Geek Philosophy

In the past few months I’ve been noticing that a lot of “old” knowledge is coming back into use. By old knowledge, I mean information, techniques and ideas that have been around for some time but have been pushed aside, forgotten, or seemingly discredited. Perhaps some examples would be useful.

I recently traveled to Vancouver Island to spend time with my grandparents-in-law. While eating lunch at a local pub, I was telling them about how urban gardening is really picking up steam in Vancouver (and other places, of course, but Vancouver is what I know best). Sales of seeds and other gardening-related gear are way up, and a lot of the uptake is in the growing-your-own-food market. Empty lots in the downtown core are filling with garden plots, while rooftop gardens are a big trend in new condo development. Today at work, I visited our support department on the 5th floor, only to find a windowsill herb garden. Growing some of your own food is hardly a new concept (something like 40% of Canadians grew their own food in WW2), but its only recently that it’s been regarded as a trendy thing to do.

While we were having this conversation, Mel was having a seemingly unrelated conversation with her mother about doulas, midwives, and the institutionalization of the birthing process. Since Mel has recently become a postpartum doula, she’s really learned a lot in the past few months about the role that doulas play in many cultures, and how only recently that role has started to be recognized as very important in this country (other countries already know this – in Europe, some countries cover doula costs as part of their national health care system). Midwives are still relatively rare (10 seats per year at the UBC School of Midwifery), but it’s an improvement from 15 years ago, when Canada became the last developed country to recognize midwifery. Once again, old wisdom, that is, women and children benefit from having knowledgeable help available around childbirth, is starting to once again be practiced.

The big daddy of revisited old knowledge is the entire Green movement. Sure, there’s modern science telling us that monocultures are bad, global climate change is almost certainly real, and the ocean is filling with plastic. But if you go back far enough, you find that there aren’t a lot of new concepts. With food production, people are starting to realize that perhaps it’s not the best idea to feed cattle corn, plant only one crop on a large area of land, or spray food with poisonous chemicals. With building design, the concept of having a central brick wall to retain heat is regaining popularity, as are old-time practical things such as rainwater collection, smart plant selection to improve air quality, and designing awnings in such a way that they’ll let in more light in the winter months and less in the summer. Then there’s the whole drive towards resource conservation and pollution reduction, which never really went away but is certainly getting more and more popular.

So, has anyone else noticed this? Am I just seeing confirmation bias in action?