Berry on The Necessity of Agriculture

In Japan,”They even think agriculture may be a good thing for a nation of eaters to have.” Wendell Berry on the necessity of agriculture.

Your theory of writing

People of a more practical bent will sometimes suggest they don’t have a theory. Others argue that theory is a distraction or isn’t important. Those positions (each a caricature in itself) hold a view of theory that arises from a reaction to the overly academic approach we take to writing. The great temptation for any teacher or [...]

Wendell Berry Reading a Sabbath Poem

Here he is live and in person (on Youtube): Hat tip to Wendell Berry of Kentucky

Poetry, Marriage, Definitions, and Meaning

A marriage cannot include everybody, because the reach of responsibility is short. Wendell Berry: Standing By Words Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms (1982) That is to say, it is the nature of marriage to define limits. The word define literally means to set limits (that’s why the Latin word for neighbor is [...]

Industrial economics, Industrial education, and the Abolition of Man

From Wendell Berry: In Distrust of Movements, a 2000 essay. Study of the history of land use (and any local history will do) informs us that we have had for a long time an economy that thrives by undermining its own foundations. Every time I read Mr. Berry’s works about the economy, land use, the [...]

Good Solution #3

Continuing this theme and wishing I had more time to go into it, here is the third of Berry’s “Good Solutions”: “A good solution improves the balances, symmetries, or harmonies within a pattern–it is a qualitative solution–rather than enlarging or complicating some part of a pattern at the expense or in neglect of the rest.” [...]

Good solutions II

A good solution accepts also the limitations of discipline. Agricultural problems should receive solutions that are agricultural, not technological or economic. This second of 14 entries listing Berry’s good solutions that allow for “solving for pattern” probably provokes controversy. We want to solve every problem using technology or economics. But if the problem is pedagogical [...]

Good Solutions I

Picking up on this earlier post, and this one too, here is the first of Berry’s principles for a good solution: A good solution accepts given limits, using so far as is possible what is at hand. The farther fetched the solution, the less it should be trusted…. Enlarging scale is a deceptive solution; it [...]

New Old-Fashioned Ice Cream

“It is surely the duty of the older generation to be embarrassingly old-fashioned, for the claims of the “newness” of any younger generation are mostly frivolous.” Wendell Berry, Family Work from The Gift of Good Land