We have made our false economy a false god, and it has made blasphemy of the truth. So I have met the economy in the road, and am expected to yield it right of way. But I will not get over. My reason is that I am a man, and have a better right to the ground than the economy. The economy is no god for me, for I have had too close a look at its wheels. I have seen it at work in the strip mines and coal camps of Kentucky, and I know that it has no moral limits. It has emptied the country of the independent and the proud, and has crowded the cities with the dependent and the abject. It has always sacrificed the small to the large, the personal to the impersonal, the good to the cheap. It has ridden questionable triumphs over the bodies of small farmers and tradesmen and craftsmen. I see it, still, driving my neighbors off their farms into the factories. I see it teaching my students to give themselves a price before they can give themselves a value. Its principle is to waste and destroy the living substance of the world and the birthright of posterity for a monetary profit that is the most flimsy and useless of human artifacts.
Wendell Berry, from “Discipline and Hope” (1972)
For more: http://practicingresurrection.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/let-us-tilt-against-the-windmills/
Love Wins
Scrolling through my twitter feed this morning growing more and more despondent, time to rethink things…. I think Wendell had it right, to stay away from all things flat screened.
He is a very wise man. Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in, he says. Seems very good advice to me (if only I followed it more).
My current best fantasy: giving Wendell Berry one hour before each state legislature and Congress. Heck – why stop there? What about Wendell Berry gets to give a follow-up state of the union speech?
I’ve read that longer selection you linked several times. It’s so obviously relevant to what’s happening in this country, in so many ways, that it’s just slightly sickening. On the other hand, what he says about freedom and the individual is extraordinarily empowering. After the 23 executive orders were handed down from on high, I made one decision that required no dithering at all: no government gets between me and my doctor. That’s a privileged relationship. Period. What that might require in the future, it’s hard to say. But that’s one decision that’s out of the way.
What I’d like to know is how many others who lived through the 50s and 60s are out here digging through their LPs or tapes and remembering what we considered “our songs”? There are antidotes to solipsism. This is a pretty good one.
You know, Linda, I consider myself a pretty accomplished wordmonger; yet, you almost always make me look up at least one word when you write. (solipsism)
Reading Linda’s blog is a humbling experience for me. I’m hoping some of her writing skill will rub off on me.
Me too, Bill.
Better yet, how about letting Mr. Berry describe the state of the union? I’d trust his description more than anything any politician might offer.
Thanks for sharing the video. An amazing singer, and person.
I love the combination of songs. Just as I was reminded of Jimmy Cliff’s lyric, “I’d rather be a free man in my grave, than living as a puppet or a slave,” I was inspired to keep trying to “build a brand new world.”