originally published 9/16/2020

Jeffrey Bilbro explores the importance of sustainability through the essays, poetry and fiction of Wendell Berry. He argues that Berry fosters a sense of propriety or fittingness, a manner in which we act in connection with the world around us. This theme is demonstrated by the example of a farmer who works with the land and within its limits, allowing the nature of the place to help form and correct the farmer’s initial vision. In opposition to this reciprocal way of farming, Berry describes much of contemporary agriculture, where the only value is how much can be produced, with no concern for the complexity of the relation of farmer to farm, leading inevitably to violent control of the relationship. Our current society has shifted into an economy that values an industrial mindset, focusing heavily on productivity. Bilbro defines this as the industrial grammar versus the agrarian grammar. He points out that the grammar of technology cannot heal, but only amplify the misdirected vision already in place. Bilbro hopes that we can, seeing through the eyes of Berry, come to recognize this reciprocity and, using a healthy imagination, make whole again those aspects of our lives that have been damaged. Bilbro is the author of Virtues of Renewal: Wendell Berry’s Sustainable Forms (University Press of Kentucky, 2017).

13 minutes

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