The 4th Sabbath of February

The Wish to Be Generous

by Wendell Berry

All that I serve will die, all my delights,

the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,

the silent lilies standing in the woods,

the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all

will burn in man's evil, or dwindle

in its own age. Let the world bring on me

the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know

my little light taken from me into the seed

of the beginning and the end, so I may bow

to mystery, and take my stand on the earth

like a tree in a field, passing without haste

or regret toward what will be, my life

a patient willing descent into the grass.

On Dogs and Good Work

Sorry about that last interruption of thought but that post had been pressing on my mind and if there is a better example of direct as well as passive exploitation than a factory farm… well I doubt it exists. I guess I have to justify why I’m even concerned about my relationship with a dog. It seems meaningless and trite after the image of baby chickens being fed into a meat grinder alive. The point is, I think it’s important for me to understand how I relate to animals and the land, and the relationship in question is really the only one of its kind I have. I don’t have chickens. Maybe if I did I’d think a meat grinder to good for them. I’ve met a few roosters that come to mind. My first employer had one that would hide around the shed in the garden and leap out and spur your calf and then run like mad in the other direction. There were worse fates coming to mind for that chicken than an industrial factory. But a dog is what I have and it’s a good place to start an examination of self so there I am. I think of it like a parent giving a child a gold fish. If you can be responsible keep this fish alive then maybe you can have the team of Clydesdale beer wagon horses you’ve been asking for. If you can treat your dog right by its nature then maybe you can do right by a chicken or a cow or a farm.

The last of the three requirements of dogs, after food and companionship, is good work. The semantics of this can be argued I’m sure. What is good? What is work? What is dog? But that’s just the human mind trying to justify a lack of the same. In the end a dog knows what good work is. It feels it. It’s wired for it.

There are two levels to this. On the first, a dog just wants to do something: run, jump, spin, hump, chase their tails, and sniff their bums. They’re not necessarily in that sequence but they could be, or they could be in a simultaneous jubilee of dogness. We might call this playing but I don’t think the dog really differentiates on its matters of existence. These things are good work.

The second level in my opinion is the higher level. It is very apparent that of all the things she could be doing my dog nearly always wants to be involved in what I’m doing. She could be romping at the ranch in a field of gum drops, among rows of bacon plants, chasing slow retarded rabbits, and hanging with her favorite labrador retriever but as soon as I step out to the truck she’d be right there wanting to know if she can help. (Maybe with bacon growing out of the ground she might walk over very slowly while stuffing her mouth full of greasy goodness but that only happens in dog dreams. It’s falling from the sky in my dreams.)

The question then is can she help? The honest answer is… no. I throw her in because she wants to come but it’s not because I need her. She’s of no practical use to me. I’m not herding cows or sheep, or trailering a cantankerous bull, all of which, given proper training I’m sure she would be amazing at. Some of you may be saying, here’s the angry man, here’s the exploiter again. You may be right. This may all just be a way to justify my mindset but hear me out and then tell me.

Does a dog have to be useful to have its nature fulfilled, to be nurtured? No. But if a dog’s need is companionship and good work then doesn’t it seem realistic to assume it should work with me? Shouldn’t it be a valued part of what I’m doing? There is a profound connection when you work with someone for a common purpose. It’s no different with a dog. I think dogs were meant to be useful and they know that. We seem to have forgotten that.

We were hunting pheasants on the highline near Medicine Lake a few years ago. My hunting partner, Mr. Clark, originated from that area and had lots of family around there so we had access to a few thousand acres stuffed full of ring necks. That country’s a huge bird haven and so it gets a fair amount of pressure from hunters opening weekend. We didn’t have a dog with us so we’d break brush and hope they didn’t stick to tight or flush to far out. It was fun and we had decent luck, knocking down a few roosters but we could have done better.

About halfway through opening day we noticed an English Pointer working the brush in a shallow draw about a hundred yards off the road. There was no one with it. The dog was fanatical, hunting hard. When it got close we called it over and roped it up and through it in the back of the truck. Still no one around. Out in that country, if there’s a hunter within 10 miles you’ll see him. There’s no trees, no hills, no towns. There’s nothing but big open land full of brush and draws and birds. We checked the dog’s tags and made some phone calls, waited around for a bit to see if anyone showed up looking for their dog and then went back to hunting.

I’d struck on a brilliant idea. Hell, as long as we’re hauling the dog around, we might as well hunt it. Next good spot we through the Pointer out, got our guns and realized he was already gone, hunting like mad a couple hundred yards down the draw and running hard. Long story is, that dog was thereafter dubbed the Bastard and I fell in love with the knucklehead. After running him down and carrying him back to the truck we left him at the house and finished out our day.

It snowed hard the next morning, putting a foot on the ground by lunch. The pheasants weren’t going to be flying that day. We decided to take Bastard with us and put him on a long tether to keep him close. What ensued was some of the best pheasant hunting of my existence.

That dog had a phenomenal nose. The first time he went on point I just stood there unable to respond. I can’t describe working with a dog like that. In a blinding snow storm he would work a hedge row back and forth, back and forth, with an almost fanatical drive and then suddenly freeze solid, tail up, paw tucked and nose pointed right at a white pile of nothing, till you walked through it and a rooster exploded from underneath. That dog was a basket case. His only thought was birds and he went after them like a crack addict. I had to put a foot on the tether when he went on point otherwise he would yank the shotgun near out of my hand when the bird would fly. He was a terrible retriever, chewing the hell out of the birds if he got them and if he got off the rope he was flat gone. Despite all these moments of utter stupidity, he played my soul like an Appalachian fiddle player.

We finally did get in contact with the owner and he said he didn’t want the dog. It had run off one too many times. I brought him home and tried to finagle my way into keeping him but in the end I had to give him to a friend of a friend who I knew would hunt him a lot. The first time we found that dog I’d said I figured that he would hunt himself to death. I got a call a couple months later that he’d twisted his guts on a hunt and died. I’d been right about that crazy dog we called Bastard.

All dogs have this instinct to do something useful whether it’s ratting, birding, herding, or guarding. Some are well trained and some are wild cards shooting from the hip. I’m pretty sure mine has some cow dog in her cause she herds my brother’s lab and herds the boys and would herd me if I’d let her. She would have made an outstanding ranch dog. She can run the hills nonstop and she’s smart as a whip, but she’s a city mutt and short on good work. There’s not much I can do about that except just let her run with me when I’m out and about and make sure she keeps the boys in check. I’ve thought about teaching her to hunt rabbits because she’s good at running them when we’re walking the sage flats near my parents place. Maybe that will be a project this year. I’ve just got to keep from shooting her. That would bum the family out. It’s true that teaching an old dog a new trick isn’t the most productive of things I can think of doing, but then again, productivity is the shit that makes grinding up baby chickens seem like a reasonable thing to do so there you go.

