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It All Turns on Affection: The Jefferson Lecture and Other Essays
An impassioned and rigorous appeal for reconnection to the land and human feeling by one of America’s most heartfelt and humble writers. When he accepted the invitation to deliver The Jefferson Lecture―our nation’s highest honor for distinguished intellectual achievement―Wendell Berry decided to take on the obligation of thinking again about the problems that have engaged him throughout his long career. He wanted a fresh start, not only in looking at the groundwork of the problems facing our nation and the earth itself, but in gaining hope from some examples of repair and healing even in these times of Late Capitalism and its destructive contagions. As a poet and writer he understood already that much can be gleaned from looking at the vocabulary of these problems themselves and how we describe them. And he settled on “affection” as a method of engagement and solution. The result is the greatest speech he has delivered in his six decades of public life. It All Turns on Affection will take its place alongside The Unsettling of America and The Gift of Good Land as major testaments to the power and clarity of his contribution to American thought. Also included are a small handful of other recent essays and a wonderful conversation between Mr. Berry, his wife Tanya Berry, and the head of the National Endowment of the Humanities Jim Leech, which took place just after the award was announced. The result offers a wonderful continuation of the long conversation Berry has had with his readers over many years and as well as a fine introduction to his life and work. “These powerful, challenging essays show why Berry’s vision of a sustainable, human-scaled society has proven so influential.” ― Publishers Weekly “Wendell Berry is one of those rare individuals who speaks to us always of responsibility, of the individual cultivation of an active and aware participation in the arts of life.” ― The Bloomsbury Review
128 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2012
39 people are currently reading
555 people want to read
About the author
Wendell Berry
284 books4,747 followersWendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
December 18, 2024
Berryiers stand UP!
I feel like I rinsed my brain. I went on a run outside and was joyful—affectionate, even! Yelling (psychically) trees’ names at them.
Phrases I found particularly impactful, collected for convenience:
“The man thus commemorated seemed to me, terrifyingly ignorant, even terrifyingly innocent, of the connection between his industry and his philanthropy.”
“My grandfather, on the contrary, and despite his life‘s persistent theme of hardship, took a great and present delight in the modest good that was at hand: in his place and his affection for it, in its pastures, animals, and crops.”
“As I grow older, I grieve over every moment I’m gone from this place, because it is inexhaustibly interesting to me.”
“The machines and chemicals developed to defeat foreign enemies were turned against the farmland and the farmers on the ‘home front.’”
“The surplus farmers supposedly not needed for land maintenance and stewardship, and as mere producers readily replaceable by machines and chemicals, were needed instead as new members of the industrial workforce (to keep wages ‘under control’) and as consumers (to increase the market for food and other industrial products).”
“We can learn where we are.”
“Too much of the talk and politics of conservation consists of slogans such as ‘think globally, act locally’ or even single words such as ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘organic’ that act like slogans. Such lazy language does harm. It becomes useful, in fact, to land-abusing corporations.”
“This is work for everybody, requiring everybody’s intelligence. It is work inherently democratic.”
“In our age of global industrialism, heroes too lightly risk the lives of people, places, and things they do not see.”
“There is no justification, ever, for permanent ecological damage.”
“It is not acceptable for this work to be done for us by wage slavery or by enslaving nature.”
“His death was sudden and painless – no lingering and dwindling by the bad mercy of drugs and medical technology.”
I feel like I rinsed my brain. I went on a run outside and was joyful—affectionate, even! Yelling (psychically) trees’ names at them.
Phrases I found particularly impactful, collected for convenience:
“The man thus commemorated seemed to me, terrifyingly ignorant, even terrifyingly innocent, of the connection between his industry and his philanthropy.”
“My grandfather, on the contrary, and despite his life‘s persistent theme of hardship, took a great and present delight in the modest good that was at hand: in his place and his affection for it, in its pastures, animals, and crops.”
“As I grow older, I grieve over every moment I’m gone from this place, because it is inexhaustibly interesting to me.”
