is not meant to imply a linear development. These identifications are, first and foremost, a significatory scheme through which the desired institutional reorganisation is opposed to the current organisation.

This oppositional scheme can be recognised as driven by the aspiration for progress. Progress, as a justifying principle, marks the reorganisation as a transition towards greater prosperity, sensibility or fairness (Wagner, 2016: 6, 15). As Koselleck (2004: 255–276) argues, the emergence of a future-heading concept of progress marks the emergence of modern ethos. While the progressive principle can be seen as another core significatory principle of modern ethos, the unifying, totalising vision of linear or unidirectional progress has, except for the sphere of economics and science, withered away (Wagner, 2016: 23–49). Nevertheless, we may still utilise it analytically as a significatory principle reflected in arguments for modernising offensives. Progress does not present a totalising process, but rather a situationally applied signification, identifying the selected present situation as failing with regards to rational mastery and autonomy, and championing its proposed innovation as a development towards a more rationally controlled and liberalised alternative. That is to say that the image and the carrier of progress can differ– based on the actor making progressive claims or on the situation in which these claims are made. In this view, progress does not present a singular, teleological story, but a plethora of differing short tales. This also implies that the rationalisation promised by a progressive modernising offensive does not present a singular rationality. If the story of progress differs situationally and positionally, what is considered reasonable in this story also differs. This leads us to considering multiple logics of rationalisation as applied and situational.

The pragmatics of expressing an ethos

Conceptualising rational mastery, autonomy and progress as general principles that, however, are concretely and practically manifested in differing ways, allows us to analyse how permaculture advocates for itself and whether it contains these principles and rationalising claims within its self-advocacy. To capture whether and how permacultural ethos relates to the principles of modernity, we draw on the sociology of critical capacity. Following Boltanski and Thévenot (2006), we observe criticisms, justifications or legitimisations through which permaculture, as a particular worldview, posits itself as an alternative to contemporary times. Stemming from pragmatic sociology, the sociology of critical capacity has been used in sociological studies of permaculture, but without necessarily confronting permacultural arguments with the ethos of modernity (Centemeri, 2015; Lehtimäki, 2021; Lehtimäki and Virtanen, 2024). In pragmatic sociology, macro-sociological structures are practically and pragmatically navigated by actors in their daily actions. It overcomes the structure versus agency conundrum with a particular style of methodological presentism (Barthe et al., 2013: 177–180). This style looks mainly at how actors mobilise and move between the coordinates of sociocultural structure in concrete, present situations. If we want to observe how permaculturists argue, such presentism allows us to bracket out the historical context and merely analyse how certain claims are tied to underlying principles.

The sociology of critical capacity identifies general orders of worth through which actors construct their arguments or propositions (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1999, 2006). Each order of worth presents a particular key underlying principle of worth (Du Gay and Morgan, 2013: 17), thus providing grounds upon which to evaluate various rationalisations. The legitimacy of the argument is evaluated based on whether the justification sufficiently proves that the key evaluative criteria are followed, or the critique sufficiently shows that the criteria have been transgressed (Boltanski, 2013: 47). Although each order of worth pertains to a different logic which does not have to always overlap, actors are expected to pragmatically navigate between the various logics based on the situational context, even if it means they will contradict their previous claims (Barthe et al., 2013: 188; Boltanski, 2013: 52; Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006: 140). Rather than simply assuming a singular rational course of action, sociologists must look at how actors actually navigate between various evaluations of reality. In other words, this theoretical perspective allows us to analyse a plurality of rationalities at play in social actions.

