Wendell Berry's Agrarianism

I don’t know if I can convince anyone to respond to my question, but I can ask it anyway.

The first thing for you to do would be to read the essay, ‘Money Versus Goods,’ by Wendell Berry because I think that my question involves the apparent impracticality of Mr. Berry’s writing. In this essay he expounds an ideal that has never existed since Capitalism and Industrialism became the dominant ideals of our society except, of course, in undeveloped regions of the world. Mr. Berry advocates a kind of Agrarianism.

And yet to me although many of his ideas as I read them seem intrinsically sound, they often seem to float free above the real world our society has become. This is the way of philosophy, I suppose. We attempt to describe ideals and then with our reason we connect them to our lives. I think Mr. Berry begins a good effort in the first part of this Agrarian program, although at a level of abstraction that will leave many readers who have not applied their own thinking to these very fundamental questions somewhat adrift.

But if I think Mr. Berry is correct on several key points, a more specific way to connect his critique to our real circumstances must be found.

In ‘Money Versus Goods’ Mr. Berry makes the argument that sustainability is essential and that to achieve sustainability our economy must be ‘real,’ not primarily numbers and abstractions. The land and people are real and with those two elements we should be able to produce food and fiber in ways that are healthy and humane. This is hard to imagine in the present context in which normal production results in yearly losses of topsoil and repeated applications of poisons which end up in our water supply. I won’t repeat all of Mr. Berry’s points, but his criticism of the very common practice of ‘usury’ also points to our difficulty in getting from here to there even if some people see the merit in what he is saying.

I cannot see myself abandoning some of the achievements of Capitalism and Industrialism. I don’t want to live in a skyscraper and I’m glad not to rely on a subway system on a regular basis but I find much to admire in the concentration of wealth that makes cities a potential way of making buildings and institutions that are much more complex than an Amish barn. And some complex technologies, each advance built on earlier advances, might well be worth preserving. Not every application of a computer necessarily has cultural merit, but how do we mesh what does make sense with Agrarian ideals?

Mr. Berry concludes his essay with possible, if unlikely, changes in agriculture - a likely place to begin to try to be more practical in bringing the ideals of Agrarianism to bear within our society.

And so here begins my question. I have thought for some time now that the best solutions to what ails us as a society is to try to live some better way within the husk of a failing culture. The apparent increase of people farming on small scales and selling their produce at local farmer’s markets matters more to me than the perennial hope of electing better representatives to government.

But if ever growing numbers of people are going to see and embrace Agrarian ideals - that is better, sustainable ways of living – it will require a cultural shift that eventually involves many different facets of our society. So the question I now am wrestling with is how do I learn to think new ways of thinking and begin to live in ways that don’t lend my support to systems I abhor but give more of my efforts to better ways of being human? Inevitably the question I now pose is too big. So my real question is what are the questions that have answers that are within my reach?

Still too big? That’s why I would like to hear some responses. In dialogue and over time I think we have a better chance to bring ideals into connection with the real.

I planted potatoes on Friday. Some spinach, lettuce and arugula, as well. I won’t feed myself for very many meals, but I think at least that I’m keeping the faith. If something will get better, it won’t all be up to me, but my goal is to do less in the old world and more in the new with each year I have to live.

Any other ideas?