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Cory Doctorow and Alex Steffen have cooked up a wondrous plan. After the apocalypse, over-educated city folk will spread out into the “dead mall suburban slums, rustbelt browntowns and climate-smacked farm communities” and help all us non-urban idiots get our shit together.
“Imagine these folks like this passing out free textbooks, running holistic programs for kids, creating local knowledge management systems, launching microfinance projects, mobilebanking and complementary currencies. Helping rural landowners apply climate foresight and farm biodiversity. Building cheap, smart, quality housing for displaced people (not to mention better refugee camps), or an Open Architecture Network for cheap informal rehabs of run-down suburban housing. Hacking together DIY windmills and ad hoc smart grids, communication systems, water treatment systems — and getting really good atadaptive reuses of outdated infrastructure. In other words, these folks would be redistributing the future at a furious clip.”
This isn’t just idiotic and ill-conceived, it’s actually offensive.
Having lived in cities my entire life, and a rural area for the last two years, I can assure you: when the apocalypse comes, rural communities are going to come out on top. (First and most obviously, we have the food. And the means to continue making the food after all the systems crash.)
When you drive through a rural area, all you see are little houses in the middle of big open fields. Occasionally you might pass a little town, or a grain elevator. What you don’t see is the web of interpersonal connections.
Everybody knows everybody else. Everyone has a skill. The barter system is king, and social networking occurs here on a scale that boggles the mind.
Rural areas represent a system of distributed information which is, shall we say, heavily weighted towards the practical. People out here know how to do stuff.
Here’s how it will work:
Alice puts up jars of blackberry jam. She trades them to Bob in exchange for having an outhouse built. Bob’s teenage son Charlie doesn’t have any skills per se, but he’s young and strong so he’ll go up the road to Donna’s place and help her dig a rainwater collection pit. Donna has a green thumb, so she’ll give Edward advice on putting in a potato patch. (In exchange, Edward will give her a bushel of potatoes this fall.) Edward is a retired construction foreman. He’ll borrow Charlie for manual labor, and the two of them will go down to Freda’s place and build her a barn out of scrap wood for her new baby goat. (In exchange, Freda will supply them with goat’s milk cheese next winter.) Freda will breed her doe with George’s buck, and they’ll split the proceeds from the sale of the kids. Meanwhile it’s been raining, and Donna’s rainwater pit is filling up nicely, and Bob and Charlie stop by once a month to fill up their 50-gallon drums. Freda’s first batch of goat’s milk cheese turns out well, so she trades some to Alice for blackberry jam. Charlie helps Freda milk the goats every morning in exchange for fresh milk, which he trades with Edward for fresh eggs from Edward’s chickens.
I know that’s how it will work, because that’s already how it works. Somewhere in that vast network of people you can find an author, an artist, a doctor, a veterinarian, an electrician, an architect, an engineer, a lawyer, a soil scientist, a math teacher… any skill you need, it’s out there. It’s incredibly patronizing to assume otherwise.
How are a bunch of fresh-faced Apple-wielding urbanites with History degrees going to help, exactly?
But really, we should thank Cory for sending them our way. Unskilled manual labor is always going to be in demand. (Someone please tell them to bring their own work gloves.)
Tags: DO NOT WANT
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Ugh, srsly? When I read that excerpt I thought they must be bein’ all ironical. Yes, after the apocalypse everybody is really going to need free textbooks and holistic programs. They will definitely show those vapid suburbanites and hill folk how it’s done.
Blech. Here I am in the country, looking forward to living off the land, and learning that all my education and training was geared toward a very different life and I’m going to have pick up the pace with the learning. The land is different, there are lots of unknowns and needs here to address that holistic programs for kids and free textbooks won’t be able to touch.
Comment by Wendy —
July 14, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
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[...] name-calling has already begun. It does not bother me (yet), because I know that the name-calling is not (yet) based on [...]
