It's a profound question: Why would anyone listen to Wendell Berry? What does it matter what he says? Who does he think he is, an so on.
I think these thoughts every time I pick something up he has written. Ineveitably, however, he resonates with what I know to be true, with those basic values or truths that I feel come before enculturation. If nothing else, he reminds me of what will happen to all and everything if I give up my grassroots organic movement sensibilities and allow my self to go with the flow.
What I find in this particular piece is as strong a delineation of the values of the industrial agriculturist and those of the true agrarian, one who senses that there is more responsibility owed to life than acquiring money and what it can buy.
This paragraph
for me is the most elegant expression of why agrarians cannot farm in tandem with industrialists and why industrialists become so disgusted by agrarians. The difference between working with Nature and taking from Nature."Everything that happens on an agrarian farm is determined or conditioned by the understanding that there is only so much land, so much water in the cistern, so much hay in the barn, so much corn in the crib, so much firewood in the shed, so much food in the cellar or freezer, so much strength in the back and arms -- and no more. This is the understanding that induces thrift, family coherence, neighborliness, local economies. Within accepted limits, these become necessities. The agrarian sense of abundance comes from the experienced possibility of frugality and renewal within limits."
I'd like to hear more thoughts on this.
-Allan
I went to the Orion Society link and read Berry's essay. I think what I have a hard time with this is that yes, he's been writing 'agrarian' for over 25 years. Now his writings have been more (it seems to me) : 'I told you this was going to happen. You didn't listen now I'm tired and we're worse off than before.'