“The machines and chemicals developed to defeat foreign enemies were turned against the farmland and the farmers on the ‘home front.’”
“The surplus farmers supposedly not needed for land maintenance and stewardship, and as mere producers readily replaceable by machines and chemicals, were needed instead as new members of the industrial workforce (to keep wages ‘under control’) and as consumers (to increase the market for food and other industrial products).”
“We can learn where we are.”
“Too much of the talk and politics of conservation consists of slogans such as ‘think globally, act locally’ or even single words such as ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘organic’ that act like slogans. Such lazy language does harm. It becomes useful, in fact, to land-abusing corporations.”
“This is work for everybody, requiring everybody’s intelligence. It is work inherently democratic.”
“In our age of global industrialism, heroes too lightly risk the lives of people, places, and things they do not see.”
“There is no justification, ever, for permanent ecological damage.”
“It is not acceptable for this work to be done for us by wage slavery or by enslaving nature.”
“His death was sudden and painless – no lingering and dwindling by the bad mercy of drugs and medical technology.”
January 27, 2025
Such a celebration of the beauty of our earth--and a sobering testament to the dangers of industrialism.The running theme through each essay is this: it is the most important thing to truly prioritise the good of the land, because that fosters community and ecological flourishing.
I hadn't read much Wendell Berry before this, but I am eager to try more of his essays and writings! I can feel the little environmentalist inside me desperate to learn more. Feels incredibly relevant in this age of drilling and environmental desecration.
I hadn't read much Wendell Berry before this, but I am eager to try more of his essays and writings! I can feel the little environmentalist inside me desperate to learn more. Feels incredibly relevant in this age of drilling and environmental desecration.
December 3, 2012
I own 28 books by Wendell Berry, and I've read well over half. I almost always buy a new book by him on principle, to be supportive of him. About half the books I own are fiction, the rest non-fiction. This book is non-fiction--a collection of lectures, essays, occasional pieces. I'm afraid the non-fiction gets repetitive. He is like an Old Testament prophet--saying the same thing over and over, until we hear. He doesn't tend to offer a lot of hope--though as I was reading along and thinking about that, he did happen to address the issue, but it wasn't much. Buying and "living" local is the best hope, and that has taken off in the last decade. But it is not much in the face of a global population of 7 billion. He insists that we can't solve the problems created by technology with more technology. But if not, then I think we're screwed. It seems that we've gone too far to turn back now. He laments the fact that the industrialization of agriculture after WWII led to the loss of incredible amounts of local farming knowledge. That's true, and it wasn't calculated in whatever thought went (or did not go) into those policy decisions. But it's hard to know what can be done about it now. And since buying local is relatively expensive (as long as long-term consequences are not added into costs of industrialized agricultural products) it is hard to advocate to those who are living close to the edge financially already. So, here we are...
His title for this book draws on a line he likes, which claims that we can't get people to act certain ways just by showing that they have a moral duty to do so, they need to have an affection for what they are (supposed) to do. That may be true. But the trick is to find ways to cultivate that affection...without nagging. Wendell Berry does nag. But he also shows, over and over, in his essays and in his novels, what it is to have affection for the ways he advocates. And perhaps that is the best he (and we) can do: Find ways to cultivate and share an affection for life and relationships on a small scale.
His title for this book draws on a line he likes, which claims that we can't get people to act certain ways just by showing that they have a moral duty to do so, they need to have an affection for what they are (supposed) to do. That may be true. But the trick is to find ways to cultivate that affection...without nagging. Wendell Berry does nag. But he also shows, over and over, in his essays and in his novels, what it is to have affection for the ways he advocates. And perhaps that is the best he (and we) can do: Find ways to cultivate and share an affection for life and relationships on a small scale.
May 24, 2025
4.5
Great recommendation by Cousin Danny! There’s a little bit of everything for Wendell Berry’s fans. Conservation, agriculture, place, and friendship are all present in this collection of lecture, interview, and essays. The one that stands out the most is the books namesake, “It All Turns on Affection”. Berry’s voice is so credible because he is the living embodiment of his writings. I learn and think every time I read Mr. Berry.
