News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
It's been a busy week on the porch as we've been publishing responses to Wendell Berry's new book, Need to Be Whole. While these essays cover a lot of ground, there is much more in this book that rewards close reading and thoughtful reflection. Before getting to those reviews, though, I have two other items to mention: first, we've posted video recordings of the conference talks. We'll be releasing audio versions of these on the Brass Spittoon podcast in the coming weeks as well. Second, we have a cover for the fall issue of Local Culture. It's in the final stages of production now and will be going to the printer soon, so if you want to get this in your mailbox, subscribe soon!
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In this week's Water Dipper, I recommend essays on Jon Stewart, David Bentley Hart, and Frodo.
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Eric Miller begins with a question: "What other voice is plotting a pathway toward blessedness for all?" And in his typically beautiful prose, Miller follows Berry in charting a pathway toward genuine peace: "apart from submission to this 'commonwealth of life,' to 'the old mutuality of a shared life,' there is little hope, he warns, for the healing of wounds that inevitably occur in our flawed and failing pursuits of wholeness."
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Richard Bailey appreciates the ways that Need to Be Whole relates Berry's long-standing arguments and place and the land to the challenges of mending racial wrongs: "Berry connects these major themes from The Hidden Wound to other themes from his many works—work, agrarianism, industrialization, citizenship, affection, and place. In so doing, he offers his readers a fuller-orbed view of his thinking than maybe he has ever done previously."
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Katherine Dalton responds to this book as a fellow Kentuckian, and she finds Berry's careful reflections on local history invaluable: "Wendell Berry says that he had plenty of anger as a younger man, and I have certainly seen it in some of his work. But there is no anger here. There is sorrow and joy and gratitude, pity, wry humor, and delight, and a desire to forgive as he hopes to be forgiven."
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Jeffrey Bilbro outlines the advice Berry has for how to conduct an authentic public conversation in a time of polarization and hot takes: "The shouters who dominate our public discourse are unlikely to heed Berry’s advice, but those of us who are weary of shrill denunciations have much to learn from Berry’s sanity. If we adopt these recommendations in our own conversations, we might contribute to a more neighborly and healthy culture, one that cares for all its members and the land upon which they depend."
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Allan Carlson situates Berry's new book within the long agrarian tradition and emphasizes the importance of tending to our local places and communities. It is such "homemaking [that] defines authentic patriotism."
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Alan Cornett talks with Luke Sheahan on the latest episode of Cultural Debris. Sheahan is the new editor of The University Bookman, and they discuss Kirk, Buckley, and Nisbet.
I’m reading several essayists in an independent study this semester. One of them is Meghan O'Gieblyn, who is a perceptive thinker and a remarkably deft writer. It’s a delight to be caught up in the flow of her thought, and she avoids the tired bromides that pepper so much contemporary writing. Here’s an excerpt from one of the essays in Interior States:
Perhaps the essential appeal of the digital world is its capacity not to distract us from the present but to clench us in its maw. There is something hypnotic in its assurance that nothing lies beyond the day’s serving of novel minutiae. To leave this world, even for an hour, is to find yourself drifting uncertainly beyond the margins of the moment. Your mind begins to wander, or else you find yourself slipping uneasily into the past. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine arrived at the gym and discovered that he’d forgotten both his phone and his headphones at home.
”What did you do?” I said.
”I spent an hour on the elliptical thinking about my regrets.” He smiled sadly, the way people my age have only begun to—a tentative wistfulness. “That day,” he said, “I got a real workout.”
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro