Ashley Fitzgerald is an environmental sociologist, a writer, a teacher, and the cofounder and co-director of the Rizoma Field School. Rizoma leads experiential field learning trips to Uruguay and the midwestern United States and offers courses on homesteading and homeschooling. Ashley is also the cofounder and cohost of the Doomer Optimism Podcast. Geoff and Ashley talk about institutions, protectionism, schooling and tradition in today’s episode. They also talk about the tendencies to optimize and to start new things versus changing the communities we already have.
Links:
Ashley on Twitter: https://x.com/rizomaschool
Rizoma Field School: https://rizomafieldschool.com/
Ashley’s writings: https://bio.link/ashleycolby
Doomer Optimism Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7C9x3FfDfsfAvmgUysy1wh
Front Porch Republic article by Ashley: https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2022/09/the-jeffersonians-on-the-margins-of-natcon/
Ashley referenced Andrew Szasz’s Shopping our Way to Safety: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/shopping-our-way-to-safety
“Spreadsheet brain”: https://x.com/RizomaSchool/status/1673751245876543490
Timestamps
0:00 – intro
1:45 – the problem: post-industrial global homogenization, the state and the market as the main sources of action
9:52 – corporatism, why community bonds are so frayed, generational memory, water fountains
17:03 – buying our way to safety, crumbling of the public sphere
19:47 – the hyper-scaling of institutions, the retreat from engagement, focusing on local organizations
24:50 – unprecedented energy abundance, Chris Smaje and George Monbiot debate, flashy solutions
32:06 – solarpunk yogurt commercial, doomer optimism, simple machines, appropriate technology
37:48 – small-scale energy production, changes in industries, decentralized and low-tech examples
41:17 – canal futurism, technologies that are human-scaled and add to quality of life
43:59 – strength in numbers, influence of the community and environment
45:40 – how being a parent has changed Ashley’s approach, homeschooling, public school
53:30 – building new things vs fixing existing ones, tradition and structure
1:01:29 – the future is uncertain, Ashley getting involved in local politics
1:03:47 – Uruguay and moving back to Chicago, planting roots
1:08:12 – modernity insulating people from the world, buying your way to everything, real connections
1:12:10 – knowing your neighbor, adding to the collective, forces of atomization
1:16:23 – spreadsheet brain meme, ignoring intuition for data, believing what you see
1:19:31 – conclusion and where you can find Ashley
Yeoman 