Comments on: First They Came for the Horses

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:48:56 +0000

Speed Kills, Efficient Speed Kills Efficiently.

This essay is not limited to the West or Mid West. It can find a sympathetic ear in California, Connecticut, West Virginia and New Mexico. One of the more durable myths of the age is that we are defined by our popular market economy and its consumer culture . I would assert that we are distracted by an easy abuse of this eccentric paradigm of sybaritic wage slavery but not permanently defined by it. I am also not convinced that it cannot be reformed and reinvented and recast for modern needs while a rediscovery of that still extant America of the back roads and local scene re-emerges out of the boredom and frustrations of the current era. We are a nation of authentic and diverse lives being lived within unique places that still retain memory….important memory….. but we have been lulled into thinking a kind of slothful and historicidal embrace of regimented consumerism is “modern”. The Spectator has been given his vicarious agora but the more intense and flashy the production values get, the more bored he becomes with it…for very good reason….there is no there, there. Take a back road, make an unscheduled stop and open your eyes and there is something old and new all around us………and you don’t have to abandon the City to do it.

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:06:50 +0000

Howard,

I do appreciated the wisdom of your words!

By: Howard Merrell

Howard Merrell — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:12:33 +0000

I am one of, if not “the,” first in my family to graduate from college. My mom’s dad was a successful farmer. He couldn’t read but he was highly respected as a man who could handle stock (That would be cattle, not the Wall Street kind.) My dad dropped out of high-school, helped defeat Hitler, came home and worked in industry. He was not particularly skilled at anything, but had the confindence to tackle everything.
I’m glad to not only have this background, but to live in a part of the world where “red-neck” skills–hunting and fishing, fixing old trucks, and generally getting by–are held in high-esteem–at least by many.
The article resonated with me. In the time of Christ the rabbis were expected to have a trade other than study & teaching. Jesus was a carpenter–likely he and step-dad, Joseph were known for making well-fitting yokes, the mark of a good wood-worker. Saul/Paul was a tent-maker.
We do youngsters a disservice when we educate them in such a way so that in the end they can’t really, independent of the industrial machine, do anything.
A friend of mine is a missionary to tribal people. He tells the story of a plane that crashed in the jungle of South America. The passengers survived the crash, but starved to death. The natives were amazed. “How could anyone go hungry in the midst of such bounty?”
There was nothing canned & if there were, they lacked a can-opener.

Howard Merrell

By: PDGM

PDGM — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:45:34 +0000

Adam,
Since much of what Wendell Berry espouses, and what Caleb Stegall seems to be arguing for in the above essay are traits of at least some landowning peasants, how can it be that the arguments are valid only for upper or middle class westerners? The horse part may be specific to Western culture; but doesn’t Spike Lee have a film production company called “Forty Acres and a Mule” for a specific, African-American-historical reason? Mightn’t the same points be made about mules? About oxen in other parts of the world, where they do much of the field work, or did so until quite recently?

Certainly, virtue is hard anywhere. But the specific effects of dehumanized work, through tools that end up controlling you versus making you grow into complete humanhood certainly must make this harder, no?

Wondering, PDGM

By: Adam D'Luzansky

Adam D'Luzansky — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:43:30 +0000

Caleb: I enjoyed this selection, but I can’t help but think that the train of thought really is only possible for middle and upper class Westerners.

Mindless consumerism is certainly a major problem and suffocates our desire and ability to pursue healthier, more virtuous lifestyles. However, I think Berry’s indictment of specialization of labor goes too far, or at least doesn’t recognize that the alternative isn’t less fraught with danger. There is no easier side to this debate. Living virtuously will be hard for the farmer who can satisfy most of his material needs on his own, just as it is hard for the city-dwelling who must exchange his labor for money to survive.

I doubt a world without industrialized labor wouldn’t create serious limitations on human freedom for large swathes of people. If you are a land-owner, have a high degree of skill or are lucky enough to be born into a moderately egalitarian society then you might have a shot of having more human freedom in a world without industrialization. But that’s a big IF.

By: PDGM

PDGM — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:31:12 +0000

Thanks for this essay, as it brings together strands I’ve been trying to spin into whole thread for quite a while, namely modern helplessness and inability to *make* anything, highly theatricalized masculinity (and femininity) based upon consumption rather than production, and the structures of our economy.

Ultimately, human economic life is for the sake of something beyond itself, and in healthy societies, this is the perfection of the human persons involved in it, and the well being of their communities. By making economy about “consumer goods,” most contemporary ideas ignore this basic truth, and subsume labor into something that’s about making such goods, when it ought to be about “becoming what we truly are.” And for those of us who are less cerebral, good work provides a concrete combination of the intellectual and spiritual life, in which we literally work out our salvation. How many cubicle dwellers of the modern, supposedly desirable economy can say that they’re “working out their salvation,” or “becoming what they truly are”?

Ananda Coomaraswamy’s work provides a good picture of such thought, and helps me understand what Berry is working towards.