Once a year, I read this essay by Wendell Berry. I've been doing this for a few years now, and that time rolled around again this summer, much to my delight. (Yes, I do get the irony of my blogging about Wendell Berry.)
The essay was written in response to angry comments regarding an article Berry had previously written in Harper's, comments claiming that Berry was decidedly un-feminist. In the previous article, which I have also read -- on why he does not own a computer, Berry had mentioned that his wife does some editing work for him. Apparently, this displeased many so-called feminists, who were of the opinion that his wife, because of this, was made a 'drudge.'
I suppose I love this essay so much because it so eloquently guards economic traditions I've known since I was a child, traditions that in no way, shape, or form diminish, negate, or oppose my feminism.
Instead of losing his head and defending tradition, as I might have been wont to do, Berry articulates the larger problem. The larger problem being, he says, the fruit of our industrial economy. We'll never find as much satisfaction working for corporations as we do working for ourselves; but men left the home economy; the home economy diminished; understandably dissatisfied women began leaving self-employment at home; and now, here we are, all together, working outside the home of necessity, dependent on corporations for necessities, having lost the arts of husbandry and housewifery, both of which had been fulfilling, purposeful, fruitful pursuits.
He points out the irony in his readers' protests: why should his wife find more satisfaction under the yoke of an employer than in working with her partner?
Much more could be said about women and work at this point, but -- moving on -- Berry goes on to describe the veneration of the machine, much to the denigration of the body. It reflects an old dualism, he says, pitting mind against matter. Our industrial economy tends to remove the impressions of our body upon our work -- 'freeing' the mind to its own pursuits.
So we, men and women, are left sitting in cubicles, uncritically sapping our world of its own life, which we ought to be sustaining as its keepers. The life of the home had been reduced to a life of consumption. Production has been removed from sight; we slave away for inhuman corporations just so that we can take home a handful of candies at the end of the day.
And, somehow, we've let ourselves forget the goodness of the home economy, of self-employment, of a measure of independence in community, of a job demanding of our sweat and discomfort. No work is perfect, but some work is more true, more honest, more charitable than other kinds.
You should really just go read the essay yourself, because Berry does a far better job articulating these ideas than I ever could. But one more note, before I brag about how I met him and his wife Tanya last summer. At the end of the essay, he poses the obvious question, the question that's stumped me more times than I can tell you: Who cares? So I decide to compost. That's one person (two people, because my husband's with me on this one and many other such choices, and it's sexy) composting, and what does it matter? Why should America be concerned about environmental pollutants when China's not doing its part? What good do one person's actions do?
Well, says Wendell Berry,
...it will at least do me some good... Thoreau gave the definitive reply to the folly of “significant numbers” a long time ago: Why should anybody wait to do what is right until everybody does it? It is not “significant” to love your own children or to eat your own dinner, either. But normal humans will not wait to love or eat until it is mandated by an act of Congress.
Amen and amen. Oh, and did I mention, I met Wendell Berry last summer?
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