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The Biotechnic Research Community
by Janine and Robin Clarke

[Originally from Futures Magazine (June 1972 - Volume 4, Issue 2). This is based on a free copy that was on the publisher's website, but I'm not sure what happened to it. Unfortunately, there is precious little about their important research anywhere on the Internet.]

A research community whose aim is to explore and eventually live by biotechnic (or soft or ecological) technology is planned for 1973. This article discusses how such a community fits into the evolution of biotechnic technology. Futures invites ideas, criticisms and recommendations leading on from this discussion.

Most models of the future assume that, in one way or another, current trends will continue as long as is feasible, and that the future will look much like the present except that we will somehow manage to rid ourselves of the less desirable attributes of the present while at the same time maintaining and improving the more positive aspects of contemporary civilisation. Thus future utopias tend to be highly urban, politically very centralist, technocratic, complex and increasingly international and homogeneous. In this article we wish to suggest that an alternative is equally feasible and, in our view, preferable. Essentially, the alternative is based on a combination of decentralist politics coupled with a novel and decentralist technology. It leads to a type of society whose base is essentially rural rather than urban and whose environmental problems are solved by what is the only possible route: by re-integrating men with the natural systems on which they depend. An essential input to the model is that the non-polluting technologies which we are now seeking may be possible only on a small decentralised scale. For example, while solar and wind energy have long since been discarded as ealistic future solutions because they cannot be scaled up efficiently, few people have examined what happens if these non-polluting energy technologies were used instead at a micro-level.

For nearly 300 years new scientific knowledge has been directed at the goal of highly centralised technology. If that knowledge were now to be redirected to small-scale technical processes, the possible solutions that emerge are extremely varied and quite novel. If a society is to be based on this kind of technology, we envisage at least three different stages in the evolution of this 'biotechnic' base (alternatively called soft technology or ecological technology):

1. Conventional biotechnic research;
2. Research communities, in which conventional and unconventional research is mixed with the first efforts to formulate and practise a new way of life; and
3. Practising biotechnic community, fully compatible with long-term ecological stability but possible only when the main technical and social problems have been answered.

This division is, of course, artificial and stages 2 and 3 in particular will merge into one another. In fact, stage 3 is likely to have a permanent research component as the technical side may be capable of continuous improvement, within the boundary conditions laid down. No good definition of those conditions has yet been made but at the moment we intend working within the framework of the slogan "Technology should be valid for all men for all time"1. Such a slogan is ambiguous but it can be interpreted to include most of the restraints people would like to see made on technology. Specifically, it excludes all technologies which depend on the manipulation of one group by another group; all technologies which if practised globally would have undesirable cumulative effects; and all technologies which depend on using resources in such a way that they will not be available for future generations. It is, in other words, a formulation which recognises, among other things, that we now need new technologies which neither pollute the planet nor mortgage the future for unborn generations by using and exhausting irreplaceable resources.

In the first place, however, we will fit the idea for one specific research community into the general evolution of biotechnic technology so as to clarify the need for such a community, to define better its role and to spell out its relationship to other issues, such as Third World development.

Conventional biotechnic research

The simplest way of starting is to finance research on small-scale, non-polluting technologies which could in the future substitute for our current large-scale technologies. This research can be conducted in recognised laboratories, with government grants, by conventional scientists working more or less within their conventional paradigm.

Some work of this kind has already been begun, for example at the Brace Research Institute in Quebec,2 and it is to be hoped that a great deal more will soon follow. For the developing world particularly, such research can play an immediate and vital role, devices providing labour-intensive which improve material comforts and are compatible with local cultures and resources. Usually called intermediate or appropriate technology,3 this approach offers a saner and quicker chance of development to those peoples who so badly need it.

Yet how can we morally try to convert the developing countries to a form of technology which we ourselves in the developed world do not practise? We could argue that what is being offered is a stepping stone - an easy means up the ladder of technological progress which will eventually offer the Third World a Western standard of living. But few of us believe this ruse; and fewer of the developing countries believe it. Often, appropriate technology is seen by the Third World as yet another device for delaying development.

Appropriate technology thus lacks credibility to the developing world. If it is our intention to preach the message of alternative technology, then we must make the content of that message feasible and also demonstrate that at least some members of the privileged third of the world knowingly choose it in preference to high technology. In other words, we need centres in the West where the practise of alternative technology can be shown to be not only workable but preferable to the high industrial alternative.

It should be stressed that centres of this kind, operating in a temperate latitude, will not produce results which can be exported wholesale to developing areas, which need different technologies compatible with both local cultures and local resources. Yet biotechnic centres in the West would have great relevance to developing areas. This relevance would stem not from the concrete results obtained but from the process used in obtaining them. The biotechnic process can be conceived as universal, as a globally applicable model for producing the diversity of technologies which will best suit specific localities.