On Eggs

I make redress.  I'm not a compassionate person or sensitive.  That's I'm sure apparent if you've read even one of these posts.  But if you were such a person I can see why you would eat eggless food.  I started thinking about this after my brilliant but uninformed attack on eggless mayo.  Though I still stand by my aversion to an industrial solution to an industrial problem, my thinking has changed.  I'm not vegan and I never will be nor do I know anyone in this fine meat eating state that is.  That would be about as typical as a three-legged, albino, cowmoose.  I do know some though who refuse to eat foods produced by systems such as these.  They're folks to be admired.  One of the reasons I say this is because this type of industrial farming, of which egg factories is just one example, isn't just about being cruel to animals.  This world is cruel after all.  But this type of farming has to do something to our soul.  It takes away a piece of us, as good workers and good people.  The mechanization of farming isn't just destructive to animals and land.  I can't imagine it not destroying some part of us after watching this video.  So I eat my humble pie.  Hold the eggs please. 

Oh and that's just the beginning of their life.  Here's where they end up.  Not sure if getting ground alive is that bad after all.  Livin the American dream.

We now return you to your regular programming.

On Dogs and Companionship

Of the three requirements of a dog, this is the most difficult to fathom. This may be because companionship to me is less objective and more relational. It’s harder to quantify and justify. This of course is untrue for the dog. To my dog, companionship is being together, all the time, as closely as possible. There’s nothing simpler. If I go she goes. If I stay she stays and keeps a close watch on me to make sure I don’t sneak off without her.

I’m terrible about this. I don’t like being smothered in affection, much less slobbered with affection. I dislike having a dog under my feet all the time. It’s extremely inefficient. (There’s that angry man again.) She generally makes more work for me than she’s worth. In my defense, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being aloof and 10 being obsessed, my dog would range in at 11 or 12, right around psychotic stalker. So I’m dealing with an extreme canine here where a little bit of attention is never enough and neither is a lot. If she could crawl under your skin she would. In another life she may have been a tapeworm.

Here’s a great example. I’m sitting in my chair reading. It’s a slow Sunday and nice to be inside and warm with a good book. The dog walks in and puts her head on my leg. This is a common tactic and because I’m not completely cold hearted I pat her on the head and resume reading. Then I feel her paw on my leg. Normally I don’t allow this. I don’t need her walking on me. But in an inspired moment I decide to see how far she would go. If I completely ignore her – don’t say no but don’t encourage her either – how far would she take it. So I act as if she weren’t there and continue to read. Soon her other paw comes up. She thinks I don’t notice both her paws and her head on my leg so she creeps a little closer, weaseling her way up onto my lap. At this point I’m thinking, “Are you kidding me,” but I continue on oblivious to her actions. She inches her way up onto my belly till her whole upper body lies stretched on me. I read. Her back leg comes up, scrambles for a hold, then eases her full weight onto my lap moving like a slinky until she’s stretched out along my chest and her head is nestled alongside my neck and face. When she begins to snuffle about in my ear with her whiskers I can’t handle anymore and kick her off.

So you see what I’m dealing with. This may have something to do with Sara cuddling and coddling her excessively as a puppy but I’m not sure I’m qualified to make that diagnosis. Anyways, it doesn’t change much. I’m not going to let her roll around in my lap and lick my face while I call her oodle poodle gootchums and good little puppy poo. That just makes my stomach turn and I’ll argue, no matter the consequences or authoritative counter argument; it’s wrong. It’s wrong on many different levels the most obvious of which involves cat litter snacks and butt licking. Just saying.

But I also recognize my love of efficiency and how that squashes time with the mutt. So in response to that I’ve decided to make it a habit to take her with me whenever possible. Whether walking, working, driving, or wandering about the garage in thought, I’ll try and take her with me and I’ve been better about it. She may not be in my pocket but at least she’s with me and she loves that. I don’t know why, but it’s true to her nature and so I’m beholden to it.

On Dogs and Food

The first of the three requirements of dogs is food.  Pretty obvious I know but worth considering.  If you didn't feed your dog you'd be a grade A asshole.  But it's also interesting to consider a dog's attitude towards food.  My dog would eat a filet mignon with as much gusto as she would scarf some mystery organ from a gut pile.  When she is hungry she eats and asks no questions about it.  There are no moral considerations such as; is this food mine; is this food local, fresh or cruelty free; is this food going to make my ass look big.  Don't misunderstand.  A dog knows what is food and what is not food.  My brother tells a story of his time in Saudi Arabia when he came across a starving street dog on base and tried to feed it the Twinkie from his mess kit.  The dog turned its nose up at it and went and chewed on an old road kill snake instead.  That's a sobering moment for a Twinkie lover.  I'm not sure if he ate the nuclear waste filled pastry after that or not but you can take that illustration for what you will, either a criticism of Twinkies, dogs, or humans.  For the most part, though, a dog's requirements are simple and so my responsibility to her is simple.  Feed her or train her to feed herself and give her the freedom to do so.

This one's easy.  Letting the dog feed itself isn't such a good option in the city so I have to feed her.  I can buy dog food by the front loader bucket full at Costco and I'm good about giving it to her as well.  (Yeah I'm so Wendellian!)  It's funny to say it - I feed my dog - but there have been moments when, if she'd had an opposable thumb, she'd have beaten me with her bowl and gone and scooped some food for herself, and then curled up at my feet completely satisfied.

Many people give their dog table scraps.  I love this idea.  It's a fabulous form of recycling but I limit these small gifts of comradery at the table because she gets fat enough just foraging at the bottom of the boy's chairs and because I know what's best for her health (by which I mean a fine figure and a lack of explosive diarrhea on the furniture).  We all know a healthy dog sure as hell isn't eating what I eat.  Makes you wonder.  I don't think she really cares that much about it either way.  It's hard to imagine a dog saying; perhaps I should limit my eating at this moment, though food be falling from the sky, for I may become bloated and gaseous.  No.  She eats what comes to her and then lays prone and unmoving on the floor while filling the house with noxious fumes.  This is my problem not hers although she's been known to wake herself out of a sleep and then look at me in an accusatory manner as if I were responsible for the loud noise and rank smell.  So in good Wendellian fashion, don't feed your dog pickled eggs and beer and you should be good to go.  (In fact this heinous act of terrorism should be outlawed for humans and canines alike, at least from October to January for the safety and health of the hunting community.)

Now I know this isn't at all a difficult requirement to meet.  It's quite simple and I fulfill it in fine enough fashion.  Just feed your dog damnit.  How hard is that?  And I'm serious about the pickled eggs and beer.  No, really. 

On Dogs

And so now we come down to the brass tacks. As I’ve rolled these ideas about exploiter versus nurturer around in my head I’m a little overwhelmed. How do you understand a person that encompasses ideals and realities, logics and intuitions, desire and action; a host of paradoxes and gray areas as numerous as fleas on an old, shaggy dog? And then it struck me. It struck me like two paws to the junk in a fast food drive through. It all rests on the dog. The dog, an animal quintessential to man, became an immediate archetype for me in my struggle to differentiate for myself exploitation and nurturing. It is the one widely domesticated animal that urban and rural alike keep. It is simple to understand. This relationship is not a marriage, or a friendship, or a business partner, or a farm. This is a dog. Their requirements are few and universal.  And I think when we look at our dog we have a small voice deep in our souls that says (whether we think it’s full up with BS or not), you can tell a lot about yourself right now.

