The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays

by Wendell Berry

The continuing war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the political sniping engendered by the Supreme Court nominations, Terry Schiavo — contemporary American society is characterized by divisive anger, profound loss, and danger. Wendell Berry, one of the country's foremost cultural critics, addresses the menace, responding with hope and intelligence in a series of essays that tackle the major questions of the day. Whose freedom are we considering when we speak of the “free market” or “free enterprise?” What is really involved in our National Security? What is the price of ownership without affection? Berry answers in prose that shuns abstraction for clarity, coherence, and passion, giving us essays that may be the finest of his long career.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Economics, Politics, Cultural, Agriculture

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."

Reviews

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I prefer Wendell Berry’s essays to his fiction. While this is not my favorite collection and it gets off to a slow start, it eventually covers some of my favorite Berry topics like knowledge, place, and conservation and nature.

[Jack Wolfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't recommend Wendell Berry enough, especially to left-leaning young people like myself, i.e. the urban smartass atheist hipster class. Like Marilynne Robinson, he has a way of being both humble and mindblowing at the same time, and you can't read his books fairly without questioning some or all of your beliefs regarding the environment, science, religion, work, art, the whole damn meaning of life, etc. He's a nice Christian farmer, yes, but he's also a smart and cutting writer: a liberal lured in by the back-cover promises of conservative critiques (which, rest assured, Berry provides) might be a little taken aback by Berry's defense of, oh, the pro-life stance. Though Berry's prose is always elegant, and his stances are always pacifistic, this is not, for all but maybe fifteen readers, comforting stuff. Like any other prophet worth their salt, the dude wants to provoke you. He wants a conversation. And given that he's one of, like, two people who are allowed to advocate the pleasures of rural living on a national stage, I think we should hear him out.

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently found myself wondering what kind of person reads Wendell Berry essays. I wondered this because the breadth of his subjects could appeal to many but also because he doesn't fit neatly into categories, especially political ones like liberal or conservative. My conclusion, which is underscored by this set of essays, is that anyone who appreciates dialogue, actual conversation, and cares about the world should read Wendell Berry. I'm hesitant to break down or summarize the contents here but I'll say that I especially appreciated "Compromise, Hell!" in which Berry attempts to defend the Earth against a planet destroying economy, "Imagination In Place" where the author explores the relationship between his writings, both fiction and nonfiction, and the place he calls home, and "Quantity vs. Form" in which he discusses the American trend towards measuring lives by how long they last instead of their quality or form. The more Berry essays I read the more I find that, in addition to the things I loved immediately, the more I realize that I don't always agree with him, the more I realize the value for myself of "dialogue" with him. And this book is a good, broad starting place.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some great essays and insights in here. In particular Berry points out in the Coherence of Community that our myriad protest movements / industries, conservation and anti-pollution and anti-nuclear and anti-development on rural landscapes, etc, are too fragmented and don't cohere into a real movement or vision. We need a positive vision for a different way of socioeconomic organization that can unite us together as a community. One which encompasses democratic wildlife conservationists and republican farmers into a single community that values the health of our communities and landscapes above purely economic profit. He wrote this in 2004, but I feel like I'm just coming to this realization myself in the past few years.
In Quantity vs Form, Berry points out that in the past humans might have thought of a life well lived as one which accomplished much and ended in comfort and community. Today we do not think of a life well lived, but only of as much life as possible. We live in mortal terror of the end of life, we empower doctors to extend life despite the gross suffering such extension entails. We do this b/c there is profit to be had in providing drugs and procedures meant to extend life. And because, as Berry points out, life lived without thought to quality but only to quantity (b/c this is the only form of valuing present in a capitalist society that measures value by the number of dollars) cannot imagine coming to a close in satisfaction. The idea of Admiral Nelson dying satisfied in having done his duty is a quaint but alien notion - to myself as well. But it doesn't strike me that it should be so. There certainly was a time in my life where such a thought was less alien. It makes me wonder if the gradual erosion of a desire for a value filled life is a natural result of living in an economics dominated culture, or if it's part of growing older in a values-depauperate culture, or some combination of these. Berry compares the medical industry's structural mal-fixation with extending the quantity of life without heed to the quality (with much injury to the general populace) to the agricultural industry's profit motivated attempts to maximize food productivity without heed to its damage to the culture of farming, the ecological longevity of the land, or the diminishing quality of the food produced (all while proudly proclaiming themselves to be feeding the world).
In 'Renewing Husbandry' and many other essays, Berry points out how industralization and commodification of agriculture and food has led to the unsustainable and unrealistic simplification of farming systems. Farms that used to be reasonably complex emulations of local ecosystems were reduced to a few crop types set in huge fields delineated by strict boundaries. The ecological unsustainability of this was overcome by copious and unending supplementation with fossil fuels and fossil fuel derived fertilizers and pesticides. In the drive towards maximizing productivity, we allowed agricultures that were intelligently diversified and adapted to local conditions to be obliterated by market forces. And we stand in great danger of losing the knowledge and diversity of those sustainable forms of farming in our (inevitably) brief flirtation with farming without limits. He charmingly suggests a remedy of 'unsimplification' - complexifying our scientific understandings and descriptions of crop and soil ecologies, not trading in reductionist economic thinking that only tabulates lost and gained profits.
Final essay was not actually written by Berry, but has some good points that protected areas aren't automatically going to be better off, that we should be incorporating ecologically relevant disturbance in PA management, and that that disturbance might take the form of what we'd think of as traditionally 'unnatural' (read human caused) disturbances (e.g. grazing by cows in Western grasslands). Of course, I and many another conservationist would argue that native species like bison can and should be providing that ecosystem service instead of cows in many places. And this idea of a working landscape in the Rocky Mountains has no mention of wolves - this being 15 or so years before wolves started dispersing into Colorado. I'd be curious how the author would slot that fact into his idea of a working wilderness, and whether ranchers driving cows through the Rockies would be willing to tolerate lost animals from predation. This general argument is also in danger of slipping into the New Conservation notion of - all the world is altered so humans are responsible for managing all the ecosystems and can do that as we see fit. The fact that even deepest interiors of Amazonian rainforests are impacted by climate change doesn't mean that they are completely stripped of their wildness, nor that they need us to manage them. There's a real danger of applying these ideas which are sensible in an American Western context at global scale. Also the author is dealing with a very strangely narrow definition of wilderness/nature as one which doesn't involve human work. Would be interested to hear that fleshed out.

