Reading "What Matters?" by Wendell Berry
30 December 2011
What could a curmudgeonly farmer from Kentucky have to say to an urban professional who shops at Whole Foods and supports the Sierra Club, but rides the elevator up to her condo on the 78th floor? For goshsakes, the guy refuses to type his own manuscripts into a computer. So don’t expect him to gush about ultra-light polymers for fuel-efficient hypercars run by hydrogen fuel cells or even just to let you know about the latest iPhone ap for freecycling.
As a recent Berry convert myself, I’m hoping that the economic crisis will be a hook to get a broader readership to check out Berry’s 2010 book What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth. With the failure of the Great Recession to respond to the standard prescriptions, from High Tech Uber Alles to Green Jobs for All, Berry’s agrarian-contrarian perspective offers a provocatively old-school response to today’s worst problems.
Comments