I am partial to dogs but not because I’m a dog lover. If anything I’d say I’m a dog philosopher which is a nice way of saying I’m a dog critic. This criticism spans a wide spectrum from, that’s the stupidest mutt I’ve ever had the misfortune of being licked in the crotch by to, that dog is an artist. Most dogs will fall between these two extremes and some dogs, mine being a great example, will run its length like a two year old hopped up on pixie sticks, turning brilliant and stupid in the matter of an eye blink. Other dogs are both extremes simultaneously. Hunting dogs often fall into this paradox. The dog in its various forms becomes a good dog, bad dog, stupid dog, nice dog, genius dog, find the bird dog, get off me dog, get in the back dog, stop licking the baby dog, clean up the baby dog, and it goes on and on.

Most of these are our own notions concerning the dog’s behavior. The dog, however, is just being a dog. It is oblivious of these distinctions. It lives in the moment and requires only three things: food, companionship, and a good job. It requires each of these things in its time and in good measure. It doesn’t sound like such a bad gig does it? In these things also, dogs tend to see things directly as they are with no conceptualizations which some have argued is the purest form of Taoism. I can agree with this.  That aside, as I considered my qualities as an agrarian I began to question my ability to nurture. I know this comes as a shock to those who know me, but I’m a bit of a McGrothers. (I’ll explain about McGrothers later.) This becomes apparent in my relationship with our dog.

Holly is a mixed breed, medium sized, tough as hell, and obnoxiously friendly. I’m not sure but my guess is she’s got some pit bull and some cow dog in her and who knows what else. She’s a good dog, smart and kind but not all that useful. I suppose that would describe many dogs and is better than being a bad dog, stupid and mean and useless. I’ve discovered, however, that my relationship with her is not very Wendellian and therefore ripe for inspection. My obvious concern is, if I can’t take Wendell's approach to my dog then will I ever take proper care of any land or animal? So in a fine Wendellian manner, I’ll look at each of what I think are the natural requirements of any dog and of my dog, and see where I fail and where I succeed and hopefully change from a McGrothers to a Will Wells. (More on that later. I know your salivating with curiosity.)

3rd Sabbath of February

Talking to Ourselves

by Philip Schultz

A woman in my doctor's office last week

couldn't stop talking about Niagara Falls,

the difference between dog and deer ticks,

how her oldest boy, killed in Iraq, would lie

with her at night in the summer grass, singing

Puccini. Her eyes looked at me but saw only

the saffron swirls of the quivering heavens.

Yesterday, Mr. Miller, our tidy neighbor,

stopped under our lopsided maple to explain

how his wife of sixty years died last month

of Alzheimer's. I stood there, listening to

his longing reach across the darkness with

each bruised breath of his eloquent singing.

This morning my five-year-old asked himself

why he'd come into the kitchen. I understood

he was thinking out loud, personifying himself,

but the intimacy of his small voice was surprising.

When my father's vending business was failing,

he'd talk to himself while driving, his lips

silently moving, his black eyes deliquescent.

He didn't care that I was there, listening,

what he was saying was too important.

"Too important," I hear myself saying

in the kitchen, putting the dishes away,

and my wife looks up from her reading

and asks, "What's that you said?"

My Confusing Analysis

An exploiter, or what I'll call an angry man, is a specialist or an expert or one who relies on others of this nature to do his work.  An angry man efficiently pursues his goals of which profit, whether in pay, interest, investment or hot tamales and pigs ass porter, is dominant.  An angry man would prefer someone else do the work and pay him for that priveledge.  An angry man is organized and meticulous, breaking things down into their understandable parts - numbers, quantities, and logical emotional outcomes.  He serves himself and in such a way is manipulated by institutions and others.  He doesn't believe in mystery because mystery is randomness.  An angry man, deep inside, is rage. 

A nurturer sounds like a pansy ass communist.  I'm going to call him instead - Salt of the Earth, John the Agrarian, Greeny, or how about The Milk Man.  The Milk Man is a generalist.  His goal is to make things grow - his family, his land, his neighbor, his dog.  The Milk Man would prefer to do work himself, or with familiar people that like a good porter and have useful hands.  He wants it done well which the angry man can quantify in terms of margins and strain tests but can't justify because of the massive inefficiencies of cost in labor and skill.  The Milk Man fishes with flys he's tied himself and the angry man fishes with worms, or dynamite, or 10000 volts of electricity. 

See how the angry man creeps into all our thinking.  He's easy to understand so we can say, see, this is not the Milkman.  But that's like hunting for Bear and shooting a Cottontail.  Creeping up on the dead rabbit, you whisper to your partner, "See, now this is a great example of what a Bear is not."  This is because the Milkman strains for an order that we do not understand, that he knows is a mystery.  He thinks in terms of character, condition, quality, and kind which means he thinks in terms of poetry.  Everything gets darker for the Milkman.  His is the way of ignorance.

I broke these down to understand them a little better for myself.  Some of these ideas I intimately understand and some I only know.  I can see quite clearly that I'm both men at any given time.  Sometimes I'm the milkman bringin home the nurturin and sometimes I'm angry as hell.  And I think, also, there are areas where I'm angry and don't even know it.  I'm often an exploiter by default if I don't choose my mindset.  Where? 

Exploiter or Nurturer?

I’ve found two distinct personalities resonating in Wendell’s writing. I don’t say this to imply I’m a literary critical genius. I’m simply going back to his essay “The Unsettling of America” and reading the words. Wendell is not one to smother his thoughts in half truths and speculations. He pretty much tells you what he’s thinking. Whether or not he’s right, at least you know where he stands. Here’s the mad farmer on exploiters and nurturers.

Let me outline as briefly as I can what seem to me the characteristics of these opposite kinds of mind. I conceive a strip-miner to be a model exploiter, and as a model nurturer I take the old-fashioned idea or ideal of the farmer. The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health - his land's health, his own, his family's, his community's, his country's. Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order – a human order, that is, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, "hard facts"; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind.

This is not just a division of a culture between its people but Wendell points to a division within a person as well. These are, as he said, a kind of mind. There will be some who immediately dismiss this thinking as a generic stereotype. It's not meant to categorize people but to reveal two possible and conflicting mindsets in ourselves, our relationships to the land and each other and in our culture. A long historical argument exists for Yin and Yang, Creation and Destruction, Light and Dark and one may consider this an extension of that philosophy which can be especially applied to America.

Philosophies aside, are there elements of these ideas in our lives? I think it may be worthwhile to examine these points of character and see if I can categorize myself and how I live as one or the other or neither. Any ideas on how they manifest themselves on the streets, among the houses and in the fields of our place?

On Fatherhood

The home project I call – Verily, Verily I say unto thee complete thy bathroom now before the warmth of spring sucks away thy will to work even as the rivers thaweth and the air warmeth – slowly consumes my soul. Thus, I’m sorry to say it seems, finding Wendell Berry has turned into, Finding Wendell Berry after I install, insulate, improve and generally cause a rucus in my basement, the dark confines of which are beginning to remind me of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Telltale Heart.

“Mama, why is there a dark man in our basement mumbling to the walls?”

“That’s your father dear.”

“What’s a father?”

