News from the Front Porch Republic
Greetings from the Porch,
We got out for some short hikes in two nearby state parks this week, and we also toured Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. It's hard to imagine having that for your weekend getaway.
- In this week's Water Dipper, I recommend pieces about Ivan Illich, Byung-Chul Han, and cloning.
- Alex Sosler invites graduates (and all of us) to consider what the good life might be: "A happy life is not something out there in the future. It’s not something you make, even."
- John Kainer knows that DEI is on the wane these days, but he proposes that perhaps it can be employed to restore trust in higher ed: "I can’t help but notice that DEI might be the perfect solution to the politicization of the academy in general, and of the humanities and social sciences in particular."
- Mark Scheffler praises the county fair as an institution that continues to form character and community: "You have to cut through the glitzy, loud elements—the carnival rides and the tractor pulls and the cotton candy—to see the heart of the fair."
- Philip D. Bunn reflects on MacIntyre's legacy: "Dependent Rational Animals offers both a satisfying philosophical exclamation point and a sorely needed ethical and political vision appropriate for the struggles of our own day."
- Ben Henson questions the bureaucratic ways in which the goal of sustainability is often pursued: "If we are serious about sustainability, we need to rethink where and how we apply pressure."
- Raleigh Adams defines the paradoxical nature of friendship that makes it such a necessary but difficult endeavor: "Friendship is a fulfillment of our nature: the recognition that loving another for their own sake is, paradoxically, itself essential to our own flourishing."
Among my short list of favorite writers from my natal Northwest (David James Duncan, Gary Snyder, Annie Dillard (although she grew up in Pittsburgh)), the late Brian Doyle holds a firm place. He was a brilliant and perceptive essayist, novelist, and editor. A book group I'm in recently read Martin Marten, which is a lyric portrayal of a small community--including both human and non-human members--on the shoulder of Mount Hood. Take, for instance, this meditation on what a fur trapper has learned about the particular unpredictable creatures he's studied:
Whatever you are sure of in the woods, don't be. You can study behavior and pattern all your life and read a thousand books and talk to a thousand biologists and spend a thousand days out there, and on the thousand and first, there'll be a fox that eats only ducks, or a beaver that's got his heart set on destroying a highway bridge that just doesn't meet his aesthetic standards, or a bobcat set on romancing a cougar, despite cultural differences and social bias and the excellent chance of getting eaten. All you can do is pay attention and hope you don't die. Farming fur is a hell of a way to make a living, and there's no real living in it, but those of us who do it, do it mostly for money but also for some sort of education, I guess. You learn things you never expected to learn in a million years--such as there is a fox out there who appears to be either a ghost or a genius at avoiding traps and trouble. I have a lot of respect for the fox population generally when it comes to intellect; it's pretty much a dead heat between people and foxes on the fox's native ground, but this one has surpassing gifts. You almost don't want to catch her except that her silver skin is worth a hundred bucks.
Thanks for spending some time with us on the Porch,
Jeff Bilbro