# Localism

Although I'm quite a globalist in mathematics, ideologically I'm
a localist. Though not that strict. If your neighborhood does not
produce salt, you should eat nonlocal salt rather than going die.
I guess "distributist" is the right word for this. Subsidiarity.

When I talk about locality, it usually refers the polis. The concept
is much about self-sufficiency. A polis is the minimal social unit
that can be self-sufficient.

Then an important implication. If you try to be self-sufficient,
be a locavore first. Produce things yourself after. If you become
a locavore, what you consume will be easy to produce by yourself.



Use what you have. Locality is just a result of this. And I'm not
against using nontraditional things if it can be locally produced. 
If it can be locally produced, it becomes a new tradition.

For example, tomatoes came from America. But if it can be locally
produced, I can't find any problems. The "tradition" is just a
result of the locally produced ingredients. Tomatoes have become
a new tradition.



Creation is imitation. Therefore I support mimicking foreign things
with local ingredients. Make foreign things in traditional ways.
I consider things like pineapple pizza creations.

Pineapple pizza is a local food. It is not Italian. It is just
Italian "influenced". In fact every local pizza variant in Italy
is a result of the same process. There is no country for the Platonic
form of pizza.

Use what you have. Throw out the Gnostic mindset that mimesis is
inherently worse than the original. Demiurge has created the material
world by imitating pleroma. It is also beautiful because it is
mathematical like pleroma. Matter has no goodness in itself. But
the divine light makes it beautiful. With the divine light, you
can make everything beautiful.



> Think globally, act locally
>
> Jacques Ellul