Initially, Boltanski and Thévenot (1999: 369–373) discerned six evaluative logics generalisable to various situations. (1) The industrial order sees worth in effectivity and efficiency, (2) the market order finds it in profit and economic gain, (3) civic order subscribes to the ideal of the common good, (4) order of opinion to fame and renown, (5) domestic order values authority, loyalty or tradition, and (6) order of inspiration ascribes worth to creativity, individuality or grace. While these orders are often almost ontologised, as Wagner (1999: 350) notices, they are by no means a fixed and exhaustive account. For example, there is an ongoing debate about whether we can discern a seventh order of worth, the so-called green order of worth, which places the core evaluative criteria with sustainability and environmental friendliness. There is no agreement on whether green worth constitutes an additional order or requires revision of the whole theory (Lafaye and Thévenot, 2017). Yet the order remains particularly analytically useful for environmental sociology (see Lehtimäki and Virtanen, 2024: 92–94). Thus, given the topic of the paper, we include it in our analytical toolbox.

Methodology

The following analysis is a condensation of a larger research project. We present only the qualitative portion of the project as it is the most relevant to our research question, building a more concise argument. The data come from a selection of seven books about permaculture written by practising permaculturists for a general audience. The core of this selection includes Permaculture One (Mollison and Holmgren, 1990 [1978]) and Permaculture Two (Mollison, 1979). Both works ignited the permacultural movement and developed the basis of permacultural ethos as such (Centemeri, 2019a: 26; Kolářová, 2021: 165). The close analytical reading of those two works is then extended with an analysis of five other books.

The selection was limited by a need for a digital version of the text for computational text analysis, which also limited the possible number of analysed books due to our modest computational capacities. The results of this computational analysis are not a part of this article, yet they impacted our selection process. Additionally, we tried to cover various dates of publication and authors of various standing within the movement, from the original thought fathers to more practical and popularising authors or relatively unknown writers. The idea was to at least partially account for a variety of views within the movement beyond the views of its founders. The list of other analysed texts is as follows: Permaculture by Francis Field (2020), Permaculture by David Holmgren (2002), Earth Restorer's Guide to Permaculture (Morrow, 2022), Sepp Holzer's Permaculture (Holzer, 2010) and The Earth Care Manual (Whitefield, 2011 [2004]). Respectively, we attribute an abbreviation to each: PMF, PMH, ERG, SHP and ECM. The founding texts are abbreviated as PM1 and PM2.

Method-wise, we worked qualitatively and inductively. We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2021) of the two core books. We reviewed the texts and attributed open, inductive coding to every paragraph or set of sentences that could be seen as relating to or expressing an ethos. For example, we coded paragraphs criticising modern agricultural practices yet omitted those describing practical procedures. Afterwards, we conducted a second round of coding, fusing some codes and remaking others. Based on the reworked list of codes, we reconstructed thematic categories. These were modernity and industry, sustainability, holism, diversity, localism, cultivation and design and other. ¹ These themes and the underlying codes that comprise them were used as a codebook to code paragraphs in the remaining books. Here, we shifted more toward a codebook thematic analysis (Miles and Huberman, 1994). The main goal of this phase was to efficiently extend the data pool, documenting inner dynamics and variability through which these worldview-related themes are expressed. While the approach shifted more into deduction territory, we remained open to expanding and remaking the categories. The validity of our interpretation can be verified with reference to other works which arrived at similar interpretations of the permacultural ethos (Brawner, 2015: 431–439; Ferguson and Lovell, 2014: 262–266; Mannen et al., 2012: 360–367; Veteto and Lockyear, 2008: 49, 51; Roux-Rosier et al., 2018: 559–565).

To discern the strategies of argumentation within these themes, we analysed all the books again using frame analysis. We used the six orders of worth (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1999), amended with the green order of worth (Lafaye and Thévenot, 2017), as another codebook of sorts. Through this codebook, we gathered various criticisms, justifications, legitimisations and value judgements. The following interpretation presents a fusion of these two analyses within four themes intended to better structure our argument: irrationality, wastefulness, holism and progress. Within these sections, we reconstruct the permacultural worldview and provide an analysis of ways it frames itself vis-à-vis the principles of modernity.

Permacultural ethos and principles of modernity

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the results show that permacultural books develop strong criticisms of modernity, mainly aimed at modern production methods and consumption practices. They glorify permaculture as a necessary alternative, leading to a more sustainable, fairer and individually fulfilling world. It is important, though, to look more closely at how exactly these criticisms are developed and the alternative is justified.

