I am hard put to come to grips with Chapter VIII just because it is so long, and I appreciate Mary Beth's and Jody's essays this week for having done just that. As Jody says, this is the crescendo of Berry's labors in the book. For me, this is where he brings the past into the present, and in Section 9, "Land Need and Good Work,' clarifies what agrarianism is and is not. It is not sentimental or nostalgic. Indeed, nothing that requires such constant attention and hard work while at the same time being so satisfying, could possibly be nostalgic. He writes, "As I understand it, agrarianism, unlike industrialism, recognizes and accepts absolutely the dependence of the human economy--like human life, like all life--upon the natural world." (p.363)
This is followed a few pages later by a short take on the term "barbarians" whose multi-faceted ways of providing sustenance were deprecated by city-state bean counters. (p. 370 ff.) Millennia later, the ability to provide for one's family in a community of neighbors is still being looked down on and legislated against.
Speaking again as a Kentuckian, I appreciated his description of the drive from Shelbyville (rolling hills, excellent farmland) to Port Royal (more hilly and a lot wetter, criss-crossed by creeks). It was a similar drive from Lexington in the Bluegrass country where I grew up, to Mason County on the Ohio River where my grandfather farmed tobacco and raised cattle. I had never really thought of the geological underpinnings in quite that way, but we cannot escape the fact that where we live determines our lives in countless ways.
Kudos to you for thinking about the lay of the land, as it were. How it shifts and rolls. By noticing such it is easy to note where water flows, the change in edges from field to woodlot which also signals a change in the fauna.
Yes, Chapter VIII is long. I am grateful that most of the essays can be taken as stand-alone pieces which makes them more digestible, but by this point of The Need to Be Whole the reader is tired. There are lots of reasons to be tired, Berry shares so much and he has had 90 years to reach this point where he can tell his side of the conversation. We, on the other hand, probably not nearly as long.
For some odd reason, I loved the pages on barbarians. Maybe because the same mental concept is at play, but different words are used. Almost, as if, by detaching oneself from the actual killing excuses the eating of the killed.
Wonderful, Jody, happy to share this space with you today, and thank you to Stacy for arranging and coordinating and annotating my pages and correcting my quotes (and, and, and! You're a queen.). I agree the book crescendos to this section. I bow to Jody's diagram of the "laborious and lumbering logic chain" oh what a perfect description, said with admiration I know, but also, calling it what it is.
I am much appreciative that Jody is sharing her thoughts on The Need to Be Whole. Anyone who describes a book’s outline with a “stern butterfly netting” has taken the time to read and consider the writer’s intention and maintain an objectivity in the reading. At only two pages, Goodness exemplifies the exclamation point of Berry—wholeness is work, land, and people.
There is much to be said for looking forward, to being a catalyst of change and like Jody I wonder how we begin the work. Johnny Paul is a character that resonates with me, he has not left my consideration since reading his story so many pages back. Berry did well to include the example, one that reminds all readers how truly one does not know the past because “You don’t even know what I don’t see.” These are such powerful words, and such an effective illustration that I wonder how anyone can unsee these words or not be impacted by their significance. And Jody shares an insightful reflective consideration, what is catching us from behind, what do we not notice because we are not paying attention. How is the continued desecration of the land—the currency of our existence air, water, and soil—being depleted in a manner that will make it impossible for humans to sustain as a living species.
Another great sentence from Jody, “There has never been an easy existence even if you didn’t even know what you never did see.” Easy, I think, does not necessarily mean that effort is a bad thing. I’d argue purposeful, and in my tunnel vision of society at this point of my life I’d argue that a lack of purpose is what is driving inequality, prejudice, and mistrust. We no longer need to chase the mastodons for dinner, we no longer carry one bucket at a time from the creek but maybe we need to work a bit harder. Infuse our living with physical work, stimulating work that requires thought and consideration not repetition of practice. Maybe we need to evaluate the important things. Maybe, in a few decades when we say, “You don’t even know what I don’t see,” what we really mean is that what is unseen is a deteriorating land because we, as a species, decided to do something different.
