We Should All Be Peasants Now
We should all be peasants now. The phrase keeps returning to me. But what does being a peasant mean and why would I want to live that way?
I think about this for a reason. It seems there has been a new round of colonialism spreading throughout the world. Peasants are being thrown off their land, their commons, in lieu of “investments” and modern agricultural systems, by and for developed countries in preparation of the encroaching food shortages that they say will surely arise from global warming. They, the developed countries, suggest they can do it better, can grow food better, more effectively and can create stable jobs for the peasants. The truth is, however, much of the world’s food is actually grown by peasants, for themselves, for neighbors, for trade or sharing, but that is not considered in our western mind solutions to world hunger.
I have been thinking about this because the key to our survival, as it turns out, is our soil and healthy ecosystems, the water and adaptable, regional, bio-diverse crops. As it turns out, it is peasant systems, not our western ones, that can best manage the task. Peasants do not translate everything, all things, into a commodity. They live close to the ground. Use what they grow. Live within the limitations of the commons. But still we dismiss them as “poor peasants” and throw them off the commons that are in most need of their care. I think about why we continue to do that, why we must deny them a livelihood, a life. Why they, in fact none of us, can live as peasants and how the very idea has been stripped from our language, our vision, our respect.
Westerners have lived within the paradigm of private property for so long that it has all but defined our relationship to the land and survival. None, or few of us, have tribal lands, home lands, commons. None of us can understand a sense of place and purpose that defines their life. Peasants, as they have been, would live in a common, a land before deeds, titles and ownership. Not all, mind you, but many. And I suspect this notion of shared space allowed for entirely different relationships to the land, to stewardship, to each other and survival. Still, we have so long assumed that our western way was better that we have dismissed them as obsolete or, if we are honest, a little sad. Poor peasants, poor people of "subsistence". We pity them. But I think they should pity us. The truth is, we city folks are all serfs, only fancier. We all work for the land owners and pay our way. Oh we may own our plot, but our goods and services are mostly delivered from far and wide which, in fact, is what separates us from peasants. They may be cash poor but they buy less. They produce the goods and services they require. And they supply for their needs within the balance of the commons - what it allows, how many it will naturally support. They do not speak stewardship but live it. We westerners must work for the company store. We must leave our land. All of us, day laborers for the man. Which could have worked, I suppose, if it had not been the betrayal -- the greed, the indifference, the stealing of the common resources for a privileged few. Yes, pity us. I try and imagine what being a peasant would be like here, in the states, in my backyard. I know I can touch really very little of it but more than the life my western mind offers, I lurch towards peasant mind. I wonder what crops (though my space hardly allows me to call anything a crop) are most nutritious, what the region would allow, require, to feed its humble occupant, on this humble space. I wonder whether it kale, onions, garlic, dandelions and, tomatoes. I think of grain and like a child I make the connection that high nutritional grains are the thing. I bake with white flour too often and I am silly for it. I wonder if I should grind my wheat berries for flour. I think of making flat bread, fermented foods and growing beans. I think of systems, new systems. Not stuff I can buy or be served by, but ones of and by the small bit of land I have been given. And once settled on, these foods would serve as my family’s meals and not, specifically or preciously, as a cuisine, as we like to call it. And then I go out for a walk and see all the shops and all the food. Ohhhh, lavender ice cream and delicious cheeses. Thai fried tilapia at my new favorite restaurant. I resist and submit in different measures. And I walk around like Alice down the rabbit hole (and actually tell folks that) because I cannot ever really balance my peasant mind with my western one. Which is when I return to my backyard and think about being a peasant again or at the very least reclaiming the term. Not for what I can or will ever be but for the life it represents. We should all be peasants now.
