I don’t reside in the natural audience of this book. Professionally, I work developing technologies at an academic medical center in a city. Therefore, my orientation is for technology, and I’m generally ignorant about agriculture. I acknowledge those biases. I read this book because I’ve long been curious about agrarian-type thinkers like GK Chesterton. I respect Wendell Berry’s fiction about small-town America, and I seek to understand the world better, including perspectives different than me. That’s why I read it.
Berry seemed to dichotomize an industrial approach versus a more spiritual approach to farming, which I found unfortunate. Less ideological debate and more deliberation and exchange of ideas seem to be in order in a book like this. He sought to undermine industry’s alliance with land-grant universities – an unsuccessful target to start with in my estimation. He should have sought ways to help land-grant universities address the needs of individual farmers in addition to big agriculture.
He holds the Amish up as an example of a healthy farming community and generally disparages productivity needs. Both of those sound nice conceptually, but ignore basic realities about our world. Abundantly feeding people and generating profits from doing so are important social functions of agriculture. The spiritual benefits to professional farmers should indeed play a role, but I’d argue not a determining or predominant factor.
What’s sad is that real reforms need to be made here, and those reforms will only come through thoughtful dialogue, not demands to deconstruct an “ideological” alliance with industry. I’d like to see industry made more sustainable and take into account the biological needs of the land. Technology is not a panacea, and real study needs to occur to understand how to position society for the next 20, 50, and 100 years. I suspect big agri-industry, for all its shortcomings, would probably be open to considering those options, too.
Overall, I can’t advocate for this book as a way for the future. Of course, that lack of recommendation may well be due to my own ignorance and biases. Nonetheless, the book did open my eyes to the farming industry more in a way that looks at the individual farmer instead of a farming industry. Thus, reading the book did meet my aims. I hope fruitful discussion will continue into the future as this book has seemed to provoke since its original publication.
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
By Wendell Berry
Narrated by Nick Offerman
Text copyright (c) 1977, 2015
Counterpoint
Audio copyright (c) 2020
Recorded Books
ASIN B085P23Z3D
Length: 12:54
Genre: Agriculture, Society
www.amazon.com