My hyperbole is fearfully close to reality for it seems my every spare moment is spent in construction.  As a human being of the male persuasion, as some of you may be, I'm faced with the daunting task of being a father.  I know... with credentials like these how could we fail?  In the spirit of my new found Wendellian principle of neighborliness I've decided to let you in on my hard won knowledge as a father and plumber and carpenter and superhero in tights.  Its not much mind you, but it may be useful to you someday when the padded walls are closing in.  (Actually I admit, I'm doing this because I hope you will give me your own ideas.)

It is a challenge including your children in Wendellian endeavours.  I’ve found in the past that the best way to get young boys involved in my work, and by extension my fathering, is to give them a couple hammers and point at something. This may seem idiotic, (Not that I'm denying that possibility) but it works.  Keep in mind, that what you point at will soon be reduced to a pile of rubble, so wield your power prudently. 

This approach though has left me increasingly perplexed and strained by their endearing offers of help. I’m putting together now, not taking apart.  I'm on the long, long, long home stretch so in trying to keep entropy at a minimum its best to remove the primary agents of destruction.  “Go play somewhere, I’m working,” has become my mantra. Go ahead and point your fingers you involved and dedicated parents; you encouraging, loving, self-esteem endowing, family units; you smarmy bastards. Tisk away, but if you’ve ever held a level in your teeth while balancing a board on your forehead and an air nailer in the crook of your arm while attempting to plumb, level, and nail a stringer for a soffit and then had your three year old ask how he can help then you’ll know my circumstances. If not then in the timeless words of gospel I say unto you, “Ye without sin cast the first stone. All the rest of ya piss off.”

I don't know what to do about that.  I know you were on the edge of your seat waiting for a profound revelation but the truth is I have no clue.  I can only say, it came as a divine blessing last night that I had to remove the old door from the new hallway. Now any normal person would have popped the hinge pins and hauled the door out – done. I of course am a father of three boys so normalcy has long since departed from my life.

“Boys,” I said, “I need this door removed,” and I pointed the all powerful finger at the trembling hollow cored edifice.  They immediately began hooting and hollering. I handed them each a hammer and within twenty minutes the door had broken in half and fallen off its hinges onto their debris speckled heads. I hauled it away in buckets. They even removed the hinges with a screwdriver which took another twenty minutes, there being a little more dexterity involved, but I was proud of them. It was a beautiful picture – two of my boys sitting atop a small hill of construction debris concentrating all their powers of persuasion on a small brass screw.

When we were done I like to think they knew the dark mumbling man in the basement a little better and they’d learned something, although I couldn’t put it in a lesson plan for you. I’m sure I’d get sued if I did. But this raises a question among many. How do you find Wendell Berry and be a father? How does one combine the nature of fatherhood with these ideas? (Or motherhood for that matter.) How does one do for himself all that he can and still do well by his kids? Any thoughts?

The 2nd Sabbath of February

This Year's Valentine

by Philip Appleman

They could

pump frenzy into air ducts

and rage into reservoirs,

dynamite dams

and drown cities,

cry fire in theaters

as the victims are burning,

but

I will find my way through blackened streets

and kneel down at your side.

They could

jump the median, head-on,

and obliterate the future,

fit .45's to the hands of kids

and skate them off to school,

flip live butts into tinderbox forests

and hellfire half the heavens,

but

in the rubble of smoking cottages

I will hold you in my arms.

They could

send kidnappers to kindergartens

and pedophiles to playgrounds,

wrap themselves in Old Glory

and gut the Bill of Rights,

pound the door with holy screed

and put an end to reason,

but

I will cut through their curtains of cunning

and find you somewhere in the moonlight.

Whatever they do with their anthrax or chainsaws,

however they strip-search or brainwash or blackmail,

they cannot prevent me from sending you robins,

all of them singing: I'll be there.

Does Wendell Berry Fish?

Yet another question I told you I'd answer after a recent trip to the river.  I'm trying to be honest and work my way through them, though some, this one especially, have no simple answer.  I know it seems simple, to fish or not to fish.  But, short of meeting the old poet on the river and asking him, I can't really say and if you've ever tried to google WB then you understand one of the great frustrations of stepping into the 21st century: he's google proof. (The other is a toss up between low flow toilets and Simple's eco friendly fall-on-your-ass-and-feel-good-about-the-environment shoes).

So does Wendell Berry Fish? 

I'll have to say no.  But Jesus did.

In the immortal words of Norman Maclean:

...our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.

Thank you Norman.  Enough said. 

The Many Faces of an Automaton

This is a small excerpt from Wendell's essay, "Feminism, The Body, and The Machine" in which he continues his defense of his choice to disavow computers.  The first part - as if the title were not clear enough - discusses the feminist attack against his wife working in the house.  His critique is against feminists.  His critique is against the condescension that men have something worth attaining.  And here it is:

And what are we to say of the diversely skilled country housewife who now bores the same six holes day after day on an assembly line? What higher form of womanhood or humanity is she consenting to evolving toward?

How, I am asking, can women improve themselves by submitting to the same specialization, degradation, trivialization, and tyrannization of work that men have submitted to? And that question is made legitimate by another: How have men improved themselves by submitting to it? The answer is that men have not, and women cannot, improve themselves by submitting to it.

Women have complained, justly, about the behavior of “macho” men. But despite their he-man pretensions and their captivation by masculine heroes of sports, war, and the Old West, most men are now entirely accustomed to obeying and currying the favor of their bosses. Because of this, of course, they hate their jobs—they mutter, “Thank God it’s Friday” and “Pretty good for Monday”— but they do as they are told. They are more compliant than most housewives have been. Their characters combine feudal submissiveness with modern helplessness. They have accepted almost without protest, and often with consumptive relief, their dispossession of any usable property and, with that, their loss of economic independence and their consequent subordination to bosses. They have submitted to the destruction of the household economy and thus of the household, to the loss of home employment and self-employment, to the disintegration of their families and communities, to the desecration and pillage of their country, and they have continued abjectly to believe, obey, and vote for the people who have most eagerly abetted this ruin and who have most profited from it. These men, moreover, are helpless to do anything for themselves or anyone else without money, and so for money they do whatever they are told. They know that their ability to be useful is precisely defined by their willingness to be somebody else’s tool. Is it any wonder that they talk tough and worship athletes and cowboys? Is it any wonder that some of them are violent?

Does this resonate with anyone else?  I'd say I'm in a pretty autonomous work environment where I work with my hands and have a very easy means of determining my work quality, efficiency, and productivity.  When I'm done, does it work and does it meet determined specs?  Did I keep the smoke in the machine?  Has the doctor been able to continue his work because of my work?  And yet...  This still resonates with me.  I'm still beholden to obey like an automaton when asked.  I say, "Thank God it's Friday," and, "Pretty good for a Monday," verbatim.  It's not just a cliché, it's true damnit.  Monday's suck, Friday's rock.  So?  How bout you?  And what does it mean?

71 days of snow

I know the title of this post seems like a cute, little Christmas pageant but it is in reality a nightmarish real-time scenario.  Seventy-one continuous days of snow on the ground.  I've been told we're on track to breaking records here which might give some of us a big thrill but there's a good reason why I don't live in Fargo, North Dakota.  What a great year to find Wendell Berry eh?  I can hardly leave the house.  I guess that's a good thing according to some Wendellian philosophers but I'm more inclined to at least spend a little time outside.  The TV becomes more and more appealing as the snow just drags on into the cold, dark winter.  The boys become like caged, wild animals turning feral and dangerous, their behavior more and more erratic and unpredictable.  Where are our warm Chinook winds?  Where are our February springs?  This is much worse than Global Warming.  This is a giant global screw up.