[Lily Castle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of Berry's poems are precious to me and I will not deny his insights into the state of agriculture in the 21st century. I underlined and wrote many "wows" and "trues" in the margins. But. There are some serious blind spots in these essays. Indigenous people and their lifeways do not seem to exist in Berry's worldview. His vision of purity and perfection appears to be a Christian nuclear family on a rural homestead, weirdly and specifically the Amish, as if no violence or ecological destruction were required to enable that lifestyle. I see this as an ironic issue of shifting baselines, as if Berry is fine with most of what happened before World War I, while pollution and devlopment after that point are an unparalleled tragedy. Similarly, Berry seems to hold in his heart that what we would now call de-growth is possible under capitalism. I am particularly bothered that in his talk of the center versus the periphery, there is no nuance: he roots himself firmly in the periphery as a small farmer while failing to acknowledge ways in which he is in the center as a land-owning white man. In essence, I think he sees the problems, but not how deep the problems go. However, these essays are now 20 years old, and it's possible Berry has learned some intersectionality in that time, as I see the building blocks in the lines he draws between economy, community, and ecology.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of essays. I think my favorite was on logging, and the ecologically sound way to do it. Full of amazing imagery. The other essays on environment were all good, although the two essays directly addressing early 2000's political situations are already very dated.

I do like how, in many cases, Mr. Berry criticizes/calls out the problems with policy and spares neither left nor right in his analysis. Very reflective stuff. This took longer to read than a book of its length would otherwise suggest as I would only read one essay an evening followed by some time for reflection.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wendell Berry's "The Way of Ignorance" is a collection of essays primarily focused on conservation, especially that of the family farm. He addresses the economy, ecological issues as well as the social ramifications of the demise of the family farm. Berry's strength is when the essays deal with land use, the pros and cons of technological advance in farming and avoiding the "way of ignorance" in dealing with these and similar issues. I was surprised when Berry delved into other areas, such as religion and abortion, which I thought weakened the collection. He included two essays, a political one from Daniel Kemmis, and an environmental one from Courtney White. White's discourses fit well into the overall collection while the Kemmis "letter," while well written, seemed out of place.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wendell Berry is smart and down to earth and a very good writer. The bulk of these essays are about conservation. Humans need to be a part of the land and community. He is critical of both liberals and conservatives and comes off like a loving and a kind of grumpy farmer/grandpa type. Good reading for this era of hyper-partisan memes and know-it-all political talking points. It's ok to not know everything, but arrogant ignorance is the killer.

[Stefanni Lynch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love everything about Wendell Berry, and several of these essays were delightful and enlightening to me. But many of the essays were a little too farm and land specific for my taste. I’m sure that just demonstrates that I walk in the way of ignorance myself!

