Of two minds on Berry.

• Position: Letters to the Editor

I believe that Wendell Berry ("Two Minds," November issue) has a false conception of the human mind. He sets up "the Rational Mind" and "the Sympathetic Mind" as parallel and competing forms of intelligence. But, in fact, what he calls "the Sympathetic Mind" is that part of our minds that determines our goals and aspirations. "The Rational Mind" seeks effective means for achieving goals. I generally agree with Berry's "small is beautiful" vision of how the world ought to be and how we ought to live. But falsehood and confusion sabotage any effort to achieve our dreams. True science will always be subversive of absolutist thinking.

Dale Berry Grants, New Mexico Thanks for the wonderful magazine. It's so good to see an alternative point of view to the mainstream zombie press. However, I must take issue with Berry's "Two Minds."

What Berry is attacking is really the rationalizing mind, not "the Rational Mind." I believe I have a rational mind and that sympathy and empathy are very rational emotions. The truly rational mind understands that we are all in this together and that cooperation, compassion, and empathy not only lead to the best achievements of humanity, but that they also make us happier.

Robert W. Corr Tiverton, Rhode Island I agree that claims for disinterested scientific progress should be approached with great skepticism, but Berry not only failed to make his case in nine (!) pages, he was offensively hypocritical: None of his examples favoring "the Sympathetic Mind" stands up to the critical scrutiny he asks us to apply to rationalism.

Berry's barely restrained religious impulse must be partly to blame for his lazy style. It is not being overly rational to ask for more than his unsupported assertions regarding a religious basis for humane conduct or the alleged value of an ancient need for "prayer and propitiation." If "the Rational Mind" is to blame for a couple centuries of environmental destruction, then Berry's devout "Sympathetic Mind" must bear at least some responsibility for the previous millennia of sectarian war, misogyny, and mental and physical enslavement, not to mention the violent acts of religious (sympathetic?) fundamentalists just last year.

Roger Lindsay Minneapolis, Minnesota Berry says he is defending "the Sympathetic Mind" but he is arguing against a straw man. In a country governed by born-again Christians, where smoke-and-mirrors displays pass for public discourse, I think Berry would do well to aim his...