Great recommendation by Cousin Danny! There’s a little bit of everything for Wendell Berry’s fans. Conservation, agriculture, place, and friendship are all present in this collection of lecture, interview, and essays. The one that stands out the most is the books namesake, “It All Turns on Affection”. Berry’s voice is so credible because he is the living embodiment of his writings. I learn and think every time I read Mr. Berry.
July 12, 2023
Berry doing his Berry thing. Local land and culture matters. What do local citizens have that big corporations/governments don’t? Affection for a place.
July 3, 2023
Wendell Berry’s books have affected me in a deep and meaningful way. His essay “It All Turns on Affection” is a great summary of many of the ideas I find most important in his writings, specifically his focus on local, relational living that is grounded in a people and a place and comes with responsibilities.
March 20, 2013
Gem of a book, rearticulating many of the points he's made before, but one essay, on civil disobedience, breaks new ground, but with complete fidelity to the principles he has long espoused (civility, nonviolence, respect for the opinions of others). The closing piece, a remembrance of Maurice Telleen - cofounder and editor of The Draft Horse Journal, and the man to whom Berry dedicated his book The Unsettling of America - is a wonderful recollection of a decades-long friendship.
May 27, 2020
reading wendell berry always makes me want to dedicate the rest of my life to resuscitating the vitality of the local economy and towards educating and cultivating love of place in myself & others. it makes me feel like there is no higher cause.
"Economy in its original—and, I think, its proper—sense refers to household management. By extension, it refers to the husbanding of all the goods by which we live. An authentic economy, if we had one, would define and make, on the terms of thrift and affection, our connections to nature and to one another. Our present industrial system also makes those connections, but by pillage and indifference.
Most economists think of this arrangement as “the economy.” Their columns and articles rarely if ever mention the land-communities and land-use economies. They never ask, in their professional oblivion, why we are willing to do permanent ecological and cultural damage “to strengthen the economy?”
"Economy in its original—and, I think, its proper—sense refers to household management. By extension, it refers to the husbanding of all the goods by which we live. An authentic economy, if we had one, would define and make, on the terms of thrift and affection, our connections to nature and to one another. Our present industrial system also makes those connections, but by pillage and indifference.
Most economists think of this arrangement as “the economy.” Their columns and articles rarely if ever mention the land-communities and land-use economies. They never ask, in their professional oblivion, why we are willing to do permanent ecological and cultural damage “to strengthen the economy?”
December 13, 2024
Didn't love all of the essays, but the title essay was gold and a great summary of Berry's themes that run through his other books. A compelling case for the roles affection and imagination should play in our lives.
Favorite Quotes: To have beautiful buildings, for example, people obviously must want them to be beautiful and know how to make them beautiful, but evidently they alsomust love the places where the buildings are to be built.
Knowledge without affection leads us astray. Affection leads, by way of good work, to authentic hope.
Favorite Quotes: To have beautiful buildings, for example, people obviously must want them to be beautiful and know how to make them beautiful, but evidently they alsomust love the places where the buildings are to be built.
Knowledge without affection leads us astray. Affection leads, by way of good work, to authentic hope.
February 20, 2021
Totally see why so many people my age are all about Wendell Berry. We hear so much "deconstruction" of modern life that offers absolutely nothing in it's place, and Berry avoids falling into this trap. His criticisms of aspects of the American dream like the empty pursuit of "upward mobility" are always coupled with appealing alternatives.
July 10, 2020
So much here with WB is, as always, powerful, enlivening, and deeply moving to me. His argument about the broader decline of agriculture and the decline of American society is deeply compelling in the ways it deftly provides both material and cultural explanations for the world I inhabit.