Pingback by The Outquisition » Blog Archive » How to know if the Outquisition has gone horribly wrong —
July 15, 2008 @ 2:39 am
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Yeah, I’ve heard the kind of urban patronization you talk about. And though I totally cop to the moniker “over educated” I also have some practical knowledge, like how to grow food, and how to bake bread, and how to make a culture of wild yeast in order to BE ABLE TO bake bread….And I have some soil-science know-how, and I know a lot about what plants are edible and what plants are not…
I could probably also skin and gut a rabbit if it came to that, but I’m hoping it never DOES.
Comment by fillyjonk —
July 15, 2008 @ 5:24 am
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Aw, hey now…I’m a fresh-faced Apple-wielding urbanite with a History degree (or at least, a History education certification)…and I take offense to that. I think it’s unfair to assume that we won’t be adaptable and learn how to subsist, either.
I don’t agree that the rural folk won’t be able to survive without our help, either. I just think that come the apocalypse, we’ll all have something to provide…
Comment by Katie —
July 15, 2008 @ 6:47 am
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Ah, but the Outquisition isn’t about creating a pool of shared human knowledge. It’s about enlightened city folk bringing The Truth to us poor rural bumpkins.
The Outquisition’s flow of information is strictly one-way. How patronizing and arrogant can you get?
Comment by Erika —
July 15, 2008 @ 7:31 am
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You know, I think I get it…it’s not so much “what we’ll do after the bomb,” but more “once we’re ready to pick up where we left off…” kind of thoughts.
It’s the whole avoidance of a “dark age.” I mean (smirk) someone /has/ to lead all us useful, hard-working survivors! If not them, who else? Can’t leave it to the people to find their own ways!
Comment by Mary —
July 15, 2008 @ 8:16 am
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I’m all for a good Cory-bashing when one’s needed, and yeah, his blog post is reeking of smug self-satisfaction, but this blog entry too bothers me. I read the original articles linked above, and it’s not so much them imagining that they’re going to help the rural folk (though there is a tiny mention of that*) so much as they’re envisioning helping the masses of unprepared urban and suburban folks. At least they’re imagining a need for helping all the people who’ve never dirtied their hands in a garden, whereas the tone of this blog entry and others like it is, aw frak yourselves. We rural folks already know what we’re doing and we’ll help our kind ourselves thank you very much. And the smug attitude Cory’s so often guilty of is appalingly present in your last line about “Unskilled manual labor is always going to be in demand”. Cory’s vision is about enlightening and building up, and yours seems to be, well, we could use a few grunts around harvest time.
Nice.
*Some rural folk may find themselves in need of assistance. Perhaps not in lush Washington state which is apparently fine and always will be, thank you very much, but in regions which historically have been abundant producers which are even now drying out.
Comment by ballookey —
July 15, 2008 @ 8:29 am
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Exactly – I don’t think anyone would be opposed to “after the apocalypse, we should share information.” But that is not what they said.
They said “after the apocalypse, city people should bring enlightenment to the remaining 7/8ths of the country.”
That’s just plain insulting.
Comment by Erika —
July 15, 2008 @ 8:30 am
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Not everywhere is the same as the world you’ve experienced. The area you describe sounds idyllic, and quite homey. But there are areas where it’s just not like that. I daresay that what you’ve described is the exception, not the rule. I’ve lived in a few small towns, and while yes, there is quite a bit of what you describe in a few places to certain degrees, there’s also quite a bit of the opposite. Also, In quite a few areas without the support of modern technology and chemicals for fertilizers and pesticides, I’d say that probably 75-80% of the farmers out there wouldn’t get a single crop in. there are ways to go about doing it, they managed for 10,000 years without the new fangled stuff, but that information is on the verge of being lost. If someone can keep it, and distribute it where it’s needed, then more power to them.
Comment by Mandamus —
July 15, 2008 @ 8:33 am
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You mean I’m going to be around after the apocalype to have preferences about how society is run?
I demand a proper apocalypse then!
Comment by Debbie —
July 15, 2008 @ 8:45 am
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To be totally honest, if there IS a coming apocalypse? I honestly hope I’m one of the people why buys the farm in it. Even with my gutting-growing-yeast making skills.
