Byron Borger has, for a couple of years, been telling me to read Wendell Berry. I've got a couple of his books of essays and in all honesty it has been tough going to read him. This is because I live in a different world than he inhabits and am just not familiar with where he is coming from at times.
But I keep coming back to him and am glad I am and feel myself being drawn slowly into his agrarian web. My most recent foray into Wendell Berry was sparked by this post from Sean Michael Lucas. I'd like to say I read the whole post but the post is longer than some books, almost as long as some of my own posts. Anyway, Dr. Lucas recommended Berry's essay Thoughts In the Presence of Fear, so I got the book by the same title and read it. His thoughts on the global economy are astounding, and I am still processing them and won't comment, except to say that they are a good followup to this post. For now though I'll whet your appetite for Berry with this quote on education:
The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not primarily an industry and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. Its proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means first things first.
Related Tags: Books, Education, Wendell Berry
Recent Comments