I think there is a real sense in which he is completely right, that the organizing principle of our society, the pursuit of profit, by which mostly white Americans have been allowed a small share in the spoils of has had disastrous results. But he recognizes our own complicity in this system, whereby we've traded a deeper control and ownership of property with a more superficial ownership in stocks and bonds that are controlled and dispersed through corporations, who then pander to our dreams and ideas about ourselves in the sale of their goods. By having a stake in the continued profit producing ability of these corporations we have therefore abdicated our responsibility to regulate, restrict or hold them accountable to the ways in which profit has always depended on exploitation and expropriation of others wealth. This does indeed seem like the Shakespearean tragedy that he beautifully describes it as. A massive failure of imagination, a loss of communal memory and community, and a discounting of affection. We now live dependent upon the very technologies that made our displacement possible and profitable. We derive spiritual succor from our participation posting in online communities devoted to ultra specific topics, and the cultivating of online brand identities.
"They [economist] never ask, in their professional oblivion, why we are willing to do permanent ecological and cultural damage to "strengthen the economy." This sentence seems both prophetic and dated in 2020. The chickens of these economist are now coming home to roost in this pandemic; there is now an indisputably clear and obvious willingness to sacrifice human lives for the functioning of this great thing called the economy.
I also think that his living through a time where he witnessed these changes unfold with there consequent neglect of landscapes, unraveling of rural communities, and shifts toward mass society, has too strongly colored his perceptions that any kind of political organizing to resist these changes as futile and ineffective. Through this lens his writings show the limitations of organizing politically for environmental justice, i.e. its always been too dependent on property owners in world where fewer and fewer people own physical property.
There is often a turn in his essays that describes a time that existed before industrialization where he describes society as a relatively cohesive thing where people understand their limits and technology was used responsibly and carefully. But I think this understanding lacks a class analysis. That we have never really been a cohesive society. The peasant cultures that he admires were always exploited by the ruling classes that benefited from their work and whose wealth was built from it. There have always been a class of people who have had too much to gain to allow a just and responsible human community to flourish and preserve itself. In other words, the forces of rural disintegration arose from within itself, not only from cities, and also I'd argue not mainly from within the hearts and minds of our (i.e. my) ancestors. There are massive sections of rural america owned by large rural "family farms" running on massive subsidies from taxpayer money who had a lot to gain by accumulating land and driving their neighbors off the land. I don't think this detracts from the Shakespearean drama that unfolds within our hearts and minds, but I do think it grounds our historical analysis more firmly in material conditions.
I respect the way his argument seems necessary to safeguard a sense of hope amidst social collapse, but I think there is also a kind of unexplored realm of hopefulness that could exist in a larger organized collective, maybe like a workers party, or something like it.
I think there is a real sense in which he is completely right, that the organizing principle of our society, the pursuit of profit, by which mostly white Americans have been allowed a small share in the spoils of has had disastrous results. But he recognizes our own complicity in this system, whereby we've traded a deeper control and ownership of property with a more superficial ownership in stocks and bonds that are controlled and dispersed through corporations, who then pander to our dreams and ideas about ourselves in the sale of their goods. By having a stake in the continued profit producing ability of these corporations we have therefore abdicated our responsibility to regulate, restrict or hold them accountable to the ways in which profit has always depended on exploitation and expropriation of others wealth. This does indeed seem like the Shakespearean tragedy that he beautifully describes it as. A massive failure of imagination, a loss of communal memory and community, and a discounting of affection. We now live dependent upon the very technologies that made our displacement possible and profitable. We derive spiritual succor from our participation posting in online communities devoted to ultra specific topics, and the cultivating of online brand identities.
"They [economist] never ask, in their professional oblivion, why we are willing to do permanent ecological and cultural damage to "strengthen the economy." This sentence seems both prophetic and dated in 2020. The chickens of these economist are now coming home to roost in this pandemic; there is now an indisputably clear and obvious willingness to sacrifice human lives for the functioning of this great thing called the economy.
I also think that his living through a time where he witnessed these changes unfold with there consequent neglect of landscapes, unraveling of rural communities, and shifts toward mass society, has too strongly colored his perceptions that any kind of political organizing to resist these changes as futile and ineffective. Through this lens his writings show the limitations of organizing politically for environmental justice, i.e. its always been too dependent on property owners in world where fewer and fewer people own physical property.