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I began my foray into Wendell Berry's work with his poetry in Leavings, an undervalued portion of his work. I had read a few essays here or there and knew of his ideas on community, localism, and our relationship to the environment. I've gotten more interested the more I read! After finishing The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, I decided I needed to give more attention to Berry's essay collections. I began not with the popular The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, a starting point for many, but with The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays because I specifically wanted to read "Rugged Individualism" and "Letter to Daniel Kimmis". As I guessed, both resonated with me as a Democrat struggling with the direction of my own party and as somebody interested in the downsides of today's negative liberty-focused paradigm. However, this book was amazing beyond the essays that drew me to it, articulating Berry's positions on issues prominent in the early 2000s and remaining so today; his criticisms of the early 2000s' wars exist today in the shadow of forever war we're still embroiled in. This links to an economy that harms the many for the benefit of the few. Berry recognizes how the "general purpose of the present economy is to exploit, not to foster or conserve" (Compromise, Hell!; 23) and how the prevailing mentality "will do anything at all that is necessary, not merely to live, but to aggrandize itself" (The Way of Ignorance; 60). Alongside the ever-expanding free market' is a vision of nature as something to be conquered (Agriculture from the Roots Up; 109). Such a violent mentality (Berry connects these many forms of violence in "Letter to Daniel Kemmis") separates us from the very things that sustain us as people. Such desiccation leads to atomization, dissatisfaction, and "an overwhelming sense of incompleteness" (Quantity vs Form; 86).

Instead, economies must be rooted in local places and adapt to the specific knowledge embodied in those communities. "Form" is the word he lands on, representing the way we can be made whole within limits (The Way of Ignorance; 62). For Berry, solutions to our problems emerge not by technocratically splitting humans from their environment or divorcing science from morality, but by recognizing the embodied nature of man. Husbandry accomplishes this by nurturing the web of connection and obligation that each of us is born into. Berry might have an anarchist slant to his localism, but also realizes the importance of government reform; state and national governments must do more to protect people from corporate aggression (25). Throughout, he engages deeply with politics without getting into electorialism, pointing to the hypocrisy of both parties regarding forms of violence (Letter to Daniel Kemmis; 144). He also realizes, as more are beginning to, that current divisions encumber our ability to seek solutions. The center and periphery fail to understand each other, elite liberals look with scorn on middle America, and political parties remain inept when it comes to challenging the roots of our ills.

What makes Berry's collections lovely reads is how they engage with so many different ideas. One essay, "Charlie Fisher" was a beautiful chronicle of how a timber farmer uses traditional practices to be a steward of his land, and another, "The Burden of the Gospels" furnished a way to approach the mysteries of Scripture. These essays might seem a little different but provide profound insights into Berry's thought. "Imagination in Place", for example, proposes that writers "accept the place" as "a literary influence" (48), which is basically the author's M.O. Accepting the place and its limits is the focal point of Berry's work, making his writing a powerful bulwark against modern liberal acquisitiveness and placelessness, issues writers from Christopher Lasch to Patrick Deneen to Wiliam Leach have decried. Sometimes Berry's ideas might seem far off or tough to implement, but he succinctly reminds us that "we have no place to begin but where we are" (The Purpose of a Coherent Community; 78). So pick up your pen or your plow and get to work on redeeming our wayward society and telling "the truth about the human economy" (Letter to Daniel Kemmis; 150).

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humble, thoughtful writing. I love the patience Berry seems to have with his own mental process of putting thoughts to words. The book began with varied essays, both in length and in subject matter. However, with exception of one essay, the middle section (Part 2) was filled solely with Berry's lectures and journal publications about agriculture and modern-day agrarianism. His arguments are well stated, though because of their sequencing in this book, they become somewhat single-toned. His points about modern day farming practices and the destruction of local communities and ecology were novel at the start of the 21st century (when this book was published), and still are. He suggests a return to what once was; he provides thoughtful, reasoned ideas of how to proceed both politically, intellectually, and in spirit. A wise, honest Kentuckian!

[Alex Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It seems as though industrial humanity has brought about phase two or original sin. We are all now complicit in the murder of creation…How could we live without degrading our souls, slaughtering our forests, polluting our streams, poisoning the air and rain?…How could we live without the war economy and the holocaust of the fossil fuels? To the offer of more abundant life, we have chosen to respond with the economics of extinction.

If we take the Gospels seriously, we are left, in our dire predicament, facing an utterly humbling question: How must we live and work so as not to be estranged from God’s presence in His work and in all His creatures?”

[Benjamin Richards · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should have loved this book; my first and only reading of Wendell Berry, but when he became lost and muddled in some of his writing I found it incredibly difficult to keep up with him. I would read and re-read a particular sentence and think "I have no idea what you are talking about" such was the lack of cogency when at his worst. There were a few gems in there too, the essays towards the front of the book.

