Broken Contact
...farming is considered marginal or incidental to the economy of the country, ... meaningful contact between ourselves and the earth is broken. We do not understand the earth either in terms of what it offers us or what it requires of us, and I think it is the rule that people inevitably destroy what they do not understand.
Wendell Berry (1971)
...most scientists live their lives in cities and have little or no contact with the natural world. Their models of the Earth are built in universities or institutions where there is all the talent and the hardware necessary, but what tends to be missing is that vital ingredient, information gathered first-hand in the real world.
James Lovelock (1982)
As farming families leave their lands, and distant organisations impose their whims, we can see the effects around us in the country - above, monoculture creeping down the hillside towards the deserted house. Berry and Lovelock were writing in the 70s and felt keenly this detachment; this severance of our
roots.
More from Wendell Berry on the subject of belonging to communities.
It echoes down the decades and is even more acute now than it was
then.
The British Government was already aware of moral laxity in such matters.
Our ‘Men from the Ministry’ seem to have little understanding of the relationship between being human and being at
home
An understanding that was patent to people two millennia ago in China.
in the natural world. The evidence for this can be subtle or gross: nomenclature that does not fit local crops, through to policies, like damming the Yangtze. Individuals working the land understand
particulars:
It is the break, the disarticulation between particulars and policy that matters.
this crop or these animals, at this time, in this place. Governments broadcast policies from cities. This mismatch exacerbates that broken contact, turning it into a
disaster
One of a number of pages that consider the present human predicament.
for us all.
Berry has been a prolific writer since the publication of that article on pages 24/5 of the Last Whole Earth Catalog. Wikipedia lists more than 50 books in those 50 plus years. The spine of the British edition of the Catalog bore: Portola Institute/Penguin Books ISBN 0 14 00.3544.3
The house is at Garrogill, now buried deep in the forest that lies between Moffat and Eskdalemuir, at the head of Dryfe Water, some seven miles from the nearest tarmacked road.
Above, hovering on blue introduces a link: click to go, move away to stay.
Saturday 29th March 2025
...guide to this site