This weekend I was cutting some boards in the back garage and the snow was coming down in big flakes which softened all the sounds of the city.  I immensely enjoyed the work of measuring and sawing with the garage door open and the world muted.  As I worked I suddenly realized there were about a thousand small song birds in the trees all about our neighborhood.  Their cacophony cut into the silence.  I don't know where they came from or why.  There were Song Sparrows, Chickadees, and Robins.  The juxtaposition of snow and spring filled the air.  Robins in February at 20 degrees?  It began to freak me out a little but I stopped working and went to the cupboard for a cup of bird seed.  The boys helped me spread it in a shallow box and we put it in the front yard and watched the birds swarm about with flitting glee at the sudden bounty.  They would fight and fluff and ferret seeds till they grew nervous and in a rush of wings would soar up to the overhanging branches.  All the trees were full of them.  And then they were gone. 

How many people do you suppose noticed their coming and going?  How many of these things do we miss by cutting ourselves off from the world?  If I'd not been working outside, taking my time with my handsaw, I'd probably have missed it altogether.  I'd have been loud and hurrying or curled up hibernating with a can of Guinness, a bag of cheetoes and Rachel Ray.  The birds, for whatever reason, gave me a moment of levity in a hard winter.  I give a hearty thanks to you oh songbirds.  Though you're probably all dead in a bush somewhere like frozen little chicken nuggets, I'll look on the bright side and assume your a hell of a lot handier with nature than I and you knew what you were doing and are just fine wherever you ended up. 

On Vegania

I've sat down to answer one of the questions my recent time on the river posed. What is Eggless Vegan Light Canola Mayo and why does it exist? You may be wondering so let me elaborate a bit the circumstances giving rise to such an important question.

Time line: two days before fishing excursion. Plot: Unnamed friend taking said author out on the river for his birthday. Excitement rising by the minute. Phone call.

"What kind of mayo do you like? Regular or Miracle Whip? I'm at the store getting lunch for Thursday."

"Sweet. Miracle Whip. But don't go to any trouble on my account. I'll eat whatever."

Laughter. Laughter goes on a bit longer than should be expected.

"Alright. Thanks. See you Thursday." The line goes dead with a chuckle echoing into the vast darkness we call 3G network. Author is excited.

Timeline: 5 hours into fishing excursion. Plot: Arm is tired from catching so many gigantic trout. Stomach is cramping from hunger. Anchor boat and sit in snow bank after other partner pees on one dry spot available. Forgiveness is instantaneous as hunger rises and Guinness is served. Fixings are pulled out of cooler. Meat, cheese, bread, lettuce, tomato, mustard, and... Vegan Eggless Light Canola Mayo. Queue sound of vinyl record screeching to a stop.

I'm not sure how to deal with this blow to the very ideal's we espouse as Wendellians and human beings. First I had to find out what mayo is actually made of so I could understand intelligently the implications. It's phenomenal how little I know about the food I eat. It turns out Mayonnaise is made by slowly adding oil to an egg yolk, while whisking vigorously to disperse the oil. The magic is sucked from the room with one small click of man and one giant click for mankind. Thank you Wikipedia. You are my salvation and my hateful revelation.

Not only that but the most probable origin of mayonnaise is that the recipe was brought back to France from the town of Mahon in Minorca, an island in the Mediterranean, after Louis-François-Armand du Plessis de Richelieu's (what a name!) victory over the British at the city's port in 1756. According to this version, the sauce was originally known as salsa mahonesa (as it is still known on Minorca), later becoming mayonnaise as it was popularized by the French. The French Larousse Gastronomique 1961 suggests: "Mayonnaise, in our view, is a popular corruption of moyeunaise, derived from the very old French word moyeu, which means yolk of egg." The sauce may have been christened mayennaise after Charles de Lorraine, duke of Mayenne, because he took the time to finish his meal of chicken with cold sauce before being defeated in the Battle of Arques. Who knew a sauce could have such a violent history.

Miracle whip got its name from Charles Chapman, named after the machine he invented that could whip numerous unhealthy ingredients together in such a manner as to make them one grand gastronomical experiment. And then it sold millions upon millions of jars clogging arteries for generations to follow. A boring story but a wonderfully delicious punch line. Though Miracle Whip's actual ingredients are a secret they say it's kosher. That's a relief.

But Vegan Eggless Light Canola Mayo? Where the hell does that fit in with the history of all that is good and holy and gastronomically pleasing? No where that I can tell. And how do you make mayo (egg and oil) without eggs. Am I the only one that sees this as madness? I'll vouch that Miracle Whip may be as fine a representative of the industrial food complex as any but eggless mayo can't be to far behind. This is just wrong on so many levels that it doesn't surprise me the word Vegan is involved somehow. What, you may ask, is a Vegan?

In the immortal words of Alicia Silverstone,

"I just took a look at my dog and said, 'If I'm not willing to eat you, how can I continue to eat these other creatures that have the same desire to live, are just as funny, just as cute as my dogs?'"

Some statements empty my mind faster than a hydron collider's black hole. And then in the darkness a light glimmer's, a thought trickles in and I say, "Have you ever met a cow?" They're lives are marked, not so much with desire, but with mind numbing stupidity. They're not funny unless you consider mental retardation funny. And they're cute for about 3 months at which time they turn into a fat, snotty, cud chewing dullard. If we don't eat them then we might as well just let them go extinct because that's exactly what they'll do. I can't imagine them serving a different purpose for the world. This isn't a majestic herd of plains buffalo we're talking about here. I can just see the Hereford's grazing the plains in splendor as far as the eye can see. Or not. More like bleached bones as far as the eye can see and a bunch of really fat coyotes.

But I guess that's probably not the point and what do I really know about cows. I can't say I've raised one. I'd like to. To eat. I'll admit that the meat "industry" is something altogether different than I imagine it to be and its nature is slowly becoming apparent. That nature, not surprising, is destructive to us, to communities, to the environment and to the animals (in a way that can't really be justified by their death). I'll talk about this more later when I figure out what the hell I can do about it.

I pulled a dollop of vegania mayo from the jar with the knife. It reminded me, quite distinctly, of another animal byproduct called saliva. I held it there in limbo for a moment, hovering above my bread. The texture seemed sickly and transmuted. The sight of it made me uncomfortable. I know I shouldn't judge other people. I know I should work on my food ethics. I know I should be kind to those who take me to the river and feed me. It's something I'll work on and so I guess this post is a failure in that regard. I'll try and be positive from now on and change my attitude towards these things. They are the result of people trying to be better than they are and that should be recognized. In the meantime just pass the mustard.

The First Sabbath of February

Snowbanks North of the House

by Robert Bly

Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly

six feet from the house...

Thoughts that go so far.

The boy gets out of high school and reads no more books;

the son stops calling home.

The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no more bread.

And the wife looks at her husband one night at a party

and loves him no more.

The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls leaving

the church.

