The idea website brainpickings.org had a compelling story today about Wendell Berry and his very powerful from his book The Hidden Wound:
There, he wrote that delight and minimalism were powerful forces of resistance against disconnection and cruelty, and as a response to consumerism and the bitter disintegration of our political culture.
Delight, he argued, is the key to peace of mind under hardship, and the measure of a truly rich life.
I’ve loved and read Berry for years.
Maria Popova, the founder of Brain Pickings, quotes Berry from the book on her website: “The essential cultural discrimination is not between having and not having or haves and have-nots, but between the superfluous and the indispensable. Wisdom… is always poised upon the knowledge of minums; it might be thought to be the art of minimums.”
Berry believes, as I do, that unchecked corporatism is destroyed the land, the life of the individual, and now, the possibly even the planet.
His argument reminds me of the cost and emotionalism that is sweeping the animal world and washing away the idea that the best lives for dogs are the simplest ones. Their lives ought not to revolve on what we need, but what they need.
Yes, puppies can meet people before they are many months old. And yes, I want and get many things I don’t really need. Karl Marx said the secret of capitalism was that greedy capitalists manipulate people into buying 90 percent more things than they really need, thus laying was to the world’s climate, air, resources, animal world, and soil.
For me, wisdom is about less, not more.
Later in life, I am learning how to be simple, how to consider what I buy and use. How to be mindful of our bleeding earth.
I just ordered a box of spring water aluminum cans, I am giving up plastic bottles, a big step for me, a bigger step for the earth. I love the taste of this water, and I can use the can as many times as I wish.
They can be recycled when I’m finished.
I’m working on my minimums all the time. There is less and less around me.
I think every truly wise man I’ve ever learned about practiced minimalism in their lives. They all practiced the art of minimums.
In the larger sense, I embrace Berry’s idea that delight and love are the most powerful kind of resistance to the greedy and cruel. That is the entire premise behind the Army Of Good and the work we are doing.
We do big things in a small way. We embrace minimums, not maximums.
Love is my response to the joyless and hurtful world of politics. The delights in my life and my wife and farm and animals and blog and photos are my force of resistance.
I understand what Berry means by “delight.” As industrial work excludes the dead by social mobility and technological change, he wrote in “Economy and Pleasure, “it excludes children by haste and danger.”
The small scale and hard work of his farm’s tobacco cutting permits margins both temporal and spatial that accommodates the play of children, writes Berry.
“The children play at the grownups’ work, as well as at their own play. In their play the children learn to work; they learn to know their elders and their country. And the presence of playing children means invariably that the grown-ups play too.”
It blew my mind a bit to think of what it would mean to the world, to work, to our humorless and divided Congress, to our very lives, wars, and angry people if children were not excluded from work, as was often once true of farm families. When children were present as the farmers worked their tobacco fields, “those were our best days,” said Berry.
I would have given a lot for my daughter to around me when I worked in the corporate workplace. She never was.
There is little laughter in the industrial workplace today, no children are allowed in Amazon warehouses. Delight and joy are not fringe benefits in America’s workplace.
But Berry inspires me and reaffirms my idea of resistance. I don’t need to go to rallies and shout at people, I have no interest in arguing my beliefs on Facebook and Twitter, I have never written a cruel letter to a stranger on the Internet.
I like the idea of delight as healing the scarring realities of our world, pursuing a conciliatory direction of resistance to a culture in which the enjoyment of life is stolen from so many peoples by the never-enough and hollow heart of money and consumerism.
And then sold back to us again as the price of health care and aging and the latest product we must have but don’t need and is destroying our planet.
No wonder the bottom percent can’t catch up.
I think this is a political movement I could join. I want to be a Minimum
I love Wendell Berry’s writing, both his nonfiction and his novels. The nature center I work at had a surprise celebrity visit a couple of months ago from the actor Nick Offerman when he was in town to do a show. One of my co-workers asked him how he decided to come visit us, and he said that his friend Wendell Berry told him that he should get to know Aldo Leopold, and then he saw that there was an Aldo Leopold Nature Center in town. After a career in public school teaching, which I finally left because we were being directed to essentially squelch delight in young children (it’s all about data, accountability, and test scores now,) I delight in the joy that mud and pond creatures bring to children.
Wonderful post, Jon. Thank-you.
I gave up buying water sometime ago. I have an aquasana filter on my counter and reuse Kevita glass drink bottles as my water bottles. Aquasana sends me a new filter every 3 months, and because I signed up for that service, it replaced my water filter system for free when it stopped working.
This post reminds me of how my Aunt Julie ( the kindest person I have ever known) helped to keep life in a financially poor family ( mine) in perspective. I never realized we were poor until about 3rd grade. That’s when it seemed important to have certain things I couldn’t obtain. As the post read I too was included in the grown ups work. I spent countless hours in the forest with my Daddy and Grampa looking for wild mushrooms and asparagus , got up at 3 am to be on the lake when the salmon were running, and lots of time canning and cleaning game. I remember being bullied because I only had 2 dresses for school. When I was lamenting to my Aunt she kindly taught me the difference between “want” and “need” . She said a person needs …. people that care about them and love them, shelter from life’s storms ( physical and emotional) water, food, and clothing. Everything else is a want. As a child, the grown ups in your life should provide the needs and teach you how to work for your wants and as you grow up you will know how to provide for your own needs and how to save for your wants. Her philosophy served me well, it didn’t stop the bullies but it helped to soften the blow of mean remarks. As a parent and grandparent I have passed this on to my kids and grandkids to help keep life in this busy consumer driven society in perspective! Thank you for all you do and for making the Army of Good where people like me can be part of helping others.
In my first comment I didn’t mention my mom who was the stability in our family. She taught me how to preserve the food we grew and foraged and because of her skill with yarn and fabric I learned how to knit, sew, crochet and quilt. I had everything I needed growing up….. it just took time to realize it.
I enjoy Brain Pickings too!
Minimalism is a growing movement these days. Being a minimalist means different things to different people; from those who restrict themselves to the bare essentials of NEEDS to others who carefully choose special wants as well. It’s a fine balance where every part of your life needs to be examined. “An unexamined life is not worth living.” ~ Socrates.
I’m so happy you’ve given up plastic water bottles. We enjoy tap water; our well water is so delicious, tested twice a year, and we also have a house filter for insurance. Our local environmental group has buttons, “I DRINK TAP WATER” to encourage the community to give up bottled water. We carry refillable/reusable bottles with us everywhere.
Baby steps.