originally published 3/1/2009
J. Matthew Bonzo and Michael R. Stevens discuss themes from their recent book on the life and thought of Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader’s Guide (Brazos Press, 2008). Berry’s main concerns are related to the ways in which community is undermined and destroyed by the ways modern people live in and treat the land and the rest of creation. Because community is tied to the creation as the realm in which we live our lives, the exploitation of creation by rationalistic approaches to controlling and dominating nature in our work and life serves to fragment relationships and dislocate men and women from community. In divorcing our humanity from creation, the relational reality of created humanity itself is denied in the breaking of relationships and the reduction of the world to mere raw material that must be antagonistically mastered for profit. This interview was originally published on Volume 95 of the Journal.
13 minutes
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