Irrationality: the criticism of methods and practices

The books strongly criticise contemporary agricultural practices and lifestyles. However, they go on to criticise the political and economic side, too. Mollison argues: ‘The lack of humour and foresight, humanity and common sense, that characterises all present politico-economic systems is appalling. The whole world is disenfranchised […]’ (PM2, 143). Not only is there a lack of humour and humanity – a complaint one might expect – but crucially, the current social organisation lacks foresight and common sense. This points to a deeper scepticism about the nature of contemporary industrial rationality.

Here we can see that the perceived lack of common sense suggests that industrial modernity is framed as lacking in rationality, which results from a narrow focus on economic gain. ‘The fact is that our own comfort is based on the rape of planetary wealth, depriving other people (and future generations) of their own local resources’ (PMH, 7). The argument positions the market order of worth against the green one. The accumulative logic of the former is seen as irrational and, therefore, undesirable since it betrays the logic of sustainability and renewability of the latter. ‘Wealth with financial accumulation as the main goal is simply not sustainable, nor amenable to human or planetary health’ (ERG, 448). Planetary and human health, which also reflects the public good of the civic order, stands in a paramount position since it promises sustainability. Failing to make our systems sustainable makes them, in this view, insufficient. The instrumental rationality of industrial modernity becomes irrational when measured by the green order of worth, where sustainability is the paramount criterion for rational organisation.

A lack of sustainability is not the only source of irrationality. Another element is the failure to ensure collective welfare, which is crucial for the civic order of worth and systemic efficiency of the industrial order of worth:

Society is in a mess; obesity in the west is balanced by famine in the third world. Petrol is running out, and yet freeways are still being built. Against such universal insanity the only response is to gather together a few friends and commence to build the alternative, on a philosophy of individual responsibility for community survival. (PM2, 142)

Again, the contemporary industrial modernity gets challenged here. Mollison advocates for systemic reform (through permaculture), and he does so in a very modernist way: as concerned individuals, we must work together to build an alternative. An alternative, it is implied, doesn’t arrive by itself. Like every modernising undertaking, it is a conscious, directed, reflected effort. It is a project that must be built. Despite its collective nature, Mollison puts a major focus on individual responsibility, suggesting a certain individualistic tint. There is also an element of rational mastery ascribed to industrial modernity: by gathering a few friends and getting to work, permaculturists seek to gain control over the ‘mess’. A mess presents a lack of control over the consequences of human actions, stemming from the senseless distribution of resources.

Lastly, as Mollison implies, current society is seen as insufficiently rational, because it lacks individual responsibility for community and planetary health, breeding unsustainability to the point of community destruction. As Wagner (2016: 99) argues, the reconciliation of individual emancipatory interests on one hand and the common good on the other was a key task various modernising reformers faced. How do we make people free yet make sure that they don’t betray the principles of the common good? From the point of view of permaculturists, the present iteration of modernity has no answer to this question. This makes it not only irrational but, more importantly, unmodern in spirit. The means-ends oriented instrumental rationality of industrial agriculture presents a pseudorationality, whereas the environmental rationality of bioregional vision represents the true rationality that sufficiently fulfils modern principles. The contemporary folly of instrumental rationality then requires a rational mastery over the impacts of man-made productive systems through ethics of care – earth care, people care and fair share (Leahy, 2021: 8–9) – to subdue these impacts and bring about a more sensible, sustainable tomorrow. ‘We have a window of opportunity. We have a chance to change our way of feeding, clothing and housing ourselves to one which is both high-yielding and sustainable. The future can be permanently abundant’ (ERM, 37). These calls go hand-in-hand with accusations of systemic inefficiency in resource management of industrial modernity.

