Wrote Wendell Berry, in "The Long-Legged House," quoted in
"Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92/A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim" (NYT gift link).
Returning to his home as a place to write for the rest of his life was a way to insure, to himself, that he would always be bound by the truth, Mr. Berry said in a phone interview in 2018 for this obituary.
“It made a permanent connection between me and my native place, and with its landscape,” he said. “The landscape was there to check me if I was wrong. I could never go away and make up stuff at cocktail parties about the backwoods of Kentucky. I worked with people here in all walks of life and learned from them. It’s been a very rich experience.”
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21 comments:
I haven’t heard of him- is he the classic family farms are noble big farms are evil? It’s a mixed bag- we have disturbing regulation and laws and corruption that are stacked against the family farm- I’m looking at you estate tax!! but at the same time economies of scale are a real thing that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored…
"I could never go away and make up stuff at cocktail parties about the backwoods of Kentucky."
Or take the most extreme eccentrics, exaggerate the stories and represent them as typical.
I'm pro small farm.
Like most things, the government ruined it all. Both parties.
Locally - the Restaurant community is so over burdened with Democrat party regulations - they are all struggling to stay afloat. (Even the Restaurants who have Democrats as owners!)
"rehajm said...
I haven’t heard of him"
And I feel as if I've always known of him. He's just always (to me) been a part of Kentucky.
My mom was born and raised on a family farm in Indiana. Both her parents were likewise born and raised on family farms near the same tiny town as my mom and her siblings. And both sides' previous generations were also farmers, here and in the "old countries."
My maternal grandmother, along with her siblings (a dozen, though I didn't know them all), had a LOT to say about the move from family farms to agribusiness, and I grew up up hearing it. She'd agree with a lot of what Berry had to say, and in fact I wouldn't be surprised if she'd read his 1977 book.
Takes me back.
My maternal grandma was born in 1903, by the way, and died in 1995. She lived and died in the same small town, though she spent some snowbird time in Florida in her later years. She certainly was there to see the sweep of changes throughout the 20th century, including in agriculture and culture generally.
Rehajm at 729 - The estate and gift tax lifetime exemption is now 30 million for married couples.
That is obscene with a Federal Deficit of 40 trillion plus.
Don't hide behind "poor farmer" bs when the nation's finances are on the precipice.
Under The Sun had to close, because the government regulations were too burdensome - they were unable to make a profit.
WE don't want anyone making a profit for their efforts.
profit bad! Especially a small business.
BTW - Sweden and other welfare state countries are NOT SOCIALIST. They are heavy with welfare - but they are intelligent enough - they do not destroy the capitalism that supports the welfare. Businesses remains privately owned, and NOT STATE RUN.
Funny how the modern economic illiterate left demand socialism - while they name-call everyone a fascist. Socialism is fascism - because socialism demands the take over of the means of production. ie: A government run grocery store.
I’ve got my doubts about whether this agra business thing is new. I grew up in corn country in rural Illinois and the family farm was an absolutely huge operation among the successful families when I was a kid: It wasn’t subsistence farming at all. Believing that it was seems likely to me to be false nostalgia.
He's sharing a glass a Basil Haydens with Dolly now.
'...The estate and gift tax lifetime exemption is now 30 million for married couples.
That is obscene with a Federal Deficit of 40 trillion plus....'
What is obscene, is to blame the people who responsibly manage their wealth such that they can grow and pass it to their children as they see fit, rather than to blame a profligate, inept collection of hacks that refuse to prosecute waste and corruption, and pretend not to know the basics of managing expenditure within budgetary limits - including the passage of legislation that would remove such choices, all of which lies squarely in their power, and is part of their sworn duty.
And yet oddly enough, with very few exceptions, each one of them is filthy rich, personally. And many of them got that way on a government salary.
I read an old copy of The Unsettling of America while serving in Afghanistan in 2002. I soon subscribed to Mother Earth News and began learning everything I could about farming and homesteading. I retired from the military in 2018 and bought a 200-year-old dilapidated farm and farmhouse in New England. I wake up every morning, 24/7/365, taking care of my animals, poultry, gardens, and fruit trees, and I love every minute of it. I'll be forever grateful to Wendell Berry for giving a voice, heart, and soul to small farmers and rural America. Rest in peace.
Different regions had different crops and different sizes of farms. In wheat country, farms could be massive. In corn country they could be highly capitalized. In other parts of the country farms were smaller and less profitable.
Berry faced a dilemma: give up the family farm and the agrarian lifestyle or go on growing tobacco. I think he made the right choice. I don't know if his farm is still growing the Demon Weed now. Kentucky used to be profitable hemp country so that implies other opportunities.
I vaguely remembering some of his books and liking them. Back in my rural phase. Berry was opposed to mass immigration and dealt with the negative effects of Slavery on white farmers in the old south. Similar situations indeed.
He was also against all our insane stupid wars of the last 60 years starting with Vietnam. Of course, his mild, sophisticated, "thoughtful" approach while popular with the NYTs, made zero impact in the real world. Which was probably why he was in the NYTs.
In a way Berry was a precusor to Dreher and Ross Doughnut. Although he was much smarter and a much better writer. But he was a "reaonable conservative" and was able to express that in terms the NYT's audience liked.
I’d like to think that we could depend on careful writing in an obituary for a writer. But we cannot.
One ensures that one will be bound by the truth. One pays money to sewer ants if one wishes monetary compensation when one is set free from the truth.
They do sound similar to each other, though.
"That is obscene with a Federal Deficit of 40 trillion plus.
Don't hide behind "poor farmer" bs when the nation's finances are on the precipice."
- without effective planning even small farms can reach the estate tax threshold
-the estate tax does not raise much money- a bit more than 30 billion, and that figure doesn't account for the lost revenue from estate and other sources the tax avoiding behavior creates
- the nation does not have a revenue problem it has a spending problem that no amount of 'tax the rich' will solve
- shove your class warfare bs where sun doesn't hit...
"Rehajm at 729 - The estate and gift tax lifetime exemption is now 30 million for married couples.
That is obscene with a Federal Deficit of 40 trillion plus.
Don't hide behind "poor farmer" bs when the nation's finances are on the precipice."
Show me one time when raising taxes has resulted in substantial debt reduction rather than increased government spending. Just one. And the nation's finances have been "on the precipice" for a very long time.
What is obscene is that after a lifetime of being taxed on your income and your property, and having the very taxes you pay contribute to the inflation in value of the business and property you have amassed, the government still gets to take a massive chunk of your estate rather than you pass it on to your heirs. What right does the government have to your property?
back in the 80's, during a "farm crisis", there was Much talk of
"losing the family farm!"
one of my college roommates (whose family owned a good sized chunk of Floyd county) scoffed at that, and said:
"they will NEVER get rid of family farms.. family farms exist because child labor laws do NOT apply to family farms."
I got the feeling that he was speaking from personal experience
"Returning to his home as a place to write for the rest of his life was a way to insure, to himself, that he would always be bound by the truth, Mr. Berry said in a phone interview in 2018 for this obituary."
1. I've always seen this spelled as "ensure" in such usage.
2. The NYT calls people and says "Can we interview you now to run an obit when you die? It just really simplifies things."
The major “family farm” in my home county was owned by a Catholic family with 16 kids. Huge corn and soybean operation. The kids all went to school at the University of Illinois and majored in disciplines that enhanced the “family farm.” They were closely allied with the U of I ag school and the Dekalb seed corn hybridization company. I worked for them as a farm hand as a kid. It was indeed a family farm, but not quite as romantic as this post suggests.
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