the timboucher experience

I’ve been reading a bit of the works of people like John Robb and Jeff Vail, whose websites portray them as military intelligence and geopolitical experts, of sorts, with specialties in counter-terrorism and the like, acting as consultants and lecturers to government alphabet agencies.

Through my very brief browsing of their work, I’ve been finding lots of very “alternative” ideas and concepts operating in their available online writings. Jeff Vail aligns himself closely with things like “rhizome organization”, while Robb looks towards wording like “networked tribes” and “self-organizing futures.” Both writers seem to look at terrrorism and other global crises from a very meta, very emergent viewpoint. Which, to me, seems very… I don’t… “hip” for lack of a better word. Very bohemian almost.

Each talks at length about something called “resilient communities”, a phrase whose origin I’ve not yet tracked down. Vail also uses the phrase, which he may have coined, the “hamlet economy,” and describes it rather poetically as “as a non-hierarchal network of self-sufficient but interacting nodes.”

Both authors talk about sustainability and the fragility of the modern state, and provide an oddly hopeful view of the future based on long-range thinking about viable alternatives to the dominant paradigm. Which, to me, is exciting because its parallels are so strong to what “counter-culture thinkers” have been writing and talking about on the internet for the past several years.

Resilient communities, to me, seems closely connected to the concept of biodiversity in agriculture: where you grow a bunch of different crops, spreading out your chances of long-term survival and profitability. And the hamlet economy to me shares many characteristics compatible with permaculture and ecovillages.

Is it possible that the counter-culture - which often prides itself on its opposition to the government and to “official” policy - may be working towards goals which are actually quite in line with certain factions or fads within the government? I don’t mean this in an “it’s all a conspiracy” kind of way, so much as I’m thinking: maybe certain trends are really just obvious within culture and history. And those trends, observed, suggest quite readily their own solutions. As we move towards consensual solutions such as these and experiment with others, it may not be our goals, per se, which separate or define different “sides” of what was once an argument; it may have more to do with differing philosophical motivations. But maybe not even then; maybe all any of us are really looking for at the end of the day is a good and beautiful way of living. Here’s to finding it together as the old brittle systems slip into ruin.

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