cjones

Last week I checked out a book from the library at Rio Muchacho titled "Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition," written by Wendell Berry in 2000. This book has a lot of significance for me, as it challenges not only many commonly accepted beliefs of our society in general, but especially those advocated and taught in the universities - even more specifically within the field of population biology, which was my area of concentration in college. It is essentially a review and critique of ideas presented in another book called "Consilience" by E.O. Wilson. Although I haven't read this book, Wilson wrote the textbooks for 2 of my courses in college and from other articles I've read I think he well represents the perspectives of my biology professors.

I had the good fortune to hear Wendell Berry speak about a year ago at the Prairefest conference on sustainability organized by the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas. This is the first book I've read by him but I doubt it will be the last. There's so much depth in his writing that for me it has to be taken in small doses and reread several times. I could probably write an entire book myself on thoughts that have been unleashed by reading this review of another book.

WB refers to the dominant modern wordview as "science-technology-and-industry" and he opposes the obsession with or being first or original in human endeavors, the preference for novelty vs. timeless truths, as well as the view that knowledge is always good and that accumulation of knowledge and communication of scientific or literary information should be unrestricted. When it comes to scientific knowledge, certain technologies such as nuclear engineering, agricultural biotech and cloning may be better left unexplored. Knowledge and "solutions" do not necessarily result in a net gain to the world after considering the destruction and new unsolved problems created by them. In literature and the arts (including popular media) the artist or author as a member of society and party to personal relationships bears responsibility for betrayal of confidence and for influencing other members of society. In regard to conservation, WB sees more potential in people who have come to know and love a place and its individual living inhabitants, and in those inspired by God's love for creation, than in a scientific reduction to abstract concepts such as species, ecosystems and biodiversity to be managed with technology as if parts of a machine.

On the farm, we get up before 6 AM to do chores before breakfast, then have classroom instruction and practice in the field both morning and afternoon. On many nights after dinner, we've watched videos on food, agriculture, conservation and development-related topics. On other nights we learned to make products from food grown on the farm like chocolate, coffee, cheese and marmalades. Also had Spanish classes for a couple of hours a day this past week. Saw a toucan in the wild for the first time and up close - feeding on a fruit of a papaya tree.