There is often a turn in his essays that describes a time that existed before industrialization where he describes society as a relatively cohesive thing where people understand their limits and technology was used responsibly and carefully. But I think this understanding lacks a class analysis. That we have never really been a cohesive society. The peasant cultures that he admires were always exploited by the ruling classes that benefited from their work and whose wealth was built from it. There have always been a class of people who have had too much to gain to allow a just and responsible human community to flourish and preserve itself. In other words, the forces of rural disintegration arose from within itself, not only from cities, and also I'd argue not mainly from within the hearts and minds of our (i.e. my) ancestors. There are massive sections of rural america owned by large rural "family farms" running on massive subsidies from taxpayer money who had a lot to gain by accumulating land and driving their neighbors off the land. I don't think this detracts from the Shakespearean drama that unfolds within our hearts and minds, but I do think it grounds our historical analysis more firmly in material conditions.
I respect the way his argument seems necessary to safeguard a sense of hope amidst social collapse, but I think there is also a kind of unexplored realm of hopefulness that could exist in a larger organized collective, maybe like a workers party, or something like it.
January 7, 2019
I went to Berry's favorite bookstore in Kentucky (Carmichael's), so it seemed only appropriate that I pick up some of his work. That, and I'm a huge TJ fan, so anything labeled "The Jefferson Lecture," must be read. This was a good collection, like they all are. I struggle with his views a little - I didn't grow up in an agrarian/respect of the land setting. What he says makes sense to me, and I think we are seeing more and more proof that we have lost so much that we can never get back. But it's also challenging for me to wrap my head around the extent of what he is saying. That's why I keep reading Berry; I'm learning and I'm attempting to be a better steward and citizen. I just wish I had started earlier.
April 1, 2019
The title is from Berry's giving of the 41st Annual Jefferson Lecture of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Reading this lecture and the other pieces in the book is vintage Wendell Berry. He once again, and with eloquence, questions the principles behind modern agriculture. Berry argues that bigger is not better. Technology may not be helpful. The government's favor toward huge agriculture is not beneficial for our long term future.
Berry reminds the reader that we need local ownership and workmanship that stewards the land and its agriculture.
One feature of this slim volume I particular enjoyed is the interview with Wendell and Tanya.
An enjoyable and informative read.
Berry reminds the reader that we need local ownership and workmanship that stewards the land and its agriculture.
One feature of this slim volume I particular enjoyed is the interview with Wendell and Tanya.
An enjoyable and informative read.
January 3, 2025
“Magnum opus” would be hardly the descriptor for what Berry had written for his Jefferson lecture, but it certainly encapsulates practically all he cared for and wrote about in his life.
Berry landed on quite the word to do so: affection. To be with/in, thus to know, and to love, is to not remove, to remote, to go yonder from what has been good for the yearning of the unattainably better.
Berry always does well for the reader’s soul to love personally for particular persons and places. This short summary of his life’s ponderings and mission was a delightful read.
Berry landed on quite the word to do so: affection. To be with/in, thus to know, and to love, is to not remove, to remote, to go yonder from what has been good for the yearning of the unattainably better.
Berry always does well for the reader’s soul to love personally for particular persons and places. This short summary of his life’s ponderings and mission was a delightful read.
Read
August 28, 2021Wendell Berry shows the hollowness of 'boomer enterprise with its false standards and incomplete accounting' and puts in its place restorative, locally adaped economies of family-sized trades and farms. Questioning 'growth' as ultimately misleading - 'it has failed to sustain the health and stability of human society and nature.' The cultural cycle turns on affection - rootedness ( 'like a human carrot', as Adam Nicolson said once).
June 22, 2017
Not only does Berry nail the issues regarding land abuse and our sad lack of affection for who we are, where we come from, and where we are now, but he also extends that to every aspect of stewardship: culture, imagination, nature, big ag, the food and coal industries, and our own hearts and actions. This is a must read.