[Jason von Meding · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some great essays in here! “Secrecy vs Rights” and “Rugged Individualism” stand out for me. I found part 2 more challenging, and that I quite often disagreed with the arguments made. I think he makes way too many assumptions about all people that do not share his faith. In “The Way of Ignorance” his own arrogant ignorance looms large...ironic, right. Or fitting. Overall, he is quite brilliant.

[John T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to avoid extinction by greed

Berry demonstrates that the way of survival lies in humble, cooperative husbandry of our environments and that industrial rape of them leads to catastrophe. He does not consider that overpopulation and the mindless greed of it's industrial suppliers assure that the rape will continue until.... At best, things will get far worse before they may get better.

[Derek H. Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection that served as a helpful primer to Berry’s project. Diverse enough topically to keep me thinking more broadly about the implications or his thinking, but thematic all the way through. This confirmed for me that Berry is going to be one of my ongoing conversation partners in my own spirituality and life practice. Challenging and inspiring. Some of the political writings are certainly responsive to their time and are less timeless and applicable today.

[Kendra · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I didn't care for Berry's _Hannah Coulter_ but was encouraged by friends to try his nonfiction before giving up entirely. I agree with him that good stewardship of God's creation and ecological conservation are important, but I am uninterested in southern rural farming, which seems to be the bulk of both his fiction and nonfiction. I made it 50 pages or so before setting this one aside for something more thought-provoking.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say? Another fantastic Wendell Berry essay collection. I am always struck by the breadth of Berry's concerns but also how his world is rooted in his deep sense of place. All the essays are good in this collection, especially the title essay, "Rugged Individualism," and "The Burden of the Gospels."

[Henry Haney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my second time reading Wendell Berry and I was not disappointed. In this collection of essays Berry covers many topics including politics, farming and the Gospels.

I find his insights to be thought-provoking, inspiring and challenging. There’s a prophetic nature to them that invites you to see things in a new way. I need more of this guy’s writing in my life.

[Alex Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eloquent and clear collection of insights, urging, praise and wisdom - I feel elevated by the breadth of value in these essays. It is both spiritual and intellectual, like hearing someone validate the inner grumbling of my soul.

[Gavriel Perreira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really solid essays in here: The way of ignorance, the burden of the gospels and quantity and form are my favorites. Got me questioning how I interpret scripture and what it means to live a whole life rather than just a long one.

[Mark Hazell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Berry's essays are always elegant and thought provoking

[Chase · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting essays in here, but my favorite by far was ironically the one by Courtney White at the end about land health and working restoration.

[Brian Wasserman · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are expecting Emerson, look somewhere else and read Mary Oliver's Upstream.

[Zoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.5/10.

[Fred Sprinkle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full disclosure...I did not read the last essay (not by Berry)

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Berry offers his wisdom on sufficiency and holism. Then there is this:

"When you are skating on thin ice, speed up."

[Daniel Harding · Rating 4 out of 5]

Berry is so refreshingly challenging. His words point us back to ourselves; our habits, our appetites, and our petulance as the starting point for healing. May it always be so.

[Caleb Rolling · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Purpose of a Coherent Community,” “Quantity vs. Form,” and “Local Knowledge in the Age of Information” are, in my view, the standout essays. Vintage Berry.

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wendell Berry shreds modern conventional wisdom in a plain-spoken style that is refreshing in the age of hype and scream.

Kentucky Monthly’s 2005 Kentuckian of the Year (January 2006, page 8) almost effortlessly lays bare the follies of 21st century civilization. Sins are reconstituted as virtues when they lead to profit. Communities are robbed of their vitality, and individuals of their livelihoods, in the name of the “free market” and “free enterprise.” Water is sold in bottles. Farm families buy everything they eat at the store. “Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so, and we reward them for it,” Berry writes, and in a single 26-word sentence, he describes pretty much the entire global economy.

The main culprit, Berry writes, is a toxic mix of arrogance, ignorance and greed that refuses to acknowledge that our actions can have unintended consequences, or believes that we can deal with any consequences that may arise.

Berry urges a direction that values community and local knowledge, in which personal decency and personal humility act as a counterweight to corporate industrialism. This way recognizes, as Berry writes in dismissing the oversimplification of religion, that “reality is large, and our minds are small.”

Berry mostly criticizes the political right and its corporate brethren, but he fires a few rounds at liberal intellectuals and knee-jerk conservationists. He concludes on a hopeful note with a letter from former Montana House Speaker Daniel Kemmis and an essay by Courtney White, co-founder and executive director of the Quivira Coalition, that tell of old enemies working together to solve common problems in the West.

This collection of essays from 2004 and 2005 first was published in hardcover in November 2005. It reaffirms the Henry County farmer’s place as an important voice in a time of economic and environmental upheaval.

(This review first appeared in Kentucky Monthly magazine.)