Thank you for this. I agree completely. You have helped me put it all together and see more clearly why I find Peter Thiel and his followers so viscerally threatening and repugnant.
When I was a teenager I wrote a short story about machines fooling us into letting them take over the earth. Unaware this was one of the oldest tropes in science fiction, i thought I had come up with the idea all by myself, because I was sincerely writing from personal fears. All these many years later, as I ironically write this on my iPhone, it seems to me even more obvious that we often give up far more than we gain in our relationships with our clever inventions.
I will be reading this again, but I just wanted to let you know my thoughts. Thanks again.
I usually like your reflections. And just like you, I am a devoted Wendell reader: I learn from him every day. Just a couple of hours ago I shared his 2015 Yes magazine essay with my local environmental group, with the goal of highlighting that we need bottom-up and not top-down actions...
But here, you lost me! I have longed given up on Naomi Klein and on Marsha Gessen as they represent what is so deeply wrong with the modern left - and Wendell has written about this, Kenny.
Would Wendell be appalled by Peter Thiel and by MAGA and by Trumpism? Absolutely! You are right about that.
But Wendell is Kentucky by choice. He is rooted - and rootedness is a critical aspect of his writings and his world view. Now, we can debate the details of "ordo amoris" -but no, Kenny, Wendell does not believe in a "universalist" Christianity or a top-down, globalist approach to tackling climate change. In contrast, Wendell argues explicitly against such approaches - here is a link to his great 2015 piece
Not sure if you are familiar with Ivan Krastev. Ivan is a Bulgarian political scientist, a passionate philosophically liberal (not American liberal - many are deeply illiberal!) and a terrific writer and thinker. And he argues convincingly that it is our Western democratic elites -journalists, politicians, professors et cetera- who have abandoned the project of liberal democracy. Long before we got the awful Trump and MAGA. And Naomi Klein and the Guardian were two (among many) culprits for this center-left and left slide into illiberalism and antisemitism...
All of this is to say: I think you got Wendell quite wrong here.
Thank you Helge, for this thoughtful response to my post. I know that you're a devoted and critical reader of Wendell Berry, and I've always enjoyed your take on his work and mine. Including this takedown!
The essay you shared is indeed excellent -- I hadn't read it before, but the theme is familiar to me. Yes - the answers to even our biggest, scariest problems are only going to be found in the here and the now. This is what makes WB such a radical. He's far more radical than people realize, for his anti-future, anti-planning dogma. The casually familiar would see nihilism in this and they would be perfectly wrong.
As for this post of mine -- you may be right that trying to elevate Wendell's political philosophy, such as we can make it out, is foolish, and that believing the predictions of Naomi Klein (or anyone) about End Times is a second order of foolishness. I was simply struck at her analysis of how perfectly inverted our new regime is when compared to everything Berry. The argument isn't that we should turn toward universalism or globalism to solve climate change or fascism. I was only trying to say, more urgently than I have before (maybe hysterically!) that we should -- no, we must(!) now turn toward Wendell.
I will check out Ivan Krastev, and thank you again for reading and commenting. It's so good having good company in this little corner of the world.
I have not yet read this - but I thought I'd share it anyway. I just finished Krastev's "The Light that Failed" which explains Trump and Trumpism better than anything I have written in any UK or US newspaper - and yet the book was written in 2019! I grew up in Europe, which may be why he resonates with me more than he might resonate with you. But give it a try - and let me know what you think.
You are a terrific writer - and indeed good company to have in these dark times.
Here is a paragraph of the interview (it is indeed as terrific as I hoped it would be!) which relates to what your essay is about. Think about this, and how it relates to 'ordo amoris'! I believe it leads to much deeper truths than those of a Naomi Klein...
---
In my books, particularly in my book with Holmes, I often go back to Albert O. Hirschman, an author both Holmes and I hold in very high esteem. In his classic work Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Harvard University Press, 1970), Hirschman explained that when people are disappointed, they react in one of two ways: They push for change or they leave; fight or flight. In the market, for instance, if you’re dissatisfied with a Pepsi product, you might first complain to the company. But if things don’t change, you’ll simply start drinking Coca Cola, because moving from one brand to another isn’t an existential issue for you. But, as Hirschman recognized, it’s not so easy to leave your family, your political party, or your country, because your loyalties lie with them. Interestingly enough, for Hirschman loyalty was such an obvious force that he didn’t devote much time conceptualizing it. But in the last decades or so, we’ve started living in a world in which leaving your family, your party or your county has become somewhat like shifting from Pepsi to Coca Cola. And that’s a very dramatic change. That, in some ways, is the larger story about the immigration crisis.
Grim and brilliant analysis of the fascist mindset, Kenny! 👏
The Luddites stood in the factory door and yelled STOP. The mechanized looms won and the protestors are reduced to a historical punchline. I fear the same fate for the Berryists, and pray I'm wrong.
You and your readers might enjoy my reworking of the Garden of Eden story as a map to a better future:
Thank you for this. I agree completely. You have helped me put it all together and see more clearly why I find Peter Thiel and his followers so viscerally threatening and repugnant.