Wastefulness: external resources and a lack of control

The ‘lack of common sense’ gets manifested more concretely in the following criticism, which draws upon the industrial order of worth. It is levelled against mass industrialised agriculture, and it accuses it of a lack of industriousness in resource use.

While the productivity of modern agriculture is great […], the efficiency is another matter. We find that the energy sustaining the system does not come from the sun via photosynthesis as in pre-industrial times, but mostly from fossil fuels via the industrial systems. (PM1, 3)

On the one hand, contemporary society depends on external energy resources, which are seen as costly and ineffective. ‘Industry and capitalism's financial investment systems, and their colossal use of energy, accumulate intractable wastes such as plastics’ (ERG, 22). This ineffectiveness ultimately turns into wastefulness. A concrete example related to crop production can be found in Permaculture One: ‘The energy now needed to produce these crops far exceeds the calorific return from them’ (PM1, 3).

On the other hand, the mass external supplementation of energy and resources leads to depletion and exploitation. Again, the industrial order of worth is invoked together with the green and civic orders of worth, as the accusations of inefficiency go hand-in-hand with the critique of unsustainability and unfairness:

Thus, the departure from productive permanent systems, where the land is held in common, to annual, commercial agricultures where land is regarded as a commodity involves a departure from a low to a high-energy society, the use of land in an exploitive way, and a demand for external energy sources, mainly provided by the third world. (PM2, 3)

Such exploitative usage is not only depleting, unjust and unsustainable, but also lacks in control. These exploitative and wasteful techniques are possible only with non-renewable energy sources, and when these sources are depleted, the techniques become impossible (PMF, 22). With the principle of modern rational mastery in mind, one striking issue is the lack of a comprehensive plan: once the resources are depleted, they will be gone, and there is no Plan B. ‘The reduction or collapse of the energy subsidy will result in a catastrophic drop in production. The basis for support of even pre-industrial populations, at low standards of living, would not exist’ (PM1, 3). It is as if a society that prides itself on taking fate into its own hands collapses into fatalism: we don’t know what will happen, but let's hope for things to go well.

This critique does not concern only the actual practices, though. It also seeps into a particular ethos that these practices represent. ‘Further, we should expect that the beliefs and values that have developed with a rising energy base are likely to be dysfunctional – even destructive – in a world of limited and declining energy’ (PMH, 2). The conviction and values developed with contemporary destructive wastefulness are seen as arbitrary, dysfunctional and worthy of revision. Permaculture presents itself as the needed alternative revision, bringing efficiency, sustainability, and, most importantly, a truly rational organisation.

A sustainable, efficient and holistic alternative

The suggested alternative takes non-humans, their needs and the needs of the environment into consideration (Roux-Rosier et al., 2018). In the self-portrayal of permaculture, we can find ‘imaginaries about worlds that would be good to live in and ways of reaching them’ (Lidskog and Waterton, 2016: 399). While permaculture mainly criticises the contemporary instrumental modernity and its ethos for its irrationality, inefficiency, unsustainability, wastefulness, unjustness, exploitativeness and outright destructiveness, we can also analyse how the alternative ethos it proposes relates to the general principles of modernity.

This relation can be discerned from the ways permaculture justifies itself. In a way, it legitimises itself as a more sustainable (green) and effective (industrial ² ) alternative.

The permaculture approach observes the interaction of natural elements, thus finding new, efficient, and sustainable ways to produce food and other goods. The aim is to put together systems that can regulate and maintain themselves while supplying the necessary resources. (PMF, 14)

What is particularly interesting is that this regulative rationalisation is portrayed as innovative and inventive by including and working with aspects of the local environment. In fact, attentiveness to the local environment provides an emancipatory aspiration as well that is tightly connected with the regulative logic. ‘[W]e reduce our total environmental impact as the best way to care for all living things, with no need to understand, have control over, or be responsible for the myriad of impacts of every individual action’ (PMH, 6). Here, care for all living things is the regulative element and this regulation by ‘care for all’ represents a rational mastery over the side effects of contemporary productive systems. The reduction of the environmental impact of humans by means of regulation leads to the emancipation of non-humans and the capacity of the ecosystem to self-regulate. This emancipation of self-regulating environmental systems ultimately lessens the need to have control over the environment, mastering the deficiencies the instrumentalised (over-)control causes. An individual designer enacting ‘care for all’ then stands in the role of both rational regulator and emancipator, reducing their own environmental impacts, while granting autonomy to non-human actors within the system.