It will not come closer—

the one inside moves back, and the hands touch nothing,

and are safe.

And the father grieves for his son, and will not leave the

room where the coffin stands;

he turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

And the sea lifts and falls all night; the moon goes on

through the unattached heavens alone.

And the toe of the shoe pivots

in the dust...

The man in the black coat turns, and goes back down the hill.

No one knows why he came, or why he turned away, and

did not climb the hill.

The Walk

I departed the hospital at 2:04 pm bundled and auto-less.  Snow fell lightly.  It had been snowing all day.  I'll admit I had an uneasy feeling about no transportation.  I'm not sure why but I was nervous.  It's 4.5 miles from work to home.  That's a decent trek.  My work partners were dismayed at my reasons for walking.  I found this a common reaction.  Sara considered me a bit daffy when I told her my plan but was gracious to my madness.  I'm ashamed but not surprised to say I'd never walked the route I take to work.  I know it doesn't seem strange to most people but I felt it to be very odd that I'd never walked streets I've traveled, by my calculations, well over five thousand times.  In consequence I've only had an abstract familiarity with them. 

Two blocks later I began to seriously regret my idealism.  For starters I have a bone to pick with the shoe manufacturer Simple.  If you're reading this you Simple people; you guys are a bunch of worthless, pansy bastards who haven't walked in an inch of snow for the length of your recycled, reused, and reduced lives.

Exhibit A:

This is the very cool looking recycled tire tread on my Simple Ecos sneakers.  I'm embarrassed to say that I can feel great with every step in these earth-friendly Ecos sneakers by Simple. Vegan-friendly hemp upper in a casual sneaker style with a round toe. Contour stitching details and a contrasting hemp fabric inlay add modern sporty detail. PET laces and a padded collar and tongue keep fit comfortable. Organic cotton lining and PET cushioning pedbed, latex and cork midsole and recycled bike tire sidewall. Made with water based cements and recycled pulp paper foot forms.  Not to mention they're a pile of horse manure in even the smallest amount of snow.  Feel good about your impact on the earth.  Buy now, slip later.

What, you ask, does this mean?  It means I walked closer to 9 miles by taking a half slide back every time I took a full step forward.  Regret began to bloom like a hot fire in the small of my back from trying to keep my balance and not fall on my ass.  Snow filled in the spaces around my socks.  This is my own fault for not bringing real boots for the job.  In my defense, my boot shoelaces were broken and it wasn't snowing when I left.  Still, in addition to heaping scorn on the Simple, granola, sun-soaking wankers down in California I heap a share of it on my own self for not being prepared.  Sack clothe and ashes baby. 

I grew accustomed after five or six blocks to the misery of no traction and found myself on a street full of cars.  The asphalt was clear and wet.  It looked very inviting except for the whine and subsequent rush of automobiles along its surface so I stayed on the jagged, glacial, carapace one assumes is a sidewalk.  The sound became supremely obnoxious and the smell rank.  I stumbled along for two or three blocks till I walked past an elementary school with rows of running cars parked along the street and grew tired of the fumes and noise and backtracked a block to get to a residential street.  The sidewalks were better and clearer, the air quiet and clean, and it seemed that I'd entered into a quasi urban wilderness.  I didn't see another human being for five or six blocks till I encountered an old man shoveling his driveway.  I didn't say hi. 

It was very strange to walk in a city and, for the most part, not see other people around.  The sidewalks were devoid of tracks in the fresh snow.  I was the first to walk that way for at least a day.  I met one other person walking along the whole 4.5 miles.  I said hi when we passed and he returned the greeting.  I saw him coming about a block and a half out.  For five minutes I anticipated our meeting and then it happened and he was gone along the way I had just come.  I followed his footsteps for a while till they turned aside and the sidewalk was once again a blank white path.  I would occasionally encounter footsteps in the snow and they would become an instant fascination till they disappeared again around the next corner.

I have to say that walking in this city is a certain kind of hell.  Nine out of ten sidewalks weren't shoveled.  Multiple times the sidewalk would just disappear into a two foot high snow drift that stretched for a quarter mile and I'd have to cross the street to find someplace to walk or just walk in the middle of the road.  The plows had piled up snow at intersections that had to be traversed.  The shoes made all this much more agonizing, but I slowly gained a cadence and felt more at ease as the city passed.  I studied a hundred different houses and pissed off a few dozen dogs and heard the eerie sound of carnival music at the Catholic church.  The city reluctantly allowed me to pass through instead of flying over it.  My nose dripped, my head grew hot, then cold, and then hot, then cold and my legs ached.  If the goal had been to understand the physical limits and reality of space then I did.  If it had been enjoyment then I only moderately succeeded.  There were moments of enjoyment: passing that single, fellow walker, being alone, gaining perspective and thought, being in the physical world and feeling alive and then finally arriving home tired, wet and cold and being greeted by family and warmth and familiarity. 

I have to say that that was the best part.  I arrived at our back door at 3:29.  The trek took 1 hour, 25 minutes.  With better shoes I could have probably shaved off ten minutes.  To walk to work and back would require an extra 2 1/2 hours a day.  I don't have that.  I'm going to have to find a different solution.  As soon as the ice clears up I'll try riding a bike and see how that goes.  I hear you can buy or make studded ice tires for them.  Sounds like an adventure to me.  I'd like to do something different but this is not a city conducive to anything but four wheels and a combustion engine.  The public bus drives by our house once an hour starting at 6ish.  Just taking the bus would add a couple hours to my day.  It's a crock to be sure. 

This is perhaps the most difficult issue I'll face.  Automobiles in our state are our life blood.  There is no other form of transportation to be had and we're dealing with vast empty spaces.  I don't want to go off the deep end here because I want to be in my place and I have to deal with its nature as well as my limitations of family and time.  I'd like to just simplify a bit.  How am I going to do that?  Well I'd say to start out, if you want to be simple; buy complicated shoes.

On Walking

I hitched a ride to work this morning in order to be here by 6 and am planning on taking off a little early to walk home.  The five mile walk ahead is making me feel tired already.  Now it's snowing pretty heavily.  The idealism is fading quickly with each snowflake.  What the hell have I decided to do? 

It's Really Stinking Cold

If you've ever believed there is a God in Heaven, then it is in quick succession that you believe He is out to get you.  I myself believe so and here's why.  Posted today by Jason Peters on Front Porch Republic:

Although the sky was clear and pale this morning, I had the sensation as I walked to work that snow was falling. By my guess there are about fourteen inches of snow on the ground already, and the air temperature, according to reports from the airport, is minus twenty-nine Fahrenheit: warm enough for Ivan Denisovich to walk to work and therefore warm enough for me.

Read the whole piece because it's great.  It seems my bastardies are not excusable.  Ask me how excited I am that God reads blogs.

On Driving

"The amount of grain needed to fill the tank of an SUV with ethanol just once can feed one person for an entire year. The average income of the owners of the world’s 940 million automobiles is at least ten times larger than that of the world’s 2 billion hungriest people. In the competition between cars and hungry people for the world’s harvest, the car is destined to win."

