News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
The fall issue of Local Culture should be in the mail by the middle of this coming week. Our printer had some new equipment that caused some delays, but they are now in the process of stuffing the envelopes and sorting them into bins to take to the USPS.
- In this week's Water Dipper I recommend essays about Wheeler Catlett, the study, and democracy.
- Ed Hagenstein turns to the poetic wisdom of Kathleen Raine to gain some perspective on today's political disputes: "So much seems unsettled, so much up for grabs. This unsettled feeling has left me craving nourishment far from the daily fix for news junkies, something closer to what Ezra Pound called “the news that stays news.” And one writer who takes readers about as far from our journalism as possible is Kathleen Raine, poet, literary scholar, and author of a remarkable autobiography."
- David Bannon explores how Mary Shelley wrought beautiful art from the unimaginable tragedies she experienced: "Mary writes with gentle pathos, patience, and calm—traits common to those who have endured terrible loss. Her observations on life’s many ironies offer catharsis for author and reader alike."
- Allie Lopez draws on her experience as a student in smart-phone-filled classrooms to explain why she is excluding AI from her teaching: "To rush AI into the classroom or into daily life is to put student well-being at stake. And as Kingsnorth reminds us, refusal to accept certain forms of technology can 'enrich rather than impoverish.'"
- Elizabeth Stice similarly argues that AI makes students' lives more difficult: "The promise of AI is utopian and seems futuristic, but its effects on the educational landscape will make students nostalgic for the pre-ChatGPT days of yore."
- Steven Knepper reviews Byung-Chul Han's new book The Spirit of Hope: "Hope grants a certain patience about the future, but it also allows one to act, sustaining the day-to-day in a richer way, seeking and pursuing remedies for the problems plaguing us. Unlike frenetic busyness, unlike the compulsive achievement-seeking that Han has diagnosed so trenchantly in earlier books like The Burnout Society, hopeful actions are more deliberate and decisive, more attuned to the world beyond the ego."
I was recently reading The Farmer, the Gastronome, and the Chef: In Pursuit of the Ideal Meal by Daniel Philippon while flying home. I can’t really recommend the book—it’s a strange mixture of memoir and literary analysis, and the quality of both is quite uneven. But as I was reading it, the man sitting next to me asked about it, and we struck up a conversation. It turns out I was sitting next to David Stelzer, the founder of Azure Standard, which is one of the first US organic farms and distributors. We’ve ordered from Azure for years, so I enjoyed talking with David and learning more about their business and their plans for continued expansion. They are an encouraging example of a business model that is finding success in raising and selling good food. Back to Philippon’s book, though, here’s one paragraph from his discussion of Berry’s Unsettling of America and its use of the exploiter/nurturer binary:
While this basic dichotomy gives his critique its power, it’s clear that Berry does not see the world in black and white. He is too subtle a thinker for this, too aware of the world’s complexity, and too intent on linking the social to the personal. “The terms exploitation and nurture,” he is careful to note, “describe a division not only between persons but also within persons.” Although in many ways Berry could not be more different from Rachel Carson, in this case he employs the same rhetorical strategy she did in Silent Spring (1967), clearly defining an enemy so as to rally the troops against it. Yet for Berry, the enemy is also within us, which both complicates his diagnosis of the problem as well as limits his proposed solutions.
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro