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The Agricultural Crisis by Wendell Berry Essay example

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The Agricultural Crisis by Wendell Berry

In this novel by Wendell Berry, Berry’s describes in his thesis that modern culture is destroying the agricultural culture. He feels that technology is seen as the easy way to produce food faster and more efficiently. With this modern way of farming comes the idea that hard work is not needed to make a living. The goal is comfort and leisure. Berry feels that this is the reason for the deterioration of the agricultural culture. He believes that hard work and pride in workmanship is more important than material goods and money. This was by no means a perfect society. The people had often been violent wand wasteful in the use of land of each other. Its present ills have already taken root in it. …show more content…

They generally are not interested in anything that cannot be reached by automobile on a good road. Some of the farmer’s children will be able to afford to stay on the farm. Perhaps even fewer will wish to do so, for it will cost too much, require too much work and worry, and it is hardly a fashionable ambition.
Another argument that Berry proposes is the connection between the “modernization” of agricultural techniques and the disintegration of the culture, as well as the communities of farming and the consequent disintegration of structures of urban life. What we called agriculture progress has involved the forcible displacement of millions of people. An example of modernization can be seen through the idea of “Get big or get out.” It’s a policy that says that you have to become more modern through change and be competitive in order to keep up with the other competitors. If not, than you must get of what you are doing. This can be used through a comparison of communist using military force in order to remove those who refuse to follow their demand for change, and the government using their economic power to force farmers to improve their farming techniques. In a “Free Market” the most successful becomes the richest. To those who could not

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