Soft technology research communities

The other arguments for such centres do not stem directly from the needs of the Third World. The idea of a biotechnic community is rich in social, political and ethical implications which go far beyond mere technological practise4 (as is the case for all forms of technology). For this reason, conventional research on specific technical questions will miss some of the subtlety of the idea. What are needed are centres where all its implications can be practised and assessed simultaneously. The characteristics of such a centre are highly debatable but some possible ones are contrasted with their high technology equivalents in Table 1.

TABLE 1. SOME UTOPIAN CHARACTERISTICS OF BIOTECHNIC COMMUNITIES
Hard technology society Biotechnic community
1. Ecologically unsound Ecologically sound
2. Large energy input Small energy input
3. High pollution rate Low or no pollution rate
4. 'One-way' use of materials and energy sources Reversible materials and renewable energy sources only
5. Functional for limited time only Functional for all time
6. Mass production Craft industry
7. High specialisation Low specialisation
8. Nuclear family Communal units
9. City emphasis Village emphasis
10. Alienation from nature Integration with nature
11. Consensus politics Democratic politics
12. Technical boundaries set by wealth Technical boundaries set by nature
13. World-wide trade Local bartering
14. Destructive of local culture Compatible with local culture
15. Technology liable to mis-use Safeguards against mis-use
16. Highly destructive to other species Dependent on well-being of other species
17. Innovation regulated by profit and war Innovation regulated by need
18. Growth-oriented economy Steady-state economy
19. Capital intensive Labour intensive
20. Alienates young and old Integrates young and old
21. Centralist Decentralist
22. General efficiency increases with size General efficiency increases with smallness
23. Operating modes too complicated for general comprehension Operating modes understandable by all
24. Technological accidents frequent and serious Technological accidents few and unimportant
25. Singular solutions to technical and social problems Diverse solutions to technical and social problems
26. Agricultural emphasis on monoculture Agricultural emphasis on diversity
27. Quantity criteria highly valued Quality criteria highly valued
28. Food production specialised industry Food production shared by all
29. Work undertaken primarily for income Work undertaken primarily for satisfaction
30. Small units totally dependent on others Small units self sufficient
31. Science and technology are alienated from culture Science and technology integrated with culture
32. Science and technology performed by specialist elites Science and technology performed by all
33. Science and technology divorced from other forms of knowledge Science and technology integrated with other forms of knowledge
34. Strong work/leisure distinction Weak or non-existent work/leisure distinction
35. High unemployment (Concept not valid)
36. Technical goals valid for only a small proprotion of the globe for a finite time Technical goals valid "for all men for all time"

All these characteristics need further study but we wish to stress only one of them here: the relationship of biotechnology to knowledge, and hence to science and scientific research which is a part (but only a part) of the total knowledge that can be drawn upon (number 33 in Table 1).

Current social critiques of the scientific scene5 mesh well with the implications of soft technology. For example, one criticism is that science is performed by a specialist elite who unconsciously determine the kind of life people must lead. Science becomes an esoteric, intellectual exercise removed from the real needs and comprehension of the people. But a 'biotechnic science' would be carried out by those who need it for purposes defined by themselves and would never advance beyond the comprehension of those operating it.

Further, it is of particular interest to try to fuse three types of knowledge which appear now to be distinct: (a) scientific research knowledge; (b) craft knowledge of the type that accrues from intimate contact with an operation and which generally defies explicit formulation (such as the green finger syndrome in gardening); and (c) folklore, which by contrast is usually explicitly formulated but is of unknown scientific validity. An approach which integrates all three can hardly be called science in the traditional sense and it is perhaps preferable to use Jerry Ravetz's phrase, "disciplined enquiry".6 If the goal of alternative technology is to be pursued by this means, it clearly cannot be done in the traditional scientific laboratory.

The advantages of pursuing the theory within the context of a practical centre are fairly obvious. In such a situation science is unlikely to become a cult activity. On the other hand, the positive aspects of what we understand to be a scientific approach could be put to good effect: without that, a biotechnic community can mean only a return to a past and simpler way of life. We take it that a biotechnic community should enable its practitioners to adopt a life style which is satisfying and ecologically sound; which is in harmony and close contact with nature; and which provides better ways of satisfying basic wants at greatly reduced capital cost and at a labour cost which is compatible with the values of the new life style. The latter are usually regarded as freedom from repetitive drudgery at boring tasks in return for strenuous but satisfying and diverse forms of exercise which occupy a portion, but only a portion, of everyone's day.

