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Monday, February 25, 2013

Wendell Berry on Global Thinking


“…love defines the difference between the ‘global village,’ which is a technological and totalitarian ideal, directly suited to the purposes of centralized governments and corporations, and the Taoist village-as-globe, where the people live frugally and at peace, pleased with the good qualities of necessary things, so satisfied where they are that they live and die without visiting the next village, though they can hear its dogs bark and its roosters crow.”

(“Standing by Words”)

“There can be no such thing as a ‘global village.’ No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity.”
(“The Unsettling of America”)


“In making things always bigger and more centralized, we make them both more vulnerable in themselves and more dangerous to everything else. Learn, therefore, to prefer small-scale elegance and generosity to large-scale greed, crudity, and glamour.

Make a home. Help to make a community. Be loyal to what you have made.

Put the interest of the community first.

Love your neighbors--not the neighbors you pick out, but the ones you have.

Love this miraculous world that we did not make, that is a gift to us.

As far as you are able make your lives dependent upon your local place, neighborhood, and household--which thrive by care and generosity--and independent of the industrial economy, which thrives by damage.

 Find work, if you can, that does no damage. Enjoy your work. Work well.”

(“The Futility of Global Thinking”)

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