I would expect nothing other than a considered essay from Mary Beth. She wears her heart on the page, speaks her truth, and beckons the reader to consider what they read, why they are reading, and ultimately what will be the outcome of the effort. Mary Beth dictates, without the words of instruction, that things can be different. What I most appreciate about knowing Mary Beth for a few years now is that she digs into the details, the numbers, puts facts behind her words and for that we know how small farms were overrun by corporations and big business. We understand the implication of control – price, supply, and expectation. We understand the failure of the free market that is not at all marketable with the farmer in mind, the men and women, young and old, that provide for the nutritional needs of the public.
This quote should be one the reader pins on their bulletin board, “It [the nation] has forgotten, so far as it ever knew, the kind and quality of the work that is required for the good health and long life of the economic landscapes and their human inhabitants.” Like I shared in my response to Jody, people need to remember effort and, I believe, by that effort individuals find a purpose in their life, their time on this planet.
I do take minor exception to the interpretation of the “food movement” on pages 423-424. These community offerings are too small, but they are gaining ground. Only when “local” grows big enough does local food and the community-supported sustainable efforts become part of the larger conversation. This requires education. My essay next week shares how I might be able to gift a head of red-leaf lettuce, but it be rejected because it did not come from the grocery. The grocery store with its boxes, sanitized chunks of meat, undirtied carrots are what people expect. This is what feels safe because it is detached from the soil, slaughterhouse, or difficulty in preparation. For a larger conversation what is required is that communities—whether it be urban, rural, or suburban communities—demand larger space for Farmer’s Markets, farm deliveries, farm-to-table restaurants and events. Too often we see products in market baskets. Items that come from corporate vendors or middleman distribution centers and this simply blurs the lines of what can be a regional food economy that Berry speaks of. Bring back wheat fields and grist mills. Return to farms with a manageable herd size and butcher. Grow the community garden and allocate much of it for the food shelf. Grow and sell enough food from local that the grocery store chains grow smaller or carry more of the local product.
My first move if I lose my job to this atrocity of an administration is to call the farm I work market for on saturdays and get a weekday summer job there. It's a commute but at least I will be fed.
I am hard put to come to grips with Chapter VIII just because it is so long, and I appreciate Mary Beth's and Jody's essays this week for having done just that. As Jody says, this is the crescendo of Berry's labors in the book. For me, this is where he brings the past into the present, and in Section 9, "Land Need and Good Work,' clarifies what agrarianism is and is not. It is not sentimental or nostalgic. Indeed, nothing that requires such constant attention and hard work while at the same time being so satisfying, could possibly be nostalgic. He writes, "As I understand it, agrarianism, unlike industrialism, recognizes and accepts absolutely the dependence of the human economy--like human life, like all life--upon the natural world." (p.363)
This is followed a few pages later by a short take on the term "barbarians" whose multi-faceted ways of providing sustenance were deprecated by city-state bean counters. (p. 370 ff.) Millennia later, the ability to provide for one's family in a community of neighbors is still being looked down on and legislated against.
Speaking again as a Kentuckian, I appreciated his description of the drive from Shelbyville (rolling hills, excellent farmland) to Port Royal (more hilly and a lot wetter, criss-crossed by creeks). It was a similar drive from Lexington in the Bluegrass country where I grew up, to Mason County on the Ohio River where my grandfather farmed tobacco and raised cattle. I had never really thought of the geological underpinnings in quite that way, but we cannot escape the fact that where we live determines our lives in countless ways.
Kudos to you for thinking about the lay of the land, as it were. How it shifts and rolls. By noticing such it is easy to note where water flows, the change in edges from field to woodlot which also signals a change in the fauna.
Yes, Chapter VIII is long. I am grateful that most of the essays can be taken as stand-alone pieces which makes them more digestible, but by this point of The Need to Be Whole the reader is tired. There are lots of reasons to be tired, Berry shares so much and he has had 90 years to reach this point where he can tell his side of the conversation. We, on the other hand, probably not nearly as long.
For some odd reason, I loved the pages on barbarians. Maybe because the same mental concept is at play, but different words are used. Almost, as if, by detaching oneself from the actual killing excuses the eating of the killed.