The proposed more rational alternative presents a holistic integration of agricultural (and social) systems with natural systems. ‘To make proper use of the available natural resources we have to work with nature and not against it. This gives us the desired result for the least expenditure of energy’ (SHP, 5). Mollison offers a similar legitimisation: ‘In all our planning, the main aim should be to achieve a synergy, so that everything that can be together is put together, works together, and helps each other – […] a fail-safe system’ (PM2, 8). Integration with natural systems not only achieves a more efficient, frugal agricultural as well as cultural system, but the synergy between parts of the system makes it a self-regulating ‘fail-safe system’. Such glorification promises to mitigate what has been criticised in the case of industrial modernity. If its failure and irrationality stem primarily from its ignorance of nature, the cure of this malaise develops around the emancipation of ‘nature’ and non-human actors beyond their immediate economic use.

When permaculturists talk about systems, they speak from a holistic planner's perspective, focusing on inputs, outputs and effectiveness. For instance, while establishing a system of mutually beneficial integration may result in a lower total yield (market order of worth), the achieved systemic permanence (green order of worth) trumps productivity. ‘Maximum yield is not everything. The stability of a system, that is its ability to withstand stress, is equally important to those who rely on it for survival’ (ECM, 18). This suggests a reordering of importance as to which principles of worth justify the organisation of productive systems as sensible or support accusations of senselessness. According to permaculturists, permaculture provides a plan for the plundersome society lacking any plan. Moreover, it lays out a plan that anyone can take into their own individual hands.

Progress in permaculture

As we can see, permaculture posits itself as a rationalising solution to the contemporary failures of achieving sensible mastery over the impacts of productive systems and granting sensible autonomy to self-regulatory capacities of ecosystems. This positions the green rationality of permacultural alternative as a progress from the market pseudorationality of industrial modernity. ‘Permaculture is the extended and developed evolution of a total support base for man, beyond those developed by pre-industrial societies. The fact that it is based on permanence serves to define it’ (PM1, 4). It is important to emphasise that a permacultural understanding of progress differs from the image of progress we may attribute to industrial modernity. While industrial modernity sees progress as the expansion of extractive systems or the optimisation of extractive practices, that is, instrumental rationalisation, permaculture imagines progress as a step towards permanence, that is, environmentalist rationalisation. The ‘evolution’ authors speak of lies in the integration of permanence with contemporary civilisation, rather than in linear development. Based on the rest of our analysis, it seems more precise to speak of reconfiguration, rather than extension or development.

The permanence is expected to go beyond practices and lifestyles. The progress towards sustainability promises epistemic repair as well. ‘From its origins, permaculture has embraced concepts of permanence, sustainability, resilience and now restoration and regeneration. This is a progression of understanding and thinking about repair and the future’ (ECM, 7). If the present social organisation is irrational, wasteful and outright (self-)destructive, that is to say it is failing with regards to principles of modernity, then permaculture presents itself as its therapeutics – the repair aiming for a better tomorrow, which, again, underscores that permacultural progress is reconfigurational rather than expansionist. The progress as expansion of instrumental rationality places paramount importance on the market order of worth, whereas the progress to permanence based on reconfiguration towards ecological rationality places paramount importance on the green order.

