Nándor Tánczos describes himself as a Dad, social ecologist, educator, permaculturalist and a WhakatÄne District Councillor. Others describe him as New Zealand’s first Rastafarian MP and one our our first Green MPs. We talk about what drives him, how he became socially active (radicalised in Darlington!), his new project – social permaculture, and our bigger goal – to recreate our society and culture as a homeotelic culture.
Talking points
We need to be better at imagining and rehearsing paradise
That awoke me to the potential – a transformation of consciousness.
The soft infrastructure is just as important for well-being
Social permaculture – how do we apply ideas of permaculture to regenerating society?
We need to avoid ecology becoming a reductionist science.
I’ve been inspired by Goldsmith‘s concept of homeotelic – to maintain and enhance the integrity of the whole. The default behaviour of any healthy part of the system serves to maintain and enhance the integrity of the whole. Human culture was – Goldsmith calls it the vernacular culture – and can be homeotelic – but in our industrialised culture the default behaviour of human individuals serves to undermine and degrade the integrity of the ecological whole. Our industrial society is hetereotelic. It was a real moment for me, realising that the task is to recreate our society and culture as a homeotelic culture. So it’s about mindset.
This whole reality is our collective creation – we can change it.
There’s a profound shift taking place.
Superpower: ability to work with different people
Challenge: Writing. We need people to be painting how things could be different.