January 19, 2020
This book challenged my thoughts and encouraged my heart in regards to agriculture and a way of life. Berry doesn't hesitate to lay logical thoughts out and include family, faith and farming. He addresses real agriculture issues without hesitation or the need to be "politically correct". Just honest thoughts, logic and learning from the land.
August 24, 2024
There's tons of books by Wendell Berry, and everyone has their favourite. This is mine, because it distills his wisdom in a single word, affection, which explains so much about how to run one's life and relate to one's land.
It's the text of the Jefferson lecture he was invited to deliver once, and it is wonderful and it's composition, cadence, and deep wisdom.
It's the text of the Jefferson lecture he was invited to deliver once, and it is wonderful and it's composition, cadence, and deep wisdom.
November 7, 2017
Berry's wonderful Jefferson lecture, together with some other essays.
April 5, 2019
Every so often you read something that significantly changes how you see the world.
October 9, 2021
What a delight. This short book's collection of essays is the most personal account of Berry's life that I have encountered. The two essays about his friends are beautiful.
June 7, 2022
My fave was the first half. The Jefferson lecture and an interview with Wendell and Tanya.
August 19, 2022
Extraordinary arguments and beautifully done.
February 28, 2023
I found this collection of essays as a well-crafted portrait of the author and his concern for the life of individuals and communities.
Read
May 3, 2024“As imagination enables sympathy, sympathy enables affection. And in affection we find the possibility of a neighborly, kind, and conserving economy.”, p. 14
July 1, 2013
A few quotes:
"It is a great oddity that a corporation, which properly speaking has no self, is by definition selfish, responsible only to itself. This is an impersonal, abstract selfishness, limitlessly acquisitive, but unable to look so far ahead as to preserve its own sources and supplies. The selfishness of the fossil fuel industries by nature is self-annihilating; but so, always, has been the selfishness of the agribusiness corporations. Land, as Wes Jackson has said, has thus been made as exhaustible as oil or coal." p.16
"...we are no longer talking about theoretical alternaties to corporate rule. We are talking with practical urgency about an obvious need. Now the two great aims of industrialism-- replacement of people by technology and concentration of wealth into the hands of a small plutocracy-- seem close to fulfillment." p.22
"No amount of fiddling with capitalism to regulate and humanize it, no pointless rhetoric on the virtues of capitalism or socialism, no billions or trillions spent on "defense" of the "American dream," can for long disguise this failure. The evidences of it are everywhere: eroded, wasted, or degraded soils; damaged or destroyed ecosystems; extinction of species; whole landscapes defaced, gouged, flooded, or blown up; pollution of the whole atmosphere and of the water cycle; "dead zones" in the coastal waters, of mineable minerals and ores; natural health and beauty replaced by a heartless and sickening ugliness. Perhaps its greatest success is an astounding increase in the destructiveness, and therefore the profitability, of war." p. 22
"To live we depend unconditionally on our membership in the community of creatures, living and unliving, that we call the ecosphere. Every life in the terrestrial ecosphere depends unconditionally, in turn, on a thin layer of fertile topsoil that in most places is a few inches or a few feet deep and that accumulates slowly. In a climate such as ours it deepens by perhaps one inch in a thousand years. This layer of topsoil is made by the decay of rock, by sunlight and rain, and by the life and death of all the creatures, but mainly of the plants-- mainly perennial plants-- that grow from it, die into it, and by covering it year-round protect it from erosion and hold it in place." p. 72
"Too much of the talk and politics of conservation consists of slogans such as "Think globally, act locally" or even single words, such as "green" or "sustainable" or "organic," that act like slogans. Such lazy language does harm. It becomes useful, in fact, to land-abusing corporations." p. 88
"Our fundamental problem is world-destruction, caused by an irreconcilable contradiction between the natural world and the engineered world of industrialism. This conflict between nature and human interest may have begun with the first tools and weapons, but only with the triumph of industrialism has it become absolute." p. 89
"It is a great oddity that a corporation, which properly speaking has no self, is by definition selfish, responsible only to itself. This is an impersonal, abstract selfishness, limitlessly acquisitive, but unable to look so far ahead as to preserve its own sources and supplies. The selfishness of the fossil fuel industries by nature is self-annihilating; but so, always, has been the selfishness of the agribusiness corporations. Land, as Wes Jackson has said, has thus been made as exhaustible as oil or coal." p.16
