The Idea of a Local Economy by Wendell Berry

[Jcrowley]

The Idea of a Local Economy
by Wendell Berry

LET US BEGIN BY ASSUMING what appears to be true: that the so-called "environmental crisis" is now pretty well established as a fact of our age. The problems of pollution, species extinction, loss of wilderness, loss of farmland, loss of topsoil may still be ignored or scoffed at, but they are not denied. Concern for these problems has acquired a certain standing, a measure of discussability, in the media and in some scientific, academic, and religious institutions.

This is good, of course; obviously, we can't hope to solve these problems without an increase of public awareness and concern. But in an age burdened with "publicity," we have to be aware also that as issues rise into popularity they rise also into the danger of oversimplification. To speak of this danger is especially necessary in confronting the destructiveness of our relationship to nature, which is the result, in the first place, of gross oversimplification.

The "environmental crisis" has happened because the human household or economy is in conflict at almost every point with the household of nature. We have built our household on the assumption that the natural household is simple and can be simply used. We have assumed increasingly over the last I've hundred years that nature is merely a supply of "raw materials," and that we may safely possess those materials merely by taking them. This taking, as our technical means have increased, has involved always less reverence or respect, less gratitude, less local knowledge, and less skill. Our methodologies of land use have strayed from our old sympathetic attempts to imitate natural processes, and have come more and more to resemble the methodology of mining, even as mining itself has become more technologically powerful and more brutal.

And so we will be wrong if we attempt to correct what we perceive as "environmental" problems without correcting the economic oversimplification that caused them. This oversimplification is now either a matter of corporate behavior or of behavior under the influence of corporate behavior. This is sufficiently clear to many of us. What is not sufficiently clear, perhaps to any of us, is the extent of our complicity, as individuals and especially as individual consumers, in the behavior of the corporations.

http://permaculture.com/permaculture/About_Permaculture/berry.shtml

[Dune]

1. Nature

I hate to think of the reality that Robert Malthus predicted 100 years ago, but reality it is. We have managed to hold off a mass die off of the human species for a while longer than he predicted, but it is inevitable. The idea that a local economy can save us is naive if you believe there will not be a mass die off first. I think the best we can hope for is for enough knowledge to survive to complement the wisdom which will be gained from the loss of our arrogance as a species. Yes the Republican mindset is of the theological bent and is still causing the denial which keeps people believing that capitalism can save us (as if it weren't the cause in the first place). But God isn't going to save us from ourselves. If anything He had to promise himself not to do us in again if you read the theological Old Testament. Time capsules, info repositories, pockets of life and lots of time will be needed to weather the coming Apocalypse. Then and only then will a local economy be the saving grace of the next generation of the species.

[frazzled]

2. Wendell Berry is one of America's finest writers

a poet, a novelist, a man of letters, and, of course, a farmer. Thanks for posting this.

[Jcrowley]

4. Pleasure

His writings have influenced me a great deal. "The Unsettling of America" holds as much insight as possible in the dry leaves of a book.

:toast:

It's either local or annihilation.

[Dune]

3. More...

Sorry... as to our complicity... I believe that eco terrorism is just fine. The haves will never give up their quest for more without being forced to. I guess that is what the wars were in are REALLY all about. Stratification is the root of most division. The rest is theology turned to the "other" as the enemy. We can try but it is really just for our own inner peace to say we tried.

[MasonJar]

5. I am proud to say that Wendell Berry is a fellow Kentuckian and a

writer of great wisdom.

[grasswire]

6. outstanding, thank you

I'm passing this on to a listserv of ministers who are working with their congregations on this topic.

[Jcrowley]

7. Oh wow

We have been involved with a local ministry that has a small lot adjacent to their church, it's not really a church per se, in developing a garden project. At present the food from the garden is used for the churches food pantry. It's really an odd collection of folk. Pretty much white hippie folk and black church folk. There are some really fine folks all around particularly those that are the in-betweens that bring it all together. The conversations in the garden are really great and rather inconsequential. Just day to day stuff.

This year we are going to expand to do trips to larger (still very small-scale organic most being CSA's) farms in the area with some of the kids and other projects.

[The2ndWheel]

8. That is what is in my head

I was never very good at putting my thoughts either on paper or on a screen, but that was it.

Seriously, Jcrowley, I think we share a brain. Your posts are great. That could be biased, with the brain thing and all, but it's good stuff.