Bush Mechanics and the Sharehood
Dr Paul Wildman is deeply concerned about the separation of learning
and practice as well as the commercialisation and focus on school
NAPLAN scores rather than student development, which has taken place
in Australian and indeed western education systems over the past
generation. Kids and Adults Learning today is essentially play-less,
hand-less and increasingly anti-practical. Indeed play has just been
eliminated from even pre-school with the advent of the
national preschool curriculum – “yes completely eliminated for kinder
that have been on earth for 48mths. 48mths is deemed too old for
play, for Mechanisch [German word for play]. For me this is a sign of
the ongoing decay of culture into an amorphous centralised elite
controlled Animal Farm. We, as Kids and Adults, all need
Do-It-Yourself-Play now as we see a rise in social discontent as
creactivity, if I may, is withdrawn from our schools.”
“In Australia there is a term for someone who links thinking and
doing, and can act forward with ingenuity, integrity and solve problems with what
is available while developing innovations in the field that respond to
broader needs,” he explained in a recent article in the Journal of Futures
Studies. The French term is bricoleur. “Bush Mechanic in the
Australian vernacular means in German Volk Handwerker. Mechanic can be
translated as Arbeit or labour or Handwerker – a chiro-ist so to
speak. Intriguingly Mechanic is also a cognate of Spiel or play as
Mechanisch. So we have the tri-unity of Mechankier (practical person),
Mechanic (Handwerker), and Mechanisch (as in play)”.
“A bush mechanic is committed to self reliance and excellence at her
task and is not to be confused with a ‘backyard mechanic’ who does
shoddy work. And a Bushy can look both ways to the handwork task at
hand and to the bush to find patterns in nature - particularly as with
indigenous folks.”
The common piece of kit here is the bench whether it be a sewing,
Kitchen, garden, surgeons, or motor mechanics bench. In Latin Opera Tabula
ipsa loquitur means ‘The work bench speaks for herself’ (bench in Latin
relates to the feminine; and opera means work – so work-bench becomes
opera-tabula. Thus the projects made by hand on the bench are a form of
‘opera’”. He continues: “It is my hope that the concept of bush mechanics will
help to demonstrate how such an ancient even archaic approach can help
create a better tomorrow today -- a future our children can live
with.” A mini Archaic Modernity Renaissance. After the apocalypse whether
it be peak oil, civil breakdown or global warming, a mutual aid Sharehood
world made by hand will be crucial, to avoid a Mad Max scenario.
So now we can see, hopefully, that practical concepts such as the Sharehood,
Permaculture, Community Economy and Bush Mechanics are linked even as overlapping circles, as multiple overlays in a montage of mutual aid. These all have deep archaic historical roots and anchor us well in terms of today’s approaching, and even post-apocalyptic, scenarios.
Adorno said in Can There be Education after Auschwitz (1971, 2030),
To see the newness of the old as well as the oldness of the new.
We MUST not throw out history, rather we must re-member it and learn there from the wisdom of the past in such an Archaic Renaissance what can help take us forward to a world nature and our children can live with.
It is in initiatives such as Sharehood, Permaculture and Bush Mechanics
that we see the new in, and from, the old. All of these initiatives are
outside, alongside and underneath our mainstream business and education
systems and maybe it’s here on the periphery that we should look for
ways to take us forward through the approaching miasma. This is for me a
potent test of authenticity and practical hope.
Paul Wildman is collecting exemplar projects. He has developed an
evaluation form based on the results of his research. Please contact
Dr Wildman at paul@kalgrove.com, if you are interested in submitting a
bush mechanic project of your own to be listed on his website and
become part of the public domain and global commons.
See http://www.kalgrove.com/adultlearning/ for more information on
bush mechanics.
