Author Spotlight
Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front
[A poem by Wendell Berry, with compliments and hat-tips to Jeremy Schmall, Robert Snyderman, and everyone at the Corresponding Society. – JT]
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“Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front”
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Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
Tags: Corresponding Society, Jeremy Schmall, Wendell Berry
Amen
It is funny to see this here, I was reading his essay collection just now and this morning in class the professor mainly gave a schpiel about all of the ways Wendell Berry is awesome, and then complained that he was not as respected/well-known as he perhaps deserves, which I gotta say this poem only confirms.
Yuck. I can’t stand him or his politics. I do respect his poetry, but sorry–I love cities and human progress and technology and i don’t think there’s nobilty in poverty and I don’t buy the woman as peacemonger/caregiver crap and that reactionary politics–always denounce your government!–is what’s led to tea party idiocy and conspiracy-mongers on both sides.
Highways versus woodland trails. Which give a little?
What politics is it that you don’t like? Sustainable farming practices? Localist economics? Healthy rural communities? Agrarianism as a whole, from Virgil to Thomas Jefferson to Wes Jackson?
Perhaps you don’t share Wendell Berry’s preferences, which is understandable. But urbanity is not possible without a healthy agrarian culture. The reverse cannot be said.
The villification of rurality is a legacy of bourgeois distrust of subsistence economies, and you should distrust that impulse in yourself.
Plus, he just seems, you know, decent.
This is lovely
Don’t get me wrong–I’m absolutely an environmentalist and I’m all about sustainable, walkable bikeable cities with mass transit. I’m not a fan of highways, either. But I hate the false dichotomy–like human progress has been nothing but bad, and a simple life/back to nature is always better. I mean, if Emerson is your thing, then do that and cool–but I guess I hate the judgemental part that so often accompanies that lifestyle.
I should also probably not have posted at all–I had just gotten into a huge argument with a friend who was trying to tell me my lifestyle (eating meat) was destroying the world. So I was a little charged up. Sorry, all. That was just rude of me.
It’s not the environmental politics so much (see below), but rather the distrust of government and disapproval of urbanity, localist economics which I don’t think works. But none of that matters because seriously, I’m such an ass–I should NOT have said him or his politics and I don’t know why I did. He totally seems like a decent guy and after I posted I couldn’t believe I’d said that–I honestly didn’t mean to. And I think his poetry and many of his essays are great and this one is beautiful–I just don’t agree with the content.
In conclusion: I am a jerk. Seriously, sorry Internet community. I’m going to go hang my lame-o head in shame.
Yeah, I don’t think Berry’s work or ideas are anti-technology. He certainly advocates for a more responsible relationship with technology, especially where it concerns farming techniques and the exploitation of both land and labor as resources. And I certainly don’t think his books argue that human progress is bad. They do question which economic and cultural systems are legitimately bettering human life and I think it’d be hard to argue at this point that unsustainable consumption is a kind of progress. More of a misstep, really. Real progress sometimes involves selective backtracking.
And eating meat is okeh. In fact it’s good, healthy, natural. It’s the way we produce it that is fucked up.
Have you read much Berry? I can’t imagine being an environmentalist and an omnivore and disagreeing with the politics of Berry’s work.
Distrust of government is really no different than distrust of big business, distrust of both being a quality everyone should have.
Amen
It is funny to see this here, I was reading his essay collection just now and this morning in class the professor mainly gave a schpiel about all of the ways Wendell Berry is awesome, and then complained that he was not as respected/well-known as he perhaps deserves, which I gotta say this poem only confirms.
Yuck. I can’t stand him or his politics. I do respect his poetry, but sorry–I love cities and human progress and technology and i don’t think there’s nobilty in poverty and I don’t buy the woman as peacemonger/caregiver crap and that reactionary politics–always denounce your government!–is what’s led to tea party idiocy and conspiracy-mongers on both sides.
Highways versus woodland trails. Which give a little?
What politics is it that you don’t like? Sustainable farming practices? Localist economics? Healthy rural communities? Agrarianism as a whole, from Virgil to Thomas Jefferson to Wes Jackson?
Perhaps you don’t share Wendell Berry’s preferences, which is understandable. But urbanity is not possible without a healthy agrarian culture. The reverse cannot be said.
The villification of rurality is a legacy of bourgeois distrust of subsistence economies, and you should distrust that impulse in yourself.
Plus, he just seems, you know, decent.
This is lovely
Don’t get me wrong–I’m absolutely an environmentalist and I’m all about sustainable, walkable bikeable cities with mass transit. I’m not a fan of highways, either. But I hate the false dichotomy–like human progress has been nothing but bad, and a simple life/back to nature is always better. I mean, if Emerson is your thing, then do that and cool–but I guess I hate the judgemental part that so often accompanies that lifestyle.
I should also probably not have posted at all–I had just gotten into a huge argument with a friend who was trying to tell me my lifestyle (eating meat) was destroying the world. So I was a little charged up. Sorry, all. That was just rude of me.
It’s not the environmental politics so much (see below), but rather the distrust of government and disapproval of urbanity, localist economics which I don’t think works. But none of that matters because seriously, I’m such an ass–I should NOT have said him or his politics and I don’t know why I did. He totally seems like a decent guy and after I posted I couldn’t believe I’d said that–I honestly didn’t mean to. And I think his poetry and many of his essays are great and this one is beautiful–I just don’t agree with the content.
In conclusion: I am a jerk. Seriously, sorry Internet community. I’m going to go hang my lame-o head in shame.
Yeah, I don’t think Berry’s work or ideas are anti-technology. He certainly advocates for a more responsible relationship with technology, especially where it concerns farming techniques and the exploitation of both land and labor as resources. And I certainly don’t think his books argue that human progress is bad. They do question which economic and cultural systems are legitimately bettering human life and I think it’d be hard to argue at this point that unsustainable consumption is a kind of progress. More of a misstep, really. Real progress sometimes involves selective backtracking.
And eating meat is okeh. In fact it’s good, healthy, natural. It’s the way we produce it that is fucked up.
Have you read much Berry? I can’t imagine being an environmentalist and an omnivore and disagreeing with the politics of Berry’s work.
Distrust of government is really no different than distrust of big business, distrust of both being a quality everyone should have.
To paraphrase the great poet Muriel Rukeyser, this Berry poem puts love into action.
“Appropriate Technology”
To paraphrase the great poet Muriel Rukeyser, this Berry poem puts love into action.
“Appropriate Technology”
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