While there is a hybridisation of the pre-modern and the modern in terms of techniques, there is hardly any doubt in terms of the ethos of permaculture. Its claims of repair are made in a progressive spirit – they promise a turn from wasteful pseudorational organisation towards permanently sustainable, truly rational organisation. In fact, permaculture stands as a recipe intended precisely for contemporary modern societies. ‘It is a challenge to modern man to develop as sophisticated a system of world species, integrated in a single resource assembly, and so ensure a sustainable society in modern terms’ (PM1, 11). The sustainable, holistic and efficient alternative then not only seeks to integrate with local environments but also with present modern societies. It calls for a progress of a different kind (Wagner, 2010) that claims to repair insufficiencies of the contemporary iteration of modernity with adherence to modern principles of rational control and autonomy, where ‘everything that can be together is put together, works together, and helps each other’ (PM2, 8) and ‘we reduce our total environmental impact as the best way to care for all living things’ (PMH, 6).

Conclusion

While permaculture carries a lot of signs of a back-to-the-land movement, it does not call for a return back. Instead, its ethos promises more faithful fulfilment of principles of modernity than what it identifies as offered by the instrumental rationality of industrial modernity. The themes of environmentally conscious rationalisation of agricultural systems, the emancipation of non-humans, and the regulation of our environmental impacts and wastes are presented as valuable in the green order of worth. The maximisation of sustainability and efficiency also culminates in the maximisation of worth in other orders, such as civic order. ³ Seen as such, the permacultural ethos exhibits a call for progressive reorganisation of society and speaks directly to the key imaginary significations of modernity: individual autonomy and rational mastery. The progress here deviates from the expanding image of progress typical for industrial modernity towards a different conception of progress as a step towards permanence.

We may understand the permacultural alternative as a proclaimed attempt to mitigate contemporary foolishness (Świrek and Pospěch, 2020; Wagner, 1994). The folly is caused by industrial productive practices, which neither pay attention to nor care about maintaining healthy ecosystems. Regulation (mastery) of human productive practices and emancipation of non-humans who may not be immediately useful for the agricultural system but are useful for the ecosystem presents a rationalising correction. The rationality here is the green order's ecological rationality rather than the market order's instrumental rationality, central to industrial modern agriculture. The ethos of this alternative modernity calls for progress towards a more sensible society whose functioning is renewable, permanently sustainable and in line with the renewability of nature. Such a system is portrayed as freer, more equitable and rational in terms of systemic efficiency and the values it brings about. On the other hand, the contemporary organisation that permaculture seeks to reform is portrayed as wasteful, unsustainable, disenfranchised, exploitative and outright contradictory to the common good. The social organisation of contemporary modernity fails to fulfil the ideals it proclaims. The values it leads to are not only irrational but outright destructive. As such, the progress to permanence that permaculture claims to represent is not only desirable but necessary to mitigate the impacts of progress as expansion.

Why is this important? Because we care about what is modern and what is not. As Smith and Howe (2015) argue, a key trope used in the discourse aimed against environmental movements is a trope of backwardness and tribalism. Rather than looking optimistically forward as one should, environmentalists are seen as wanting to lure us to the illusory comfort of times gone by. We do not want that. We want to be modern. As Świrek and Pospěch (2020) have shown, much of our value orientation is determined by our deep-seated adherence to the core principles of modernity. These include, first and foremost, its key imaginary significations: individual autonomy and rational mastery over the world. Referring to these sacred principles means invoking a particular kind of political power. The permacultural movement does just that. It criticises our contemporary society not as too modern but because it is not modern enough. The legitimising principles of modernity have been betrayed, the permaculturalists argue. Let's take matters into our own hands and fix that. Their view offers to reconcile the individual aspirations with the aspirations for the common good through the green order of worth.

We live in an era when proposals for alternative ways of societal organisations are urgently needed, yet they are also decried, ridiculed and refused. At this point, it becomes vital to understand the mechanisms of legitimacy behind alternative societal models: why are certain alternatives perceived as legitimate and others less so? What makes a potentially successful model succeed – or fail? We believe that the relationship of these alternative movements to the basic tenets of modernity is one of the key dimensions of this evaluation. Like permaculturists, we are still the children of modernity. We need to look for more sustainable ways of living with our legacy.