The Decimation of Rural America: The Anthology of Wendell Berry

Hudson Honeybone, 26

“Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away… Through all the eventful centuries, God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand storms; but he cannot save them from sawmills and fools; this is left to the American people.” 

-John Muir 

Considered the “Father of National Parks” and an ardent defender of the forest, John Muir spearheaded the preservationist movement of early 20th century America, which was a naturalist response to the exploitative industrial revolution. He often called upon the sanctity of nature as a pretense for preservationism, weaving in themes of Christianity and original sin. He believed it was the divine duty of civic Americans to act as stewards of creation and safeguard the natural beauty shaped by the hands of creation.  Despite his naturalist fervor, John Muir’s ideology was inevitably trampled by American industrialization, as amplified commercialization and consumerism led to the unabashed extraction of more and more natural resources. Nevertheless, Muir’s preservationism still reverberated throughout the 20th century: his naturalistic ideas resurged in the 80’s with new naturalist thinkers and even government policies geared toward sustainable land use and climate control. One of the most prolific conservationists to emerge from this revival was the great essayist Wendell Berry from rural Kentucky. In his collection of essays titled Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, Berry discusses the declining condition of rural America and its subsequent impact on the health of our communities. However, Berry authored the majority of these essays almost 40 years ago. How does Berry’s ideology interact with modern economic developments? To answer this question, we must first understand Berry’s perspective.

Berry’s Ideology

“My part of rural America is, in short, a colony, like every other part of rural America. Almost the whole landscape of this country is in the hands of an absentee economy” (Berry 8).

At present, rural America has been reduced to a mercantilist supplier of raw materials at the service of the corporate, urban economy. The industrial economy essentially has a chokehold on local economies, siphoning every ounce of resource until the land is utterly barren. This predatory system compromises both the longevity of these local economies and the people who inhabit them. The only way to remedy the destruction of rural America, which once lay at the heart of American markets, is to shift the supply chain into the hands of local entities. Wheat and barley, for instance, should be processed by local grain mills and transported by local shipping companies to wider markets. Instead of outsourcing the work to large conglomerates that dominate every step in the chain of production, the labor should remain under the jurisdiction of these rural communities.

“Creation is God’s presence in creatures. For [this] reason, our destruction of nature…is the most horrid blasphemy” (Berry 98). 

According to Berry, the spirit of God dwells within the natural world. Therefore, defacing and abusing the natural world is akin to defacing and abusing God himself, which would be the most heretic, unforgivable sin imaginable. He seeks to rectify the Christian story of creation with the ideals of the conservationist movement, which often draws the unfounded conclusion that Chrisitinaity is partly culpable for the destruction of the natural world, as seen with the arrival of missionaries in the New World and the cultural cleansing and mercantilist exploits that followed.

“The triumph of the industrial economy is the fall of community”(Berry 133).

There are 3 spheres of human civilization that must cooperate in harmony for the overall health of the species: the private realm, the public one, and most importantly, the community. Community is defined as the local interdependence of local people, local culture, local economy, and local nature. While community can be applied to larger demographics than our immediate, local surroundings, it is applied in name alone. Although the concept of a national community may exist in the collective minds of a country’s people, the fact of the matter remains this: it is your local community only that has a direct impact on your lifestyle and wellbeing. The corporate, industrial economy, with the emergence of mass media like television, has destroyed local communities across the nation. And without the existence of a robust community, the remaining public and private spheres will ultimately destroy each other. Private life becomes a sparring ground of rampant ambition with a focus on self-interest, while the public sphere becomes an “arena” where the avarice of one man clashes with the avarice of another. The community is the glue that keeps the private and public sector at bay, preventing societal implosion.

The ideas Wendell Berry professed were formulated over 40 years ago in the early 1980’s into the 90’s. How does Berry’s  pro-community, pro-local ideology stand up against modern economic and social developments like globalization and the rise of mass media?

Berry vs. Modern America

Globalization

Globalization refers to the increasing interconnectivity and interdependence of global economies as a result of the flow of goods, capital, services, and people across international borders. Prominent world players have begun cheaply outsourcing their labor and manufacturing to undeveloped countries at the expense of domestic workers. An influx of inexpensive imported goods undercuts domestic producers, forcing them to lower wages further, compromise good quality, or close their enterprise altogether. According to the US Department of Agriculture, a whopping 15% percent of US food is imported, applying further pressure on the rural America Wendell Berry tried so desperately to protect and revitalize. This import trend has further disadvantaged rural America, making it even more obsolete than they may have been in Berry’s time of writing.

The Rise of Private Equity

Wendell Berry was a staunch critic of corporatization and industrial monopolization by big conglomerates, as he believed this trend crippled rural, local economies. However, big business consolidations and acquisitions have only skyrocketed with the advent of private equity firms like Blackstone and Apollo Management. In fact, as of 2021, private equity firms owned roughly 20% of US businesses, as opposed to a figure of 4% 20 years ago. These private equity buyouts can lead to job losses, a decline in service/good quality, and predatory pricing for the average consumer due to lacking competition. The dawn of private equity in American economics is essentially Berry’s living nightmare: an army of mega-rich, profit seeking corporations that seek to dominate every facet of the economy. That intimate connection between local industry, local communities, and local land is now permanently a figment of the past.

The Digital Age, Mass Media, and Mechanization

The dawn of the internet and social media has catalyzed the growth of a more collective national identity centered around the latest fads and national news. Access to the wider net has inadvertently distanced Americans from the intimate, local communities that Berry preached as the buffer between private and public spheres. With national news becoming ever more accessible, Americans are bound to see the national stage as the center of American activity, instead of their communities. Just as Berry renounced television for fostering a more congealed, monotone American identity, the smartphone has only accelerated this fear, draining the individuality of local communities from the geopolitical landscape of the US.

According to Berry, the next greatest threat to healthy communities is mechanization. He often references the historical tale of the Luddites, a group of hand-weavers from the beginning of the industrial revolution. According to Wendell, these hand-workers opposed the mechanization of the textile industry in an effort to preserve their community– that is, their mutual economic and social interests. Berry believed that a robust community should “stand up for and defend itself” from corporate invaders. And these Luddites were just that; Berry framed these rebels as rural heroes challenging the predatory industrialization of the 18th century to protect their community. He  urges his readers to channel the intentions of the Luddites and challenges exploitative corporatization by prioritizing the health and longevity of their communities, which could be as simple as supporting local businesses over inexpensive imports.

However, mechanization continues to replace human workers with automated machines, rendering human labor almost completely obsolete in certain industries. If we are to analyze this trend through the lens of Wendell Berry, these corporations are prioritizing efficiency and revenue over job stability and the security of our communities. 

Conclusion:

At the initial time of publication, the US was a drastically different nation, although the seeds of fear implanted in Berry’s mind have now come full bloom with the explosion of media, meaningless entertainment, and rampant consumerism. Nearly all of Berry’s predictions have come to pass with time, and we now live in a nation in which his dreams, in all likelihood, will never come to fruition. So what can we do? On an individual level, the truth is this: not much. It would take enormous influence, an unchecked abuse of power equal to that of a world leader, and the upheaval of an entire society from the ground up.