"...we are no longer talking about theoretical alternaties to corporate rule. We are talking with practical urgency about an obvious need. Now the two great aims of industrialism-- replacement of people by technology and concentration of wealth into the hands of a small plutocracy-- seem close to fulfillment." p.22
"No amount of fiddling with capitalism to regulate and humanize it, no pointless rhetoric on the virtues of capitalism or socialism, no billions or trillions spent on "defense" of the "American dream," can for long disguise this failure. The evidences of it are everywhere: eroded, wasted, or degraded soils; damaged or destroyed ecosystems; extinction of species; whole landscapes defaced, gouged, flooded, or blown up; pollution of the whole atmosphere and of the water cycle; "dead zones" in the coastal waters, of mineable minerals and ores; natural health and beauty replaced by a heartless and sickening ugliness. Perhaps its greatest success is an astounding increase in the destructiveness, and therefore the profitability, of war." p. 22
"To live we depend unconditionally on our membership in the community of creatures, living and unliving, that we call the ecosphere. Every life in the terrestrial ecosphere depends unconditionally, in turn, on a thin layer of fertile topsoil that in most places is a few inches or a few feet deep and that accumulates slowly. In a climate such as ours it deepens by perhaps one inch in a thousand years. This layer of topsoil is made by the decay of rock, by sunlight and rain, and by the life and death of all the creatures, but mainly of the plants-- mainly perennial plants-- that grow from it, die into it, and by covering it year-round protect it from erosion and hold it in place." p. 72
"Too much of the talk and politics of conservation consists of slogans such as "Think globally, act locally" or even single words, such as "green" or "sustainable" or "organic," that act like slogans. Such lazy language does harm. It becomes useful, in fact, to land-abusing corporations." p. 88
"Our fundamental problem is world-destruction, caused by an irreconcilable contradiction between the natural world and the engineered world of industrialism. This conflict between nature and human interest may have begun with the first tools and weapons, but only with the triumph of industrialism has it become absolute." p. 89
October 14, 2012
This is a fairly thin collection of presentations and essays from the last few years. In writing for decades now about agriculture and rural communities, Berry consistently approaches the same problems and arrives at similar conclusions; nonetheless, his perspectives are nuanced and his logos and ethos varied. This just happens to be his latest installment.
In this collection, a “problem of scale” is a central focus; complementing this focus are the ideas inherent in past essays such as “Think Little” (A Continuous Harmony), “In Distrust of Movements” (The Citizenship Papers), and various others. In sum, both capitalism and socialism make the mistake of envisioning production on too large a scale, effectively severing any relationship between producer and consumer as well as destroying localized economies and the stability such economies offer. We have refused to acknowledge that a healthy economy ultimately depends on a healthy ecology. “Industrial violence” is a natural result of the level of scale we insist upon; this scale exploits the land as much as it exploits people, destroying both forms of life slowly but quite thoroughly.
Berry never hides the fact that he argues always and primarily for the sake of the small farmer, but all of us—corporations, government advisers and decision-makers, urban dwellers, and even farmers themselves—are complicit in the systemic carelessness that extends harm to the land.
The response? We must act as concerned and responsible individuals by educating ourselves on the ways in which we can participate in the immediate local economy as much as possible; it starts with food. Of course, these ideas are not new, but Berry’s essays rarely fail to feel fresh on some level, and he has continued to write with an awareness of current political and economic shifts (and the lack of them).
Notes: I am now keen on reading E. M. Forster’s novel, Howard’s End, as the title selection here is taken from a bit of dialogue from that novel. The essay “Starting from Loss” appeared as the Foreword to Kentucky’s Natural Heritage, which I was lucky to see Berry present in part at the 2010 Prairie Festival. There’s a great section in this essay in which he speculates on the demise of the Kentucky “tumblebug,” a dung beetle that rolls bits of manure in little balls and buries them in the ground to house their eggs. Who pays attention to the myriad of life beneath our feet? Thankfully, we have at least one interested and invested witness.