When I was a teenager I wrote a short story about machines fooling us into letting them take over the earth. Unaware this was one of the oldest tropes in science fiction, i thought I had come up with the idea all by myself, because I was sincerely writing from personal fears. All these many years later, as I ironically write this on my iPhone, it seems to me even more obvious that we often give up far more than we gain in our relationships with our clever inventions.
I will be reading this again, but I just wanted to let you know my thoughts. Thanks again.
Kenny,
I usually like your reflections. And just like you, I am a devoted Wendell reader: I learn from him every day. Just a couple of hours ago I shared his 2015 Yes magazine essay with my local environmental group, with the goal of highlighting that we need bottom-up and not top-down actions...
But here, you lost me! I have longed given up on Naomi Klein and on Marsha Gessen as they represent what is so deeply wrong with the modern left - and Wendell has written about this, Kenny.
Would Wendell be appalled by Peter Thiel and by MAGA and by Trumpism? Absolutely! You are right about that.
But Wendell is Kentucky by choice. He is rooted - and rootedness is a critical aspect of his writings and his world view. Now, we can debate the details of "ordo amoris" -but no, Kenny, Wendell does not believe in a "universalist" Christianity or a top-down, globalist approach to tackling climate change. In contrast, Wendell argues explicitly against such approaches - here is a link to his great 2015 piece
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/together-earth/2015/03/24/wendell-berry-climate-change-future-present
Not sure if you are familiar with Ivan Krastev. Ivan is a Bulgarian political scientist, a passionate philosophically liberal (not American liberal - many are deeply illiberal!) and a terrific writer and thinker. And he argues convincingly that it is our Western democratic elites -journalists, politicians, professors et cetera- who have abandoned the project of liberal democracy. Long before we got the awful Trump and MAGA. And Naomi Klein and the Guardian were two (among many) culprits for this center-left and left slide into illiberalism and antisemitism...
All of this is to say: I think you got Wendell quite wrong here.
Respectfully, Helge
Thank you Helge, for this thoughtful response to my post. I know that you're a devoted and critical reader of Wendell Berry, and I've always enjoyed your take on his work and mine. Including this takedown!
The essay you shared is indeed excellent -- I hadn't read it before, but the theme is familiar to me. Yes - the answers to even our biggest, scariest problems are only going to be found in the here and the now. This is what makes WB such a radical. He's far more radical than people realize, for his anti-future, anti-planning dogma. The casually familiar would see nihilism in this and they would be perfectly wrong.
As for this post of mine -- you may be right that trying to elevate Wendell's political philosophy, such as we can make it out, is foolish, and that believing the predictions of Naomi Klein (or anyone) about End Times is a second order of foolishness. I was simply struck at her analysis of how perfectly inverted our new regime is when compared to everything Berry. The argument isn't that we should turn toward universalism or globalism to solve climate change or fascism. I was only trying to say, more urgently than I have before (maybe hysterically!) that we should -- no, we must(!) now turn toward Wendell.
I will check out Ivan Krastev, and thank you again for reading and commenting. It's so good having good company in this little corner of the world.
I have not yet read this - but I thought I'd share it anyway. I just finished Krastev's "The Light that Failed" which explains Trump and Trumpism better than anything I have written in any UK or US newspaper - and yet the book was written in 2019! I grew up in Europe, which may be why he resonates with me more than he might resonate with you. But give it a try - and let me know what you think.
You are a terrific writer - and indeed good company to have in these dark times.
https://www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-return-of-the-future-and-the-last-man/
Kenny,
Here is a paragraph of the interview (it is indeed as terrific as I hoped it would be!) which relates to what your essay is about. Think about this, and how it relates to 'ordo amoris'! I believe it leads to much deeper truths than those of a Naomi Klein...
---
In my books, particularly in my book with Holmes, I often go back to Albert O. Hirschman, an author both Holmes and I hold in very high esteem. In his classic work Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Harvard University Press, 1970), Hirschman explained that when people are disappointed, they react in one of two ways: They push for change or they leave; fight or flight. In the market, for instance, if you’re dissatisfied with a Pepsi product, you might first complain to the company. But if things don’t change, you’ll simply start drinking Coca Cola, because moving from one brand to another isn’t an existential issue for you. But, as Hirschman recognized, it’s not so easy to leave your family, your political party, or your country, because your loyalties lie with them. Interestingly enough, for Hirschman loyalty was such an obvious force that he didn’t devote much time conceptualizing it. But in the last decades or so, we’ve started living in a world in which leaving your family, your party or your county has become somewhat like shifting from Pepsi to Coca Cola. And that’s a very dramatic change. That, in some ways, is the larger story about the immigration crisis.
Grim and brilliant analysis of the fascist mindset, Kenny! 👏
The Luddites stood in the factory door and yelled STOP. The mechanized looms won and the protestors are reduced to a historical punchline. I fear the same fate for the Berryists, and pray I'm wrong.
You and your readers might enjoy my reworking of the Garden of Eden story as a map to a better future:
https://bairdbrightman.substack.com/p/science-religion