This is pretty stark data if you follow this link. It will have to be addressed. On a side note I think it’s interesting how we pick on people who drive SUV's. The reality is, the amount of grain needed to fill the tank of a 2002 Dodge Stratus, sporting a 4 banger, a broken bumper, squealing brakes, and a front seat upholstered in Burger King wrappers, with ethanol just once can feed one person for half a year. I guess that's much more justifiable. It’s 20 degrees outside with a foot of snow on the ground. Those poor bastards are just gonna have to starve till it warms up cause I'm driving to work.

An Essay By Me

WHY I BOUGHT A COMPUTER

by

Michael Trees

-------------------------------------

Like almost all of you, I am hooked to the energy corporations, which I know next to nothing about.  I have an uneasy feeling about this parasitic relationship but tend to ignore it.  In my work I try to be as efficient and as powerful as possible.  As a Biomed I do almost all of my work with computers and electronics.  As a craftsman I work with power tools and word processors. 

I don't let my wife help me.  She has little knowledge of my work or craft.  My boys help me, but only so long as I'm not sawing, routing, drilling, typing or doing anything of any foreseeable decible level or difficulty.  I teach them as much as they will allow.

I bought a computer.  I bought a computer in 1992, 2002, and 2009.  Most people assure me this is a good thing.  I like my computer.  I have several reasons.  They are goodish ones. 

I have no clue what my work or existence causes for impact on the world.  Nor have I really cared.  Nor do I really think my use of a computer compromises any moral responsibility aside from it's implication in my addiction to pornography for which I can thank it and a dumpster behind the video store. 

I admire computer manufacturers based on cost, style, and function.  Apple is sexy, fast, and reliable but too damned expensive.  Acer is cheap but I suspect substandard manufacturing and possible child slavery.  So I bought Dell.  I like Dell.  I don't know why I like Dell.  I've never been to a Dell store, office, plant or any other related place.  I've been to their website and they sold me this computer I'm typing on now.  The space key malfunctions occasionally but for the price I can't complain too greatly.  What a great price.  I'm pretty sure I've been seduced but I can't seem to care.  I like being seduced.  And this computer has brought me a great deal of good.  For example: I type on it and it corrects me though many times I ignore its advice, I watch movies on it, shop on it, and I blog on it.  For the most part I got it for internet and all the associated possibilities therein.  Sara also uses the computer for socializing.  My kindergartner apparently needs one for school as well.

What did the computer cost me?  485 US dollars.  I bought it by means of a beneficial mortgage refinancing schedule.  I'm not sure if this actually cost me or not.  It was nice not having a house payment for two months though.  My old model was another computer.  A Dell as well.  My oldest model before that was another computer.  I've never had a person to work with in the place of technology so I've never had to replace them.  I may read fewer books because of it and so replace the wonder of the written word, but I now have any idle curiosity satiated with my pointer finger on a whim.  I like this power of knowledge.  The computer brings me one step closer to nothing in particular and everything in general.  I'm not sure if I'll be replaced by a computer at some point.  This is a matter I'd rather not consider because it seems to be a distinct possibility at moments.  Sara has felt at times as if she had been replaced with the computer. 

Although I can't fool myself into believing I write better with a computer I believe I'll write more.  I can't prove this and I don't need to.  I blog so I compute.  There you go. 

Here are my standards for technological innovation as if I needed any.

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.

2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.

3. It should be snazzier.

4. It should give more power.

5. If possible it should work without me leaving my armchair.

6. It should be throw away repair.

7. It should be glow in the dark.

8. It should come from a highly reliable, homogenous corporation I can rely on for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.

9. It should consolidate my life into one momentous icon.

I doubt I'll have to many letters to respond to on this essay.

An Essay By Wendell

WHY I AM NOT GOING TO BUY A COMPUTER

by

Wendell Berry

-------------------------------

Like almost everybody else, I am hooked to the energy corporations, which I do not admire. I hope to become less hooked to them. In my work, I try to be as little hooked to them as possible. As a farmer, I do almost all of my work with horses. As a writer, I work with a pencil or a pen and a piece of paper.

My wife types my work on a Royal standard typewriter bought new in 1956 and as good now as it was then. As she types, she sees things that are wrong and marks them with small checks in the margins. She is my best critic because she is the one most familiar with my habitual errors and weaknesses. She also understands, sometimes better than I do, what ought to be said. We have, I think, a literary cottage industry that works well and pleasantly. I do not see anything wrong with it.

A number of people, by now, have told me that I could greatly improve things by buying a computer. My answer is that I am not going to do it. I have several reasons, and they are good ones.

The first is the one I mentioned at the beginning. I would hate to think that my work as a writer could not be done without a direct dependence on strip-mined coal. How could I write conscientiously against the rape of nature if I were, in the act of writing, Implicated in the rape ? For the same reason, it matters to me that my writing is done in the daytime, without electric light.

I do not admire the computer manufacturers a great deal more than I admire the energy industries. I have seen their advertisements. attempting to seduce struggling or failing farmers into the belief that they can solve their problems by buying yet another piece of expensive equipment. I am familiar with their propaganda campaigns that have put computers into public schools in need of books. That computers are expected to become as common as TV sets in "the future" does not impress me or matter to me. I do not own a TV set. I do not see that computers are bringing us one step nearer to anything that does matter to me: peace, economic justice, ecological health, political honesty, family and community stability, good work.

What would a computer cost me? More money, for one thing, than I can afford, and more than I wish to pay to people whom I do not admire. But the cost would not be just monetary. It is well understood that technological innovation always requires the discarding of the "old model"—the "old model" in this case being not just our old Royal standard. but my wife, my critic, closest reader, my fellow worker. Thus (and I think this is typical of present-day technological innovation). what would be superseded would be not only something, but somebody. In order to be technologically up-to-date as a writer, I would have to sacrifice an association that I am dependent upon and that I treasure.

My final and perhaps mv best reason for not owning a computer is that I do not wish to fool myself. I disbelieve, and therefore strongly resent, the assertion that I or anybody else could write better or more easily with a computer than with a pencil. I do not see why I should not be as scientific about this as the next fellow: when somebody has used a computer to write work that is demonstrably better than Dante's, and when this better is demonstrably attributable to the use of a computer, then I will speak of computcr with a more respectful tone of voice, though I still will not buy one.

To make myself as plain as I can, I should give my standards for technological innovation in my own work. They are as follows:-

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.

2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.

3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.

4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.

5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.

6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.

7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.

8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.

9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

1987

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After the foregoing essay, first published in the New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly, was reprinted in Harper's, the Harper's editors published the following letters in response and permitted me a reply. W.B.

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LETTERS

Wendell Berry provides writers enslaved by the computer with a handy alternative: Wife—a low-tech energy-saving device. Drop a pile of handwritten notes on Wife and you get back a finished manuscript, edited while it was typed. What computer can do that? Wife meets all of Berry's uncompromising standards for technological innovation: she's cheap, repairable near home, and good for the family structure.

Best of all, Wife is politically correct because she breaks a writer's "direct dependence on strip-mined coal."

History teaches us that Wife can also be used to beat rugs and wash clothes by hand, thus eliminating the need for the vacuum cleaner and washing machine, two more nasty machines that threaten the act of writing.

Gordon Inkeles Miranda, Calif.

