People, Land, and Community
A modern assumption is that we can set demons at large, and then somehow become smart enough to control them. This is a kind of idiocy. … The evidence is overwhelming that knowledge does not solve the “human problem”. Indeed knowledge is the problem.
“It is simple true that we do not and cannot know enough to make any important decision.”
Berry makes a connection between marriage and farming.
“Man can embody the truth, but he cannot know it.” Yeats
Two conclusions:
- The modern stereotype of an intelligent person is probably wrong. We should judge the intelligence of a person by the good order or harmoniousness of his surroundings.
- Any public program to preserve land of produce food is hopeless if it does not tend to right the balance between numbers of people and acres of land and to encourage long-term, stable connections between families and small farms.