Berry: “Man can embody truth, but he cannot know it.” Yeats

No time to write. Much to do. Kant essay due in two days… haven’t started. Kant is intimidating. Relaying his writing seems a daunting task.

I read an essay by Wendell Berry, circa 1983, titled “People, Land, and Community”.

I beg anyone to go out of their way and spend time with this piece.

“Berry wants to convey the unnatural evolution that’s taken place within man and his surroundings. He emphasizes the necessity for a harmonious marriage between the the environment (land) and people- specifically their purpose. These relationships are complex and sustainable; ecological.

On page sixty-seven, Berry discusses two types of knowledge. The first type of knowledge is a harmony that is gleaned through the dynamics of love, often through a sufficient faith based commitment. On page seventy-five, when he talks of the introduction of technology and the tractor, he is referring to the second type of mechanical, quantifiable knowledge, one that introduces limitations and constraints into ones life. “…we will see that this second kind of knowledge invariable implies, and often explicitly imposes, limits upon the first kind: some possibilities must not be explored; some things must not be learned.”

The introduction of technology sabotages the natural ecological relationship between man and the land, not only physically but psychologically. The second type of knowledge, the quantifiable and technological, is inherently confined. It is limits resources to facts and figures, and considers only the economics of relationships. When the farmer introduces a piece of technology like a tractor, he imposes limits onto his first knowledge (a knowledge with no bounds), unsettling the natural harmony between his hands and the earth. The farmer has disrupted this fluid harmony by creating static relationships marked by exploitive demands characterized by haste and hurry and economic efficiency. The malignant effects seep from the farmer into his relationships within the community.

Essentially, what I believe Berry is getting at, is that placing our faith in technology, grounded in knowledge and information, we are enslaving ourselves. By creating a measurable, quantifiable world, a world dependent on technology, we establish limits on our psyche. We no longer see relationships. There is no longer fluidity. Harmony ceases to exist. We no longer experience a natural, ecological and homeostatic, symbiosis with the land, with the world.

Berry believes that we are not meant to understand such a world. He believes that the world’s complexities should be embraced on faith, and only then will a true marriage, a true unity, emerge.

Do I think technology has invaded my character and consciousness? Absolutely. It relates back the other question about distraction. Technology causes the mind to be constantly drawn to demanding, limited compartments of thought. Attention is drawn away from the essence of living, into an inimical drive for efficiency, dictated by the preservation of time and production. Rather than weaving it harmoniously together, it explicitly breaks up life into fragmented, seemingly manageable, pieces.

“The real—the human—knowledge is understood as implying and imposing limits, much as marriage does, and these limits are understood to belong necessarily to the definition of a human being.”