Comment by fillyjonk —
July 15, 2008 @ 9:05 am
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I’d always assumed that if I survived an apocalypse, I’d have to throw myself at the mercy of people who know survival skills, rural or not. I have an internal urgency that tells me to learn how to can food and grow vegetables on my patch of backyard in the city. I also really want to raise dairy goats and a couple sheep. (For wool so I can keep knitting after the bomb, natch.) I think if colleges teach these skills, it’s only for the large-scale agri-business folks.
I imagine professors and techies in the same way as in Terry Pratchett’s books, were they travel around like a band of carnies, selling bits of knowledge for food and other necessities. They got driven out of town at night to keep things respectable.
Comment by Jennifer —
July 15, 2008 @ 10:08 am
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Love Terry Pratchett. Love my fruit trees, too. It’s time we all grow what we can. Even a few tomatoes and a bit of zucchini helps. Spinach can be grown in a pot…then the outside leaves can be pinched off so the plant keeps growing.
Will salmonella and e-coli, I want to grow my own. Think I’ll get chickens next spring. Not only will they provide eggs, they will eat the hateful ucky bugs and fertilize everything in sight with them. Heh.
Comment by Judy —
July 15, 2008 @ 10:57 am
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Judy:
I’ve been thinking about chickens too. They’re allowed in Madison city limits, up to four per yard. However, they have to be kept a certain distance from the neighbors, and if you want them to eat your bugs from the garden, then you’ll have to have good fencing to protect them. We have lots of dogs around here. Also have to get skillz to build a coop. Those ones for sale are expensive!
Comment by Jennifer —
July 15, 2008 @ 11:50 am
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I’m wondering how they think farms are being run now? By offline illiterate imbeciles? If the farms are making any money at all, they’re probably familiar with climate and finance, possibly even the internet.
Comment by Carrie K —
July 15, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
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Word.
I may be an incompetent Apple-wielding urbanite (Maybe? Definitely!) but I grew up in the sticks and this kind of condescending crap has been driving me crazy for years!
Go get ‘em, tiger!
Comment by Lala —
July 15, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
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Oh, man. I live in the city, but I’m not dumb enough to think people who don’t are stupid. What an arrogant uneducated idiot this guy is. So glad he’s willing to bring enlightenment to the unwashed natives.
Oh, man, I’m so disgusted.
Comment by Patti —
July 15, 2008 @ 4:06 pm
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Years ago I had it in my head I needed underwear and t-shirts. Every time I went shopping I bought underwear and everywhere I went, I collected t-shirts.
I have over 100 pairs of underwear and at least 75 t-shirts.
So when the apocalypse happens, y’all will be running to ol’ Fiona’s for a fresh pair, lemme tell you!
(here’s hoping the links works)
66 T’s: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v387/Fiona9810/Underwear/?action=view¤t=66Tshirts.jpg
80+ Underwear: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v387/Fiona9810/Underwear/?action=view¤t=DSCN0398.jpg
Comment by Fiona —
July 15, 2008 @ 9:04 pm
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What really gets me is that these people seem to feel the apocalypse is some foregone conclusion! Why not take their superior intellect and put it towards preventing the end of the world instead of scheming up ways to set up microlending infrastructure in suburban malls?
Seriously, there are enough post-apocoyptic nut jobs out there, why not establish a global community of religious, racial, social and cultural tolerance and spread the message that there’s no NEED to destroy the world. And honestly, I have serious economic doubts about destroying nations. In this global economy if you take out a major market or resource, everyone suffers. Even if your country is led by some righteous nutjob, s/he still has a vested interest in the economic viability of the system as a whole.
Comment by Meg McG —
July 16, 2008 @ 9:08 am
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Meg, sorry to tell you, but the apocalypse has already begun. Peak oil, global warming, subprime fiasco, etc. Holding hands and singing about harmony? — not going to cut it. This isn’t your parent’s apocalypse.
Comment by Dorothy —
July 16, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
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