FROM READERS.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

The Wisdom of Wendell Berry

Paul Schick's facile remarks on Wendell Berry's ideas (November! December 2000 letter) reveal more about Mr. Schick than about their purported subject. Berry's very substantial works over recent decades stand on their own and help us understand how humankind is involved in its own seduction and self-deception as organic rootedness is lost and we move toward fragmenting forms of exploitation ("wealth creation") and virtual reality.

Aggregate Mr. Schick's "inconsequential patchlets of inconsequential dirt" and you have the Earth, the living mysterious complexity that has spawned and supported life in multitudinous forms. Mr. Schick's view of this miracle is infinitely critical and debasing, the view of the advertiser who lives off devaluation, creating hollow endless "wants" that drive a spiral of distraction and destruction--a sort of St. Vitus' dance instead of a calmer, more centered appreciation for the sacred nature of the gifts that sustain us. There are more mysteries and complex symbioses in one fistful of patchlet dirt than Mr. Schick (or even corporate science) can comprehend in a lifetime. Similarly, the rich web of relationships and knowledge that thrives in the farm and small-town economies, in place-oriented communities is being forgotten or lost in the quest for money and status--abstractions we pursue at the cost of devouring the savings stored in natural systems. Berry explains this failure in accounting, but our bedazz led Mr. Schick seems to have missed the point. Sanford E. Gaines's more thoughtful criticism of Berry goes offtrack when he includes "all the people of the planet" as our neighborhood. That requires a level of abstraction that unhinges the concept of neighbor from reality. Berry is closer to the mark when he emphasizes our capacity for affection, for local people, places, and institutions. Affection spurs us to defend what we truly know and value.

Missing in all this is one element: relentless human population growth, that undermines all our efforts to cope with longterm problems. Population seems to be both too local (personal) and too global (abstract, mathematical) for us to deal with realistically and courageously. I urge Wendell Berry to write for us on that subject.

JACK HOLLON

Wimberley, Texas

Agribusiness as Usual

U.S. President George W. Bush has just announced a 31-member "Agriculture Transition Advisory Team" that will be responsible for setting up the structure and function of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Nearly all are agribusiness-funded political officials. There is not a single advocate for the interests of consumers, hungry people, small farmers, the environment, or the 10 billion animals who are tortured and killed for food each year.

JOHN COVINGTON

Washington, DC

The Hubris of the Corps of Engineers

Just a small correction. In...