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Arts and Entertainment: Art Center Hosts Gallery Show
November 5th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Cedar Key Arts Center Workshops For November 2012
October 23rd, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Beginning Throwing with Clay 6 - 9
October 22nd, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Empty Bowls Event
October 20th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Cedar Key Artist Wins Award
October 19th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Call To Artists
October 8th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Cedar Key Arts Center schedule for October
September 1st, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Suwannee Valley Players Announce 30th Anniversary Season
August 24th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: DESIGN SELECTED FOR 2013 CEDAR KEY ART FESTIVAL
August 18th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: The Cedar Key Arts Center has once again turned out a talented group of young artists
July 30th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Summer Arts Program
July 4th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Spring Arts Festival 2013 Date Set New Arts Center Program Administrator New Event Coordinator Announced
June 25th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Cedar Key Arts Center - Youth Art Education - Looking For Teachers
May 17th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Youth Song writing Workshop at the Bronson Public Library
May 17th, 2012

Arts and Entertainment: Cedar Key Arts Center - Youth Art Program
May 17th, 2012

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Panarchy: A Book Review

Panarchy: A Book Review

Robin McClary

This is a book written in part and edited by C.S. (Buzz) Holling, a Cedar Key resident. It is a work of 16 chapters in 507 pages, published by Island Press, ISBN 1-55963-857-5.


The Greek God Pan, god of the meadows dances to his own tune

There are several caveats that I must include from the beginning. First, I am neither a mathematician nor a statistician. When I took the GRE's for graduate school, they made me promise not to take any course that involved mathematics. As a result, some chapters in this book were opaque to me. I skipped them. Secondly, the book is a compilation of many authors and I found the change in writing styles somewhat disconcerting. Like reading Chaucer with parts of the journey written by Mickey Spillane. With those two things aside, this is a very important book for those of us that constantly scratch our heads over the strange happenings in our human culture.

This is a book that had its beginnings in the study of the flow of change in ecological systems, such as the Florida Everglades. The principles formulated in the study of these natural systems are then applied to human culture. Of course, major modifications had to be made to include the existence of human consciousness and our cultural organizations that adapt to changing needs.

The crux of the message here is that human systems, like natural ecological systems, go through quantifiable changes. The picture, resembling a möbius strip, taken from the cover, illustrates this flow of change.

There is an exploitation of a set of circumstances, developing into a stable system; which is then conserved, sometimes at all costs, just because it worked to solve the original problem. But as the world changes, the old solution fails to solve the new problems and the conservation effort crumples and releases to allow re-grouping and a new exploitation. The cycle then continues.

A deeper insight, not fully explored (I think), is that human systems are a series of these flow patterns operating both independently and interconnected. An example is that the State of California experiments with legalization of Marijuana while the Federal Government resists any change to the present drug laws. It is the tension between the old ways and the new. It is the resulting flow of change that gives human systems a chance to progress or return, providing a massive amount of resilience. It should be apparent that simultaneous failures throughout the system can result in chaos, like the recent demise of the USSR.

There are many more revelations within reach in this book, even for those of us who (because of some personal shortcomings, like me) must pick only the fruit close to the ground. Forgive me for over-stretching my metaphor; there are many more juicy tidbits in this book for anyone interested in the flow of human culture.

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