Wonderful, Jody, happy to share this space with you today, and thank you to Stacy for arranging and coordinating and annotating my pages and correcting my quotes (and, and, and! You're a queen.). I agree the book crescendos to this section. I bow to Jody's diagram of the "laborious and lumbering logic chain" oh what a perfect description, said with admiration I know, but also, calling it what it is.
I am much appreciative that Jody is sharing her thoughts on The Need to Be Whole. Anyone who describes a book’s outline with a “stern butterfly netting” has taken the time to read and consider the writer’s intention and maintain an objectivity in the reading. At only two pages, Goodness exemplifies the exclamation point of Berry—wholeness is work, land, and people.
There is much to be said for looking forward, to being a catalyst of change and like Jody I wonder how we begin the work. Johnny Paul is a character that resonates with me, he has not left my consideration since reading his story so many pages back. Berry did well to include the example, one that reminds all readers how truly one does not know the past because “You don’t even know what I don’t see.” These are such powerful words, and such an effective illustration that I wonder how anyone can unsee these words or not be impacted by their significance. And Jody shares an insightful reflective consideration, what is catching us from behind, what do we not notice because we are not paying attention. How is the continued desecration of the land—the currency of our existence air, water, and soil—being depleted in a manner that will make it impossible for humans to sustain as a living species.
Another great sentence from Jody, “There has never been an easy existence even if you didn’t even know what you never did see.” Easy, I think, does not necessarily mean that effort is a bad thing. I’d argue purposeful, and in my tunnel vision of society at this point of my life I’d argue that a lack of purpose is what is driving inequality, prejudice, and mistrust. We no longer need to chase the mastodons for dinner, we no longer carry one bucket at a time from the creek but maybe we need to work a bit harder. Infuse our living with physical work, stimulating work that requires thought and consideration not repetition of practice. Maybe we need to evaluate the important things. Maybe, in a few decades when we say, “You don’t even know what I don’t see,” what we really mean is that what is unseen is a deteriorating land because we, as a species, decided to do something different.
Plus one for "stern butterfly netting." And oh how I love the vision in your last sentence of this comment.
I would expect nothing other than a considered essay from Mary Beth. She wears her heart on the page, speaks her truth, and beckons the reader to consider what they read, why they are reading, and ultimately what will be the outcome of the effort. Mary Beth dictates, without the words of instruction, that things can be different. What I most appreciate about knowing Mary Beth for a few years now is that she digs into the details, the numbers, puts facts behind her words and for that we know how small farms were overrun by corporations and big business. We understand the implication of control – price, supply, and expectation. We understand the failure of the free market that is not at all marketable with the farmer in mind, the men and women, young and old, that provide for the nutritional needs of the public.
This quote should be one the reader pins on their bulletin board, “It [the nation] has forgotten, so far as it ever knew, the kind and quality of the work that is required for the good health and long life of the economic landscapes and their human inhabitants.” Like I shared in my response to Jody, people need to remember effort and, I believe, by that effort individuals find a purpose in their life, their time on this planet.
I do take minor exception to the interpretation of the “food movement” on pages 423-424. These community offerings are too small, but they are gaining ground. Only when “local” grows big enough does local food and the community-supported sustainable efforts become part of the larger conversation. This requires education. My essay next week shares how I might be able to gift a head of red-leaf lettuce, but it be rejected because it did not come from the grocery. The grocery store with its boxes, sanitized chunks of meat, undirtied carrots are what people expect. This is what feels safe because it is detached from the soil, slaughterhouse, or difficulty in preparation. For a larger conversation what is required is that communities—whether it be urban, rural, or suburban communities—demand larger space for Farmer’s Markets, farm deliveries, farm-to-table restaurants and events. Too often we see products in market baskets. Items that come from corporate vendors or middleman distribution centers and this simply blurs the lines of what can be a regional food economy that Berry speaks of. Bring back wheat fields and grist mills. Return to farms with a manageable herd size and butcher. Grow the community garden and allocate much of it for the food shelf. Grow and sell enough food from local that the grocery store chains grow smaller or carry more of the local product.
My first move if I lose my job to this atrocity of an administration is to call the farm I work market for on saturdays and get a weekday summer job there. It's a commute but at least I will be fed.
Hands in the dirt. Doesn't replace the upheavel in your day-to-day right now but it will offer solace. Hugs.