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I have no quarrel with Berry because he prefers to write with pencil and paper; that is his choice. But he implies that I and others are somehow impure because we choose to write on a computer. I do not admire the energy corporations, either. Their shortcoming is not that they produce electricity but how they go about it. They are poorly managed because they are blind to long-term consequences. To solve this problem, wouldn't it make more sense to correct the precise error they are making rather than simply ignore their product ? I would be happy to join Berry in a protest against strip mining, but I intend to keep plugging this computer into the wall with a clear conscience.

James Rhoads Battle Creek, Mich.

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I enjoyed reading Berry's declaration of intent never to buy a personal computer in the same way that I enjoy reading about the belief systems of unfamiliar tribal cultures. I tried to imagine a tool that would meet Berry's criteria for superiority To his old manual typewriter. The clear winner is the quill pen. It is cheaper, smaller, more energy-efficient, human-powered, easily repaired, and non-disruptive of existing relationships.

Berry also requires that this tool must be "clearly and demonstrably better" than the one it replaces. But surely we all recognize by now that "better" is in the mind of the beholder. To the quill pen aficionado, the benefits obtained from elegant calligraphy might well outweigh all others.

I have no particular desire to see Berry use a word processor; or he doesn't like computers, that's fine with me. However, I do object to his portrayal of this reluctance as a moral virtue. Many of us have found that computers can be an invaluable tool in the fight to protect our environment. In addition to helping me write, my personal computer gives me access to up-to-the-minute reports on the workings of the EPA and the nuclear industry. I participate in electronic bulletin boards on which environmental activists discuss strategy and warn each other about urgent legislative issues. Perhaps Berry feels that the Sierra Club should eschew modern printing technology which is highly wasteful of energy, in favor of having its members handcopy the club's magazines and other mailings each month ?

Nathaniel S. Borenstein Pittsburgh, Pa.

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The value of a computer to a writer is that it is a tool not for generating ideas but for typing and editing words. It is cheaper than a secretary (or a wife!) and arguably more fuel-efficient. And it enables spouses who are not inclined to provide free labor more time to concentrate on their own work.

We should support alternatives both to coal-generated electricity and to IBM-style technocracy. But I am reluctant to entertain alternatives that presuppose the traditional subservience of one class to another. Let the PCs come and the wives and servants go seek more meaningful work.

Toby Koosman Knoxville, Tenn.

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Berry asks how he could write conscientiously against the rape of nature if in the act of writing on a computer he was implicated in the rape. I find it ironic that a writer who sees the underlying connectness of things would allow his diatribe against computers to be published in a magazine that carries ads for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Marlboro, Phillips Petroleum, McDonnell Douglas, and yes, even Smith-Corona. If Berry rests comfortably at night, he must be using sleeping pills.

Bradley C. Johnson Grand Forks, N.D.

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WENDELL BERRY REPLIES:

The foregoing letters surprised me with the intensity of the feelings they expressed. According to the writers' testimony, there is nothing wrong with their computers; they are utterly satisfied with them and all that they stand for. My correspondents are certain that I am wrong and that I am, moreover, on the losing side, a side already relegated to the dustbin of history. And yet they grow huffy and condescending over my tiny dissent. What are they so anxious about?

I can only conclude that I have scratched the skin of a technological fundamentalism that, like other fundamentalisms, wishes to monopolize a whole society and, therefore, cannot tolerate the smallest difference of opinion. At the slightest hint of a threat to their complacency, they repeat, like a chorus of toads, the notes sounded by their leaders in industry. The past was gloomy, drudgery-ridden, servile, meaningless, and slow. The present, thanks only to purchasable products, is meaningful, bright, lively, centralized, and fast. The future, thanks only to more purchasable products, is going to be even better. Thus consumers become salesmen, and the world is made safer for corporations.

I am also surprised by the meanness with which two of these writers refer to my wife. In order to imply that I am a tyrant, they suggest by both direct statement and innuendo that she is subservient, characterless, and stupid—a mere "device" easily forced to provide meaningless "free labor." I understand that it is impossible to make an adequate public defense of one's private life, and so l will only point out that there are a number of kinder possibilities that my critics have disdained to imagine: that my wife may do this work because she wants to and likes to; that she may find some use and some meaning in it; that she may not work for nothing. These gentlemen obviously think themselves feminists of the most correct and principled sort, and yet they do not hesitate to stereotype and insult, on the basis of one fact, a woman they do not know. They are audacious and irresponsible gossips .

In his letter, Bradley C. Johnson rushes past the possibility of sense in what I said in my essay by implying that I am or ought to be a fanatic. That I am a person of this century and am implicated in many practices that I regret is fully acknowledged at the beginning of my essay. I did not say that I proposed to end forthwith all my involvement in harmful technology, for I do not know how to do that. I said merely that I want to limit such involvement, and to a certain extent I do know how to do that. If some technology does damage to the world—as two of the above letters seem to agree that it does—then why is it not reasonable, and indeed moral, to try to limit one's use of that technology? Of course, I think that I am right to do this.

I would not think so, obviously, if I agreed with Nathaniel S. Borenstein that " 'better' is in the mind of the beholder." But if he truly believes this, I do not see why he bothers with his personal computer's "up-to-the-minute reports on the workings of the EPA and the nuclear industry" or why he wishes to be warned about "urgent legislative issues." According to his system, the "better" in a bureaucratic, industrial, or legislative mind is as good as the "better" in his. His mind apparently is being subverted by an objective standard of some sort, and he had better look out.

Borenstein does not say what he does after his computer has drummed him awake. I assume from his letter that he must send donations to conservation organizations and letters to officials. Like James Rhoads, at any rate, he has a clear conscience. But this is what is wrong with the conservation movement. It has a clear conscience. The guilty are always other people, and the wrong is always somewhere else. That is why Borenstein finds his "electronic bulletin board" so handy. To the conservation movement, it is only production that causes environmental degradation; the consumption that supports the production is rarely acknowledged to be at fault. The ideal of the run-of-the-mill conservationist is to impose restraints upon production without limiting consumption or burdening the consciences of consumers.

But virtually all of our consumption now is extravagant, and virtually all of it consumes the world. It is not beside the point that most electrical power comes from strip-mined coal . The history of the exploitation of the Appalachian coal fields is long, and it is available to readers. I do not see how anyone can read it and plug in any appliance with a clear conscience. If Rhoads can do so, that does not mean that his conscience is clear; it means that his conscience is not working.

To the extent that we consume, in our present circumstances, we are guilty. To the extent that we guilty consumers are conservationists, we are absurd. But what can we do ? Must we go on writing letters to politicians and donating to conservation organizations until the majority of our fellow citizens agree with us? Or can we do something directly to solve our share of the problem?

I am a conservationist. I believe wholeheartedly in putting pressure on the politicians and in maintaining the conservation organizations. But I wrote my little essay partly in distrust of centralisation. I don't think that the government and the conservation organizations alone will ever make us a conserving society. Why do I need a centralized computer system to alert me to environmental crises ? That I live every hour of every day in an environmental crisis I know from all my senses. Why then is not my first duty to reduce, so far as I can, my own consumption?

Finally, it seems to me that none of my correspondents recognises the innovativeness of my essay. If the use of a computer is a new idea, then a newer idea is not to use one.