Westerners have lived within the paradigm of private property for so long that it has all but defined our relationship to the land and survival. None, or few of us, have tribal lands, home lands, commons. None of us can understand a sense of place and purpose that defines their life. Peasants, as they have been, would live in a common, a land before deeds, titles and ownership. Not all, mind you, but many. And I suspect this notion of shared space allowed for entirely different relationships to the land, to stewardship, to each other and survival. Still, we have so long assumed that our western way was better that we have dismissed them as obsolete or, if we are honest, a little sad. Poor peasants, poor people of "subsistence". We pity them. But I think they should pity us. The truth is, we city folks are all serfs, only fancier. We all work for the land owners and pay our way. Oh we may own our plot, but our goods and services are mostly delivered from far and wide which, in fact, is what separates us from peasants. They may be cash poor but they buy less. They produce the goods and services they require. And they supply for their needs within the balance of the commons - what it allows, how many it will naturally support. They do not speak stewardship but live it. We westerners must work for the company store. We must leave our land. All of us, day laborers for the man. Which could have worked, I suppose, if it had not been the betrayal -- the greed, the indifference, the stealing of the common resources for a privileged few. Yes, pity us. I try and imagine what being a peasant would be like here, in the states, in my backyard. I know I can touch really very little of it but more than the life my western mind offers, I lurch towards peasant mind. I wonder what crops (though my space hardly allows me to call anything a crop) are most nutritious, what the region would allow, require, to feed its humble occupant, on this humble space. I wonder whether it kale, onions, garlic, dandelions and, tomatoes. I think of grain and like a child I make the connection that high nutritional grains are the thing. I bake with white flour too often and I am silly for it. I wonder if I should grind my wheat berries for flour. I think of making flat bread, fermented foods and growing beans. I think of systems, new systems. Not stuff I can buy or be served by, but ones of and by the small bit of land I have been given. And once settled on, these foods would serve as my family’s meals and not, specifically or preciously, as a cuisine, as we like to call it. And then I go out for a walk and see all the shops and all the food. Ohhhh, lavender ice cream and delicious cheeses. Thai fried tilapia at my new favorite restaurant. I resist and submit in different measures. And I walk around like Alice down the rabbit hole (and actually tell folks that) because I cannot ever really balance my peasant mind with my western one. Which is when I return to my backyard and think about being a peasant again or at the very least reclaiming the term. Not for what I can or will ever be but for the life it represents. We should all be peasants now.
I have considered myself to be a suburban peasant for quite some time and was happy to see that you have touched this subject yourself. I like the idea of being common, of living simply now that I am older and single once again. I choose what I plant in my tiny peasant garden, I eat what I plant because it was what I chose. I make do with everything else I might need and I'm getting better at not straying from the peasant limitations I've set for myself. I do own the little that I have and I'll make it last as long as I can. It used to be that when times were prosperous, the peasants seemed to go away, but now that times are tough again, we peasants are back... although we never really left at all.
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It will be interesting to track the years ahead. Will we embrace the opportunities that come with frugality and "peasantry"? Without a doubt, many people are feeling the pain and sadly the transition (if we can call it that) will be drastic and disruptive to many middle class citizens. Of course, we seem to be making a case that "peasantry" should never have been abandoned or, at least, abandoned with such little regard to its essence. I wonder, now that the elections are over, whether the angry citizens of this country will finally look to what, and who, has really stolen their future. Yes, by a good measure it is the same cabal that has always managed to suck the life force and equity out of this country but it is also ourselves--our assumptions of privilege. They say necessity is the mother of invention. We will see what the people come up with because I strongly doubt Washington will relieve their pain.
Harriet
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I'm hoping that because of the financial challenges, and the disrupted routines that many people have had to suffer during this economy; anything frugal or commonsense that they have used to get through these times, will eventually become new daily habits and transcend into a more meaningful and maintainable lifestyle for the future.
The reason I'm hopeful is because those who lived during the days of the Great Depression, most of them children at the time, have locked into those frugal ways of living already, some from the start. Others have listened to their stories and learned their ways and applied them to their own situations today. I'm glad that there are still those with us who were there at the time. Their life stories are real and told in the first person and carry the integrity of lives well lived regardless of dire circumstances.
I hear stories everyday from the descendents of these survivors who are keeping the "old ways" intact. They are handing down these skills as we speak to anyone who will receive them now to carry on simple-living peasantry as a viable means of living sensibly and reasonably regardless of what goes on in the world around them.
Hopefully we have learned a lesson from this, we are not guaranteed outside rewards, we are not privileged royalty, we have to secure our own ways and means of survival.
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Thanks for posting I've passed this on to a friend who will be interested in it
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Good posting, you might want to read the interesting book, The New Peasantries
http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?tabid=3921
And thanks for this blog and the other stuff Harriet. Your Householding concepts and my Garden Eearth are more or less the same I note.
http://gardenearth.blogspot.com/2010/05/finally.html
I look forward to reading more...
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Took me some time to read most of the comments, but I definitely loved the post. It proved to be quite helpful to me and I am sure to all of the commenters here! It's constantly awesome when you can not only be informed, but also entertained! I'm confident you had fun writing this post.
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Thanks much. Seems like the notion of "peasant hood" is resonating with folks. It's hard to manifest here in the states but important to consider.
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Thanks much. Seems like the notion of "peasant hood" is resonating with folks. It's hard to manifest here in the states but important to consider.
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