September 2, 2013
I put Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder into the same category of men who love the land, have a profound sense of place, and write beautifully and passionately, though I read Gary Snyder primarily as a poet and Mr. Berry as an essayist. I admit that's giving short shrift to Mr. Berry as he's a poet and a novelist as well. (It's probably giving short shrift to Gary Snyder, as well, as he's also an essayist.)
It All Turns on Affection is the text of a lecture, which is oddly an award. Being invited to give the Jefferson Lecture is "our nation's highest honor for intellectual achievement."
The lecture itself turns on the following, and if what follows piques your imagination, then enough said about why this lecture is worth the read: "He (Wallace Stegner) thought rightly that we Americans, by inclination at least, have been divided into two kinds: boomers and stickers." Berry goes on to give the defining characteristics of these types: "Boomers are those who pillage and run, who want to make a killing and end up on easy street. Stickers are those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it. The Boomer is motivated by greed, the desire for money, property, and therefore power. He went or sent wherever the getting was good, and he got as much as he could take. Stickers, on the contrary, are motivated by affection, by such love for a place and its life that they want to preserve it and remain in it." I've rolled a number of sentences together so as not to have to type all morning. Anyway, as we go about our days the reflection as to whether we are boomers or stickers makes for an interesting meditation.
It All Turns on Affection is the text of a lecture, which is oddly an award. Being invited to give the Jefferson Lecture is "our nation's highest honor for intellectual achievement."
The lecture itself turns on the following, and if what follows piques your imagination, then enough said about why this lecture is worth the read: "He (Wallace Stegner) thought rightly that we Americans, by inclination at least, have been divided into two kinds: boomers and stickers." Berry goes on to give the defining characteristics of these types: "Boomers are those who pillage and run, who want to make a killing and end up on easy street. Stickers are those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it. The Boomer is motivated by greed, the desire for money, property, and therefore power. He went or sent wherever the getting was good, and he got as much as he could take. Stickers, on the contrary, are motivated by affection, by such love for a place and its life that they want to preserve it and remain in it." I've rolled a number of sentences together so as not to have to type all morning. Anyway, as we go about our days the reflection as to whether we are boomers or stickers makes for an interesting meditation.
December 15, 2012
A great little book to read (125 pages). I am embarrased to say that this is the first book by Wendell Berry I have read - he has written fifty books! He is a true conservationist and is assured that the industrial revolution is the primry cause of the continual destruction of the land as we know it. He deplores the disappearance of the small farmer and the emergence of the hugh conglomerates that currently own and farm the land in a purely profitable manner. He really has it in for the Coal Companies that have ruined his beloved Kentucky and conntinues to do so since the industry controls the politics of the State He also does not have any thing nice to say about the University of Kentucky or its founder James B. Duke, the tobacco mogul who was soley motivated by greed, the desire for money, property, and power to the detriment of the small tobacco farmers. This is a very interesting, well written book that provides one with a great deal to think about in terms of the actions each individual can take to begin to slow the destruction of the land through the implementation of appropriate conservation measures.
December 8, 2014
For the past six decades, Kentucky-based author Wendell Berry has thought deeply about the overlapping issues of agriculture, democracy, conservation, social justice and the human spirit, recording his findings in numerous books of essays, poetry and fiction. This latest publication contains his 2012 Jefferson Lecture — a lecture series that the National Endowment for the Humanities calls "the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities." Turning again to the most pressing issues of our time, Berry finds clarity and room for optimism in the ineffable: “Truth, nature, imagination, affection, love, hope, beauty, joy...these words are hard to keep still within definitions; they make the dictionary hum like a beehive. But in such words...we find our indispensable humanity, without which we are lost and in danger.” This slim volume also includes an interview with Berry, as well as a handful of recent essays, including “About Civil Disobedience” and “The Future of Agriculture.”
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