A model of this type of utopian society could be developed theoretically. To do so would, however, also miss the vital point that theory and practice should never again be divorced from one another as they are in contemporary science (except possibly in China). Implicit in the concept of the biotechnic community is the simultaneous development of theory and practice.

Today, centres with these aims hardly exist. Plenty of communities have been set up to explore the possibilities of alternative life-styles but most are either parasitic on industrial society or fail because they refuse to be so. The technological side of such communities is largely neglected and the research side ignored. There are also a large number of scientists and technologists performing what can be loosely called alternative technology but few have any real interest in designing alternative life styles. The important exceptions are the New Alchemy Institutes run by John Todd in the United States.7

Practising biotechnic communities

The aim of a biotechnic community is usually stated as follows: to make possible a life style which is compatible with long term ecological stability. However, the theory can be developed in a way in which an ecologically based and decentralist technology is used as the foundation of an alternative society. The theory's social and political implications (as well as those already mentioned for the nature of scientific activity) seem to form a harmonious whole with the ecological need with which it is normally associated. While this may be optimistic, it is also to be expected: our current ecological problems do not spring simply from the poor application of existing technology but are symptoms of a disease from which Western society suffers. For this reason, any genuine set of ecological solutions is bound to have radical social implications.

We do not want to explore the nature of this alternative society here except to stress that we do not see ourselves as 'missionaries' ; it is not our intention to develop the life style and then persuade everyone to adopt it. Rather, the plan should be to provide a 'third alternative'8 to the two which now exist of being underdeveloped or industrialised. If this idea is to be followed through, it means that the switch from, say, an industrialised society to a biotechnic community should be made feasible for as many people as possible. In other words, the change must not involve such things as a capital cost or a degree of specialist knowledge which are not generally available. Yet the research needed will require both capital and specialist knowledge. There is a tension here between the idea of a research community and the life style it is designed to make possible.

Plans for a biotechnic research community in 1973

The authors and several colleagues are now involved in planning a community of this type to begin in 1973. It will be based on a forty-three acre farm in Wales, which has been purchased by those permanent members intending to operate the project. In addition, provision will be made for visiting members who wish to provide their labour or special expertise for shorter periods. It seems important for the project that biotechnic activities, such as food production, should not be used as a source of income. Were this to happen, the demands of profit and fiscal efficiency might once again begin to dictate the life style and research pattern. Income should rather come from outside grants and promotional activities which would make use of members' training in such fields as education and journalism. A third possibility is to invite associate members to pay a small fee, contribute their own ideas, expertise and labour for research projects, and give them priority as visitors.

On the technical side, the first three priorities will be to seek renewable energy sources based on the sun, the wind and water power; new methods of treating and using human, animal and plant wastes; and new agricultural systems of great diversity, in which many species of plants, fish, other animals and trees are grown in an interdependent way without the use of chemical sprays and fertilisers or heavy and expensive equipment.

The community is to be known as Biotechnic Research and Development (BRAD). In the long term, it will seek to provide a new technology for people who wish to live in harmony their environment, in peace with their neighbours, and in control of their lives and their technology. The organisation is dedicated to the search for techniques which cost little, pollute little and harm no one. It plans to use these techniques to foster small scale, rural community development, using local resources and local labour. It hopes to be part of a process which will once again restore fertility, diversity and beauty to the land and provide satisfaction and happiness for its inhabitants by integrating them with their natural surroundings.

References

1. This definition is to be found in Robin Clarke, The Science of War and Peace (London, Cape, 1971), page 321. A general discussion of soft technology definitions appears in Peter Harper's, "Soft technology: a proposal for alternatives under conditions of crisis" (Unesco grant application, 1971)

2. "A brief outlien of the background and organisation of the Brace Research Institute" (Miscellaneous Report M.19) and "Brace Research Institute Annual Report" (Report No. M.24), available from T. A. Lawand, Brace Research Institute, McDonald College of McGill University, Ste. Anne de Bellevue 800, Quebec, Canada

3. See, for example: Tools for Progress (London, Intermediate Technology Development Group, 1967) and Robin Clarke, The Great Experiment: Science and Technology in the second UN Development Decade (New York, United Nations, 1971)

4. Lewis Herber's, "Towards a liberatory technology", in Anarchy 78, 7, 8 (August 1967) is one of the most thorough analyses.

5. See, for example, Jerry Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems (Oxford University Press, 1971)

6. Jerry Ravetz, Paper for the London New Science group (1971)

7. See New Alchemy Institute Bulletin (Fall 1970 and Spring 1971) and John Todd's articles in Organic Gardening and Farming (US edition: September, October and November, 1971)

8. Robin Clarke, "The third alternative", paper for the London New Science Group (1970)