sex, economy, freedom, & community

i am reading sex, economy, freedom, & community by wendell berry. he reminds of a less-, or not-at-all, depressed version of noah cicero. his first essay, 'conservation and local economy', was one of the most powerfully rhetorical things i have ever read. then i got to the second essay 'conservation is good work' and i had to set the book down and put my head in my hands.

here are some things i liked:

"the idea that we live in something called 'the environment,' for instance, is perposterous. this word came into use because of the pretentiousness of learned experts who were embarrassed by the religous associations of 'Creation' and who thought 'world' too mundane. but 'environment' means that surrounds or encircles us; it means a world separate from ourselves, outside us. the real state of things, of course, is far more complex and intimate and interesting than that. the world that environs us, that is around us, is also within us. we are made of it; we eat, drink, and breathe it; it is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. it is also Creation, a holy mystery, made for and to some extent by creatures, some but by no mean all of whom are humans.... no one of this intimacy and responsibility is conveyed by the word environment.'

all religious or deistic implications aside, if we begin to think of the earth as something contingent, as something created, we can start to humbly think of ourselves as wholly part of this created thing that feeds and clothes us and that is also clothed and fed. i think we can maybe begin to see a pattern in other things (community, seasons, tides, charity) that are linked all around us. we can see ourselves as part of a universal plot, like some quitch patchwork that we are all working on together.

'no settled family or community has ever called its home place an 'environment.' none has ever called its feeling for its home place 'biocentric' or 'anthropocentric.' none has ever thought of its connection to its home place as 'ecological', deep or shallow. the concepts and insights of the ecologists are of great usefulness in our predicament, and we can hardly escape the need to speak of 'ecology' and 'ecosystems'. but the terms themselves are culturally sterile. they come from the juiceless, abstract intellectuality of the universities which was invented to disconnect, displace, and disembody the mind. the real names of the environment are the names of rivers and river valleys; creeks, ridges, and mountains; towns and cities; lakes, woodlands, lanes, roads, creatures, and people."

i think more writers and artists should really take it on themselves to do this work of making ecology culturally relevant. the people with the most cultural influence should present the seriousness of the situation. and do work their in not just fetishizing nature but by cultivating some real attachment to the earth in the forms not only inspiration but survival, diversity, adaptability, and strength. specifically in going to pains to print books or pamphlets on recycled, non-bleached paper.

i feel anxious with all this romanticizing of nature in art and music lately. it's great that artists and writers can return to using nature as a muse, anything that will bring more attention to the earth and our innate identity. i am eager to see it go further. but i feel like words like 'nature' and 'organic food' and 'conservation' are just becoming these cultural memes of personal identity. something 'liberal' to align yourself with. i once saw a picture of a girl talk concert and some girl wearing a shirt that said: CONSUME LESS. but the thing is that she's dancing in this cloud of strobe lights and smoke and confetti and toilet paper being blown out by leaf blowers. this is the shit i'm talking about. people pulling on this cloak of identity rooted in the cause but not inthe work.

meanwhile indie girls are talking about feathers and putting owls on dumb things and filling up little boxes with seashells. and this is great and tender but there's so, so much more. we should be asking, where is our food going to come from in 20 years? who is looking out for the farmers? who is looking to help people even begin to care? the situation is seriously fucking dire. the solution is in people actually planting their own food in any capacity, spending time touching things that are real, and loving and taking care of each other, because the way you treat each other is the only way you will know to treat the earth.