Good design depends on a free and harmonious relationship between nature and people, in which careful observation and thoughtful interaction provide the design inspiration, repertoire and patterns. It is not something that is generated in isolation, but through continuous and reciprocal interaction with the subject.
Permaculture uses these conditions to consciously and continuously evolve systems of land use and living that can sustain people through the era of energy descent.
In hunter-gatherer and low-density agricultural societies, the natural environment provided all material needs, with human effort mainly required for harvesting. In pre-industrial societies with high population densities, agricultural productivity depended on large and continuous input of human labour[ix].
Industrial society depends on large and continuous inputs of fossil fuel energy to provide its food and other goods and services. Permaculture designers use careful observation and thoughtful interaction to make more effective use of human capabilities, and reduce dependence on non-renewable energy and high technology.
Within more conservative and socially bonded agrarian communities, the ability of some individuals to stand back from, observe and interpret both traditional and modern methods of land use, is a powerful tool in evolving new and more appropriate systems. While complete change within communities is always more difficult for a host of reasons, the presence of locally evolved models, with its roots in the best of traditional and modern ecological design, is more likely to be successful than a pre-designed system introduced from outside. Further, a diversity of such local models would naturally generate innovative elements which can cross-fertilise similar innovations elsewhere.
Facilitating the generation of independent, even heretical, long-term thinking needed to design new solutions is more the focus of this principle than the adoption and replication of proven solutions. In the past it has been the academy and urban affluence that have tolerated and even supported such thinking, while traditional agrarian culture has ruthlessly suppressed it. In the final chaotic stages of post-modern affluent society the systems of authority of knowledge are less clear, and the opportunities for such independent and more systemic thinking are more diffusely spread across the social and geographic hierarchy. In this context we cannot rely on labels and demeanour as signs of authority and value when assessing any prospective design solutions. Thus at every level we must rely more and more on skills in observation and sensitive interaction to find the best path forward.
The proverb beauty is in the eye of the beholder reminds us that the process of observing influences reality, and